Name: The absurd controversy over Joe Biden’s "transition away from the oil industry"
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The absurd controversy over Joe Biden’s "transition away from the oil industry"

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Trump wants to make the shift to clean energy sound abrupt and scary.At the on Thursday, when asked by President Donald Trump if he would “close down the oil industry,” former Vice President Joe Biden said that he intends to “transition away from the oil industry, yes.” Republicans are to make this supposed admission into a scandal, hoping it will with oil-state Dems and swing voters and sow division in the party. The right sees energy as a as the election approaches.Trump himself put it in the most dramatic terms:Last week, Joe Biden made perhaps the most shocking admission ever uttered in the history of presidential debates. On live television, Joe Biden confirmed his plan to ABOLISH the entire U.S. Oil Industry—that means NO fracking, NO jobs, and NO energy for Pennsylvania Families!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)After the last debate, Republicans hoped Biden’s refusal to ban fracking would . That didn’t go anywhere, and my guess is that this gambit won’t either. So far, a few oil-state Dems have , oil companies have expressed “,” and most everyone else seems distracted by a virus that is and .However the politics play out in this instance, it’s important to consider the underlying dynamic of these recent energy disputes. It’s an extremely familiar dynamic that finally seems, in fits and starts, to be working in Democrats’ favor.Let’s begin with a little armchair political science.Social science that most people, even most politically active people, don’t have particularly well-considered or coherent views on public policy issues. They vote based on identities and social affinities. Their opinions on issues are easily swayed by elite cues or the phrasing of poll questions.In my experience, the one rule that reliably governs public issue polling is that the public likes things that sound good and doesn’t like things that sound bad.If you poll a health care system that covers everything, with no copays and free choice of doctors, it does well. If you poll tax increases to pay for other people’s health care, it does poorly.If you poll cleaner energy or less pollution, it does well. If you poll gasoline prices rising and fossil fuel workers losing jobs, it does poorly.When polled on individual progressive policy goals, Americans tend to respond positively. Universal health care and clean energy sound good. When polled on ideological abstractions like “taxes” and “big government,” they tend to respond negatively. Giving up money to some distant bureaucracy sounds bad.This is why there’s an unending argument over whether America is or isn’t a “” — it depends on how you ask America. More or less everyone wants to improve the collective welfare, but not at their own expense. Depending on how they are phrased, these kinds of questions don’t so much uncover preexisting opinions as they guide and shape opinion formation. Trigger thoughts of things getting better, you’ll get good poll results; trigger thoughts of sacrifice, privation, or unfair burdens, you’ll get bad poll results.Democratic politics isn’t much different. Reformers pushing for change guide attention to the collective good that will come of it. Reactionaries pushing against change guide attention to the risks and dangers.These are not, unfortunately, parallel endeavors. Asking people to imagine an alternative future calls upon their thinking and imagination — their frontal cortex. Asking people to fear change calls upon something much deeper and older, their brainstem sense that it’s a dangerous world, they’re lucky to have what they have, and any disruption threatens it. The latter, when invoked, tends to drown out the former. That’s why progressive change is so difficult to muster and so easy to reverse.But that’s the game in a democracy: changes that can improve collective circumstances versus the fear of personal loss.This brings us back to Biden and energy. The core Republican approach, which they understand at a gut level even if there is no particular strategic intelligence at work in the Trump era, is to make change seem scary. They need to make Biden’s climate plan seem abrupt, alien, and threatening. That’s why they have resolutely ignored all the actual policies involved in the Green New Deal and instead , a repository for every conservative fear. They’re going to take your hamburgers and your SUV!That’s why Republicans are so delighted to make a fracking ban — a policy that no president can pass and no Congress would pass — the center of discussion. And that’s why they are delighted when Biden says he will transition away from oil. These changes sound sudden and disruptive; they draw attention to what will be lost, not to what will take its place. They define a playing field favorable to Republicans.RelatedThere’s an element of play-acting to all this. For all the hue and cry about his gaffes, Biden’s climate policies are . (No , sadly.) He plans to ramp up clean energy and electrification while ensuring that affected communities, including fossil fuel communities, are taken care of through investments in infrastructure, clean energy projects, education, job transition, and other kinds of assistance.Over time, clean energy will come to dominate the electricity sector (where Biden has targeted 100 percent net-zero by 2035) and from there it will expand to the rest of the economy (where Biden has targeted 100 percent net-zero by 2050). By 2035, coal will disappear, and by 2050, the US oil and gas sector will radically shrink. It’s just carbon math.Some fossil fuels may survive at the margins to fill in the gaps in large electricity systems, attached to carbon capture and storage systems, or for some industrial applications or plastics. And it may be that some oil and gas companies are successful at pivoting away from their core products to clean energy (ahem, ).But the oil and gas industry as Americans know it, as a major source of jobs and profits, is going away in coming decades. It has to — it produces lots of carbon and carbon is frying the planet. Many oil and gas companies, , have acknowledged this inescapable reality and .So when Biden says his plan will have the US “transition away from the oil industry,” he’s not saying something