Blackburn, McConnell Et. Al. Forget Their Freedumb Whining About EVs If It Means Local Investments

[hatrack]

EDIT

Renkle ends her opinion piece with this observation. “These electric car and battery plants are just the most visible manifestations of the green future that is coming, even in the reddest of red states. It doesn’t matter in the least whether Republicans like it. As with the Ford Motor Co., they can participate in and profit from it, or they can get left behind. They are finally showing signs that they don’t wish to be left behind.” Then she really cranks up her attack on the hypocrites and charlatans who pretend to be leaders but are really nothing more than poseurs — stuffed shirts who are caricatures of real leaders.

“All deathbed conversions smack of hypocrisy, and this level of overt hypocrisy is almost unbelievable. Green technology is economically viable today only because Democrats seeded this field years ago. Obama-era funding for clean energy research and electric vehicles, for example, is a key reason for growth in those sectors during even the environmentally hostile Trump years. Red state politicians have worked unceasingly to subvert policies that created the very economic harvest they are now reaping themselves. It is truly nothing less than enraging.

“But rage, no matter how justified, should not obscure the real point here. The point is for human behavior to change in time to save this gorgeous, teeming, irreplaceable, suffering planet. Deathbed conversions happen because time has run out, and our time has run out. “If even dug-in science deniers such as Marsha Blackburn and Mitch McConnell can come around on climate issues when they are convinced that doing so would benefit their constituents in visible and measurable ways, then it’s conceivable that an environmentally sound future is possible even in regions now tightly tethered to fossil fuels. It’s even conceivable that renewable energy could cease to be a political issue and become simply a common-sense strategy for a country that doesn’t want to run the planet into the ground.

“It’s really only a matter of understanding that human beings — not just endangered species and imperiled ecosystems but also our red state brothers and sisters — stand to benefit from a green future, too. And nature is already making that point very clearly.”

EDIT

https://cleantechnica.com/2021/11/11/why-have-some-republicans-in-congress-suddenly-embraced-the-ev-revolution/

[Alexander Of Assyria]

1. I see the climate change denier politicians much like the anti-vaxxers in general.

Ofc the main difference is one is the exploiter and the other the exploited, but the commonality is that money will persuade both to embrace both the electric car and the jab.

Jaw dropping hypocrisy, yes, but at least they came around.

[Historic NY]

2. Within ten years EVs will be the major product car companies sell.

They have said it, and the trend is moving faster than many people expect. Once production costs fall into synch.

[2naSalit]

3. K&R

[Midnight Writer]

4. I don't think climate change will be solved by political will.

I think it will be solved by economic trends and technological advances.

Politicians will bring up the rear, as usual. The best we can hope for from them is they stay out of the way.