So much economics (and thus political) discourse constructs the fossil fuel economy as a kind of good against which we measure the value of future generations.

It strikes me that the climate movement has largely positioned itself relative to this framing—in 2 opposing ways.

First there's the "optimistic" position, taken eg by Biden, Inslee, the Climate Power/Evergreen folk, Bill Gates, @paulkrugman—and at the extreme end by the ecomodernists—that we can have the same good without fossil fuels and that climate action *is* economic development.

2/n

Then there's the "pessimistic" position, taken by Greta Thunberg, anti-flying & degrowth advocates, and Extinction Rebellion, which says that it's a mistake to see the fossil fuel economy as a good, because it's genocidal, and we need to do whatever it takes to end it asap.

3/n

It seems to me that one reason Sunrise Movement has been so successful is that they've not only collapsed the temporality of "future generations" into "young people alive right now and looking at you" (Thunberg has done this too of course), but they've also...

4/n

...they've also managed to collapse this distinction between the two camps of the climate movement into a vision that both promises that people will need to worry less about money and says that the highest value is justice (ie, not dying...)

5/n

...justice (ie, not dying for a good in which you don't even participate or share).

6/n

This is why I think messaging climate action (or even trying to write climate policy) only as a jobs creator is likely to fail...

7/n

Without the justice element, there is no fundamental distinction, in our political discourse, between those who want to save our children and the Republicans who "create jobs" w tax cuts. We will fighting this battle with our opponent's weapons.

8/n

I recommend T Pikketty's new book on this. It's a pretty compelling argument for modes of prosperity-creation that rest on principles of justice.

9/n

The idea is to promise people who seem prosperous but who are hanging on with their fingernails (not to mention the other hundreds of millions of Americans on the verge of de facto poverty) that climate action will make their lives better

10/n

—not with jobs, which they may already have, but with a new fairness, where hardworking people get to know their kids are safe.

11/n

And, I should say: safe not just because we're going to halt global warming, but because they will have real medical care, a first-rate education, communities where they can live without pollution and violence, and the true freedom to chose their lives' path.

12/n

Anyway, just thinking out loud here.

Happy Sunday, y'all!

/fin