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Lumifer comments on Argument Screens Off Authority - Less Wrong
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It appears to me that opposition to technology as such is rare among voters and even rarer among politicians, at least in the countries whose politics I know anything about. I'm sure there are some luddites who talk up the dangers of climate change in order to attack technology, but if you're claiming that they explain a substantial fraction of what political support there is for taking action against climate change then I'll need to see some evidence.
Yes, one way to discourage fossil-fuel use is to tax it heavily, and I can see why a politician might want more revenue to play with. But I can equally see why they might want to be seen not to favour high taxes; all else being equal, most voters prefer to be taxed less. If I imagine a Machiavellian politician thinking "I'll advocate higher taxes to discourage the burning of fossil fuels, and then X will happen, and then I'll be more powerful / more likely to be elected / richer / ...", I'm having trouble thinking of any really credible X.
I don't see why you are having trouble.
"I'll advocate higher taxes to get more revenue while saying it is to discourage the burning of fossil fuels, and then I will have control of of more money which I'll channel to my cronies and use to bribe voters.
The common characteristic of most politicians is that they want more power. In Western democracies having control over budget and having money to allocate is a large part of that power.
First of all, for clarity, my imaginary politician was saying "I'll advocate (higher taxes to discourage the burning of fossil fuels)" rather than "I'll advocate higher taxes) to discourage the burning of fossil fuels". That is, I wasn't meaning to presuppose that the politician's real purpose was as stated.
OK, so if this sort of thing is (say) 50% of why those politicians who say we should take action to reduce or mitigate anthropomorphic climate change, then we should expect that (if politicians are perfectly Machiavellian and totally indifferent to what's true and what's beneficial) 50% of politicians who say that either are closely associated with "green energy" companies and the like, or else represent voters a substantial fraction of whom stand to benefit from "green energy" initiatives. If politicians are actually less than perfectly Machiavellian, and temper their pursuit of self-interest with occasional consideration of what would actually be best for their country and what the evidence actually says, then that figure of 50% needs to be correspondingly higher.
We should also, if politicians are that Machiavellian, expect to find that any politician who, e.g., represents a substantial number of voters who could be bribed in this way will advocate action against climate change.
I haven't looked at the statistics, so my opinion isn't worth much at present, but I don't get the impression that things are anywhere near so clear-cut. Do you have data?
Just out of curiosity: What is your opinion about the motivation of politicians who say we shouldn't take much action against anthropogenic climate change? If we discount the stated opinions of politicians on both sides, and of lobbyists for, e.g., solar panel fitters and oil companies, what opinions do you expect to find remaining?
It seems to me that this sort of argument constitutes a fully general justification for ignoring what politicians say. Which, actually, sounds on the whole like a pretty good idea.
Things, of course, are not clear-cut at all because in reality you have a very complex network of incentives, counter-incentives, PR considerations, estimates and mis-estimates, the traditional bungling, etc. etc.
The same :-)
Well, the whole spectrum from "this is bollocks!" to "humanity's survival is at stake!", but probably dominated by "I dunno" :-D