COMMENTARY:

Happy is the Columnist who has no History

The conservative movement’s favorite public intellectual drew the parallel between the “whole business” of scientific consensus about the anthropocentric causes climate change and the Spanish Church’s 15th century campaign against heresy in his March 31st column in the National Review. Buckley asserts that the belief that “carbon-dioxide emissions threaten the basic ecological balance” is required in the same fashion that profession of belief in Christianity was required by the Spanish Inquisition.

Before dismissing this little exercise in 'attack Freudianism,' consider what prompts the anxiety that many conservatives express about the scientific consensus on climate change. The predicted consequences of global warming paint a picture of inexorable catastrophe, against which the usual political tools of conservatism are irrelevant. Elites who made their political careers trading in fear and hatred of the Other are threatened with obsolescence by an environmental problem threatening most of humanity. Responding effectively to manifold problems caused by global warming will likely require national and international efforts dwarfing those of the Cold War. Even if the national and international response is ineffective it will expose the emptiness of the conservative intellectual tool kit. Solving collective-action problems means cooperation, and neither justifying nor organizing cooperation is not a conservative strength. That explains why the primary rhetorical ploy conservatives are now offering in service to Big Energy is denial. Despite the tendency to discount the future, they must know that denial will not save them from the coming floods.