A weekly reckoning with life in a warming world—and the fight to save it

As the countdown to the midterms ramps up, Democrats are ensnared in a battle over permitting reform. In exchange for West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin’s vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed last month and contained lots of money for climate policies, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer promised that the process for getting federal approval—or permits—for energy projects would be streamlined. Progressives have countered that the proposed changes to the permitting process amount to a giveaway for fossil fuel companies, negating some of the good work in the Inflation Reduction Act. Senator Bernie Sanders, for his part, has pledged to vote against any government funding resolution containing this so-called permitting reform. Stay tuned for more on the developing news from Apocalypse Soon this week. 

The upcoming midterms, meanwhile, raise the question of whether Congress will even be able to broker these kinds of devil’s bargains for much longer. As political scientist Jonathan Bernstein recently wrote, it’s gotten maddeningly difficult even to define the scope of possible outcomes eight weeks from now. Maybe the GOP will take both houses, with room to spare. Maybe its gains will be more limited. Or maybe Democrats could even pick up seats in the Senate, and Joe Manchin, his vote no longer amounting to much, will drop from the headlines for a few years.

TNR columnist Liza Featherstone has been eyeing the climate messaging in the midterms so far. And one thing she’s noticing is the evolving Republican attitude toward global warming. This election cycle, outright denial has shifted to a tactic of delay: acknowledging that climate change is real but hemming and hawing over what ought to be done. And a few politicians are going further. Specifically, Marjorie Taylor Greene has adopted the line that climate change is real and it’s actually good for humanity.

The argument is patently absurd, Liza writes. While it’s true that, as Greene recently said on the Right Side Broadcasting Network, humans sometimes die of cold, the lives lost to heat, drought, storms, crop failure, and other knock-on effects of climate-driven extreme weather are already far exceeding those deaths.

But in addition to being absurd, Greene’s strategy may be a smart one, Liza argues:

“Climate change is actually good” is probably the right’s best option—largely because all of us, across the political spectrum, would love to believe it. Greene’s narrative is much more appealing than the left’s climate change story. On a bad day, that story amounts to: Everything is getting worse, and to solve the problem, you must give up everything you enjoy too. No foreign travel, steak, or shopping. Some on the climate left are even arguing that people shouldn’t have pets because of the climate impact. One commentator recently called domestic animals “another form of destructive consumerism.”

The right is, of course, wrong to fantasize that the climate crisis is ushering in a totalitarian state in which Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez takes away your hamburgers. But the rhetorical assault on pleasure, without an optimistic vision of what we gain by addressing the climate crisis, plays into the hands of people like Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Some on the left realized this years ago, which is why they’ve been pushing instead for visions like the Green New Deal, which emphasize what people can gain from policies supporting more sustainable lifestyles. Greene’s new message shows why this kind of approach is important: We must be real about the devastation the climate crisis is causing, but attacking things people enjoy won’t help.… Instead, let’s talk about how much better the future could be, as decarbonizing brings us more of what we all love: more forests, more parks, more gardens, more spectacular wildlife, more free time, a more prosperous shared future.

Liza has written repeatedly about the need for “joy” in climate activism: It helps prevent burnout and tends to be more effective, according to some research, than guilt at motivating people to take action.

As election season accelerates, Apocalypse Soon will be looking at candidates’ climate messaging, as well as current debates around permit reform happening in Congress today. I’d urge you to read Liza’s piece. Her point isn’t just that the climate-concerned should make space for joy. It’s also that stories are important. The stories we tell about the future may well shape what that future looks like.

—Heather Souvaine Horn, deputy editor

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—Heather Souvaine Horn, deputy editor