Dave Roberts is an energy and climate writer at Vox and a senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. He started as his career covering climate science and clean energy technology, but -- for reasons we discuss here -- he now writes just as much about political psychology, media ecosystems, political institutions, and how they intersect with climate change. We cover a lot in this conversation, including:
- “Tribal epistemology,” and why it’s crucial to climate paralysis
- How the GOP went from the party of cap-and-trade to the party of climate denial
- Why the right and left-wing media ecosystem’s diverged so dramatically
- What today’s climate activists get right about our politics that their predecessors got wrong
- The carbon tax dead-end
- How nuclear energy became so divisive
- The conflicting moral and social visions at the heart of the climate movement
- Why it is impossible to separate technological innovation from the policy ecosystem that shapes it
- Whether climate change really is an “existential” threat
- What climate change will mean for the world’s poor
References:
Dave Roberts on America's "epistemic crisis."
Book recommendations:
Caught Stealing by Charlie Huston
"State of the Species" by Charles C. Mann
My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.
Submit questions for our upcoming "Ask Me Anything" at ezrakleinshow@vox.com
You can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app.
Credits:
Producer and Editor - Jeff Geld
Researcher - Roge Karma
Engineers - Cynthia Gil
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