512 | Cameron Abadi: Why Radical Climate Activism Isn't Helping Environmental Politics

The Realignment

Technology, News Commentary, National Security, Marshall Kosloff, International Relations, News, Public Policy, Economics, Politics, Saager Enjeti, U.s. Politics, Policy

4.8 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 10 October 2024

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode's focus on the (lack of) effectiveness of radical climate activism was perfectly timed. Right after Marshall recorded the intro, activists from Climate Defiance stormed the stage of the Abundance 2024 conference he's MCing in DC. They interrupted Matt Yglesias's interview with The Atlantic's Derek Thompson on the "Abundance Agenda" because of Matt's support for fracking. Today's guest is Foreign Policy's Cameron Abadi, author of Climate Radicals: Why Our Environmental Politics Isn't Working. Marshall and Cameron discuss why doom-centric radical activism isn't advancing the environmental policy agenda in Europe, the state of climate politics in the U.S., and the broader debate over whether it is best to work outside or within the system to enact change.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Marshall here. Welcome back to the realignment.
0:03.0	As you could probably tell for my audio quality, I'm on the road right now.
0:12.0	I'm MCing and moderating abundance 2024, which is a really
0:16.2	great event in DC that the Equclusive Abundance Institute recently had its founder, Derek Coffin on last summer to discuss
0:26.0	the Abundance Agenda, the Scanlon Center, this podcast sponsor, the Foundation for American Innovation.
0:33.3	A bunch of other interesting folks like the Breakthrough Institute
0:36.4	are putting together to really bring together all the different parts of the
0:40.9	coalition and favor of the abundance agenda.
0:43.9	Everything's going to be published afterwards.
0:45.6	So I really recommend everyone check up what we were all up to.
0:50.4	That said, today's conversation perfectly builds off of the abundance work I'm doing the author is Cameron a body and we have a new book out we're going to talk about climate radicals why our environmental politics isn't working.
1:04.7	What's so interesting about this book and frankly this conversation is we are using
1:09.8	climate change and various European-specific focus attempts and activism.
1:16.0	This is everything from walking streets to throwing food on works of art, disruptive protest aimed at shifting the climate conversation. The gap between these
1:27.6	radical and activism-focused efforts and the continent's inability to confront energy questions and actually put together
1:35.6	in environmental politics that actually meets the needs and expectations of the activists
1:39.5	is one of the central political questions of our time that expands beyond just climate and the environment.
1:45.3	To what degree does one need to work within the system or act of the activist outsider to actually
1:50.6	pursue one's policy aims. Obviously in the United States the activist
1:54.6	protest dynamic around climate change hasn't manifested the same way. In contrast you
1:59.0	have the sunrise movement sitting in Nancy Pelosi's office in terms of an active protest
2:04.0	when we came to pushing the Green New Deal.
	...

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