mikerickson reviewed Climate Radicals by Cameron Abadi
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4 stars
I feel like a lot of contemporary political books I read that aim to address why certain movements fail to generate results keep ending up the same way. I go into them thinking, "I wonder if there are more nuanced factors at play that I didn't realize and that it's not just leftist infighting and unrealistic purity tests again." But then I read it and the culprit is leftist infighting and unrealistic purity tests. This has happened like four times now.
The subject of climate change and how different countries respond to it does have unique problems though, like how addressing it is just a supercharged Tragedy of the Commons (countries who make no effort to curb emissions will still benefit if others do, so no one ends up wanting to go first). The "macro" portion of this book looking at the big picture honed in on how Western democracies …
I feel like a lot of contemporary political books I read that aim to address why certain movements fail to generate results keep ending up the same way. I go into them thinking, "I wonder if there are more nuanced factors at play that I didn't realize and that it's not just leftist infighting and unrealistic purity tests again." But then I read it and the culprit is leftist infighting and unrealistic purity tests. This has happened like four times now.
The subject of climate change and how different countries respond to it does have unique problems though, like how addressing it is just a supercharged Tragedy of the Commons (countries who make no effort to curb emissions will still benefit if others do, so no one ends up wanting to go first). The "macro" portion of this book looking at the big picture honed in on how Western democracies are hamstrung by short-term political gains and electorates who either can't or don't want to make long-scale investments. This naturally begs the question: are authoritarian states having an easier time/better equipped to deal with the climate crisis? Besides a brief mention of an individual protestor laying out a self-proclaimed "ecofascist" idealized state (where his ideology is conveniently the one that emerges from the ashes on top), this isn't explored, which felt like a missed opportunity to me.
The bulk of this book focuses on the climate activist scene in Germany specifically from the late 2010's through to 2024. It (I think unintentionally) painted Angela Merkel as an extremely shrewd politician who took credit for policy wins that she personally opposed just by stepping in and giving a well-timed push when public sentiment tipped over just the right way. This eventually resulted in a frustrated movement who wanted more substantive action at a faster pace, which in turn led to a series of different organizations getting progressively more direct and extreme. The discussions of the psychology of the most fringe activists who suffer from the worst cases of climate anxiety were really interesting; people who are most concerned about the future are more willing to accept intense dogmatic principles and chastise anyone who doesn't match their energy. It genuinely reads like cult behavior at points.
There are also mentions of how "adaptation" has become a dirty word among the climate movement. The idea that some level of climate change is inevitable and that we should be pivoting to harm reduction is apparently very contentious because it's seen as a preemptive admission of defeat. The True Believers maintain that there's still time to reverse course, but most people aren't willing to make the necessary concessions and will have to be made to do so. I consider myself a slightly better than average-informed normie, but I've never heard of anything like this.
There's also a brief section on the Inflation Reduction Act in the US and lobbying around Joe Manchin specifically, but this is primarily a niche look at contemporary German society. Which is not something I typically read about, but damned if it wasn't interesting.