In a research paper, due to be presented at a Harvard forum next month, scholar Theda Skocpol in effect accuses the DC-based environmental groups of political malpractice, saying they were blind to extreme Republican opposition to their efforts.
Environmental groups overlooked growing opposition to environmental protections among conservatives voters and, underestimated the rising force of the Tea Party, believing – wrongly, as it turned out – they could still somehow win over Republican members of Congress through "insider grand bargaining".
That fatal misreading of the political realities – namely, the extreme polarisation of Congress and the Tea Party's growing influence among elected officials – doomed the effort to get a climate law through Congress. It will also make it more difficult to achieve climate action in the future, she added.
Skocpol, meanwhile, lets Obama off the hook for the political inaction on climate change, overturning the conventional wisdom among environmental leaders that political cowardice by the White House ultimately doomed climate legislation.
Super Typhoon Bavi is bringing intense winds to the remote U.S. territories of Guam and the...
Floodwaters tore through Kentucky neighborhoods, damaging homes and streets as photos capture the aftermath.
Floodwaters tore through...
A “prolonged, dangerous heatwave” was sweeping across parts of the central and eastern United States on...
Hundreds of firefighters in Utah have struggled to suppress a wildfire that scorched an additional 20,000...
