Anyhow, maybe I would have leaned into messaging that provided a little extra insulation for policies in the event political and cultural winds shifted...rather than buzzwords for fundraising and making activists feel good about themselves.
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Fwiw, I teach in environmental studies, Silicon Valley public university/Calstate, upper division intro env law, energy and environment, solar energy analysis, and sustainable energy. I ask students of each how many have heard of the Inflation Reduction Act 1st day of class? Wanna guess percentage?
GoodQ! I’d guess also close to zero at start.. but I wrote about LPO throughout Solar Power, so solar class probably gets the most detailed exposure. It’s also threaded through all those classes (tho not as much emphasis in env law)
I teach a class on climate solutions, & have a similar experience to Dustin's: maybe 5% know about IRA going in (and none know about LPO). I do teach the LPO and -- mostly for fun, but also to give them a sense of what it might feel like to work at a truly mission-driven org -- I play them this.
Three of four were this semester, only one prior.. this is across nine separate classes.. 300 number is rough estimate, I can get an exact number (while I’m working on my five-year review tonight!). It’s between 290 and 310 for sure.
Do you think students in the early 1970s would have said the same of the Clean Air Act? So much schooling before college focuses on history, not current events.
We spend a lot of time on it in a couple different contexts for each class.. so they definitely walk out of that with knowledge. Last spring one student actually got hired by CalEnergy to implement IRA policy. We read @bistline.bsky.social and check out work by @jayturner.bsky.social among others.
There has been a coordinated effort by the fossil fuel industry's Merchants of Doubt to turn environmentalists away from Democrats so no one should be surprised that they are ignorant about the climate actions Democrats have managed to get accomplished sadly.
The point progressives are trying to make is that accommodative wish-washy language helps prop up the status quo, which is inherently unjust and unsustainable. You don’t see the Right equivocating on terms. Goals are decolonization, anti racism, and increasingly anti capitalism. Don’t hedge
What do you mean the Right doesn't equivocate on terms??? Do you think that "pro-life" is an accurate description, or do you think it uses incredibly anodyne language to hide an insidious, unpopular agenda, one that they succeeded in pushing forward over a generation of disciplined messaging?
It became an umbrella term for progressives to paper over inefficient systems design & service delivery, and therefore poor execution. Same with “justice.”
And by tagging every program category (mobility, housing, etc.) with those terms, you just signaled “run by leftist academics and NGOs.” (2/2)
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Do they say "fire Black people & women in order to hire incompetent white dudes", or do they say "end CRT and DEI"?
The entire history of the post-Goldwater right wing is using hedged language.
It’s toxic branding not because of the values, but rather the enforcement mechanisms. (1/2)
And by tagging every program category (mobility, housing, etc.) with those terms, you just signaled “run by leftist academics and NGOs.” (2/2)