radical, unexpected, or mysterious. Any serious climate plan must do the same. It wouldn’t be a climate plan if it didn’t (no matter how many ).But Biden was also being entirely accurate when he said to reporters later, “we’re not getting rid of fossil fuels for a long time.” And he was being entirely accurate when he said that he .These are not contradictory comments. The latter are not “walking back” the former, despite what reporters (goosed on by Republicans) project onto them. It’s not that hard to understand: Biden’s plan will gradually transition the US economy to clean energy, and while it’s happening, ensure that those who are negatively impacted receive assistance and new employment opportunities. Justice — for fossil fuel workers and other vulnerable communities — is at the heart of .When speaking to the left, Biden emphasizes the transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy, and the environmental benefits; when speaking to audiences that contain persuadable voters in swing states (some of whom work in, or have family members who work in, fossil fuels), he emphasizes the gradual, carefully staged nature of the transition, and the economic/jobs benefits.But in all cases, he’s referring to the same plan — which is, again, .As usual, the media is playing along with Republican efforts to sow confusion about this, playing on Biden’s penchant for garbling his messaging, as with this CNN “” that pretends Biden’s written plan carries no more weight than one infelicitous phrase in a debate.Republicans will lie about Biden’s plan and the mainstream media will search for something they can ding Biden for, to “balance” all the negative coverage Trump attracts — but Democrats would be goofy to play along.Instead of distancing themselves, oil-state Democrats could take the opportunity to defend the massive infrastructure and job investments contained in the plan, targeted at rural, poor, and fossil fuel communities. They could tell their constituents the truth about the long-term viability of fossil fuels, unlike , who have lied to their constituents about it until their economies have run headlong into disaster.As for the left, as usual, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is taking the smart line:AOC disagrees with Biden on fracking &amp; says, "it would be a privilege to lobby him should we win the White House, but we need to focus on winning the White House first." Why is AOC the only sensible human left. — David Roberts (@drvox)She is positioning herself to the left of Biden on fracking, a signal to moderates that Biden has not been “captured by the left,” but she’s also emphasizing the need to get him elected, a signal to the left that it’s important to get on board.AOC understands what are, to my mind, the two lessons progressive climate reformers can draw from this episode.The broad lesson is that making change is often less about convincing people that good goals are good — Americans are that fighting climate change and expanding clean energy are good — than it is about convincing them that change won’t leave them behind, that they have a place and a stake in it.In practical terms, that might mean less talk about the Earth and children and more about industrial policy and what it can do to foster specific industries that will employ specific people in specific regions of the country. It means talking about how a will and . It means less talk about things that will be banned or taken away and more about things that will be created or improved. The Green New Deal was conceived, in part, to push just such a shift in emphasis, to envision climate policy as a generative, not merely oppositional, project.Climate reformers have the wind at their back. There’s never been a broader consensus that climate change is dangerous and action is needed. What remains is painting a richer picture of the world that action can help create.RelatedIn the meantime, the more specific lesson for climate advocates is that, in the home stretch of this election, Biden needs room to maneuver. His election depends on the whims of a few marginal voters in a few swing states, some of them living in places where fossil fuel production has unusually high salience. He needs votes from union households that do some of the very work he’s talking about phasing out.He needs to reassure them that the clean energy transition will not be abrupt and destructive; nothing will be banned or shut down overnight. It will unfold gradually, and as it does, new investments will reach their communities and new industries will rise to make use of their skills.The transition will not come at their expense or leave them behind. They have a place in it.This inclusiveness is a foundational part of Biden’s plan and, more broadly, core to the spirit of the Green New Deal and the recent . It would immeasurably aid public understanding if more people explained that vision of a managed, inclusive transition and fewer nitpicked Biden’s latest attempt to articulate it.Millions turn to Vox to understand what’s happening in the news. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all.Understand how policy impacts people. Delivered Fridays.

Trump wants to make the shift to clean energy sound abrupt and scary.At the on Thursday, when asked by President Donald Trump if he would “close down the oil industry,” former Vice President Joe Biden said that he intends to “transition away from the oil industry, yes.” Republicans are to make this supposed admission into a scandal, hoping it will with oil-state Dems and swing voters and sow division in the party. The right sees energy as a as the election approaches.Trump himself put it in the most dramatic terms:Last week, Joe Biden made perhaps the most shocking admission ever uttered in...

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David Roberts is staff writer for the environmental website Grist.org. He lives in Seattle with his wife and two sons.

https://www.theguardian.com/profile/davidroberts

David Roberts

Vox is a liberal-leaning American news and opinion website owned by Vox Media. The website was founded in April 2014 by Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, and Melissa Bell, and is noted for its concept of explanatory journalism. Vox's media presence also includes a YouTube channel, several podcasts, and a show presented on Netflix.

The absurd controversy over Joe Biden’s "transition away from the oil industry"

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