To his credit, Jon Huntsman sat down for an interview with Grist — a great green webzine that I’d recommend unreservedly, in case you didn’t already know — and, unsurprisingly, he was grilled on his wishy-washy climate realism. The fact that he kinda-sorta believes in the impending climate crisis, and kinda-sorta thinks we should maybe do something to, y’know, avert it, doesn’t interest me so much. What I did find noteworthy, however, is what the interview revealed about his conception of how DC works (or at least “Jon Huntsman,” once-and-future politician engaging in an interview, thinks DC works). He’s not exactly Lawrence Lessig.
Believe it or not, the former Governor of Utah, scion of a billionaire and supply-sider, doesn’t think that class politics determines Washington’s priorities:
Q. You tweeted last summer that you trusted scientists on climate change. But in December, you suggested that the science isn’t very strong. What is your view on human-caused climate change?
A. I’ve always said that I put my belief behind science. When you have 99 of 100 climate scientists who are saying that there is something happening here, [and] we have the National Academy of Sciences basically saying the same thing — that’s where I tend to place my belief.
The comment I made [in December] was that there is confusion in the minds of a lot of Americans about where the science is because of the debate still going on within the scientific community. I do believe that greater clarity is needed on the subject because you can’t get good public policy without clear and consistent and scientifically backed data and climate forecasts.
Q. If 99 of 100 scientists are saying human-caused climate change is real and happening, where is the debate?
A. Well, it hasn’t translated into any kind of action within the political community because you don’t have people on a broad basis who are pushing us because they feel it’s urgent. Like, for example, debt — people are pushing the debt agenda because they see that this nation is drowning in debt. They’re not pushing a clean-energy agenda today because they just don’t see the urgency. The political policy agenda does not move unless it has people who are moving it.
One interpretation of the bolded is that Huntsman believes the American people are clamoring for Austerity Now. While there have been polls in the past showing a large number of respondents think the deficit is the biggest issue, there’s also a preponderance of evidence to indicate most Americans don’t really understand what the deficit is, but they assume it’s to blame for the terrible job market. (Of course, one could grant as much but insist that the deficit creates “uncertainty” which keeps employers from hiring…but that’s another kettle). My chosen interpretation of this data is to conclude that people don’t really care about the deficit in and of itself — it’s jobs they want, and they don’t care much how they get ’em.
So this first interpretation leaves Huntsman sounding little different than a garden variety conventional wisdom-spouting member of the ruling class. He probably is.
But perhaps it’s worth giving the man more credit and imagining his argument is more sophisticated than on first-blush it seems. Maybe when Huntsman speaks of “people” who are “pushing the debt agenda” — who are not, in his mind, sufficiently concerned about the reprecussions of the climate crisis — he’s talking about elites. Maybe Huntsman’s point is that the scientific community has inadequately lobbied the powerful political and economic actors, the .01%, and convinced them to be as worried about the environment as they are the Treasury.
I couldn’t speak to whether or not such a claim would be correct (though my inclination is to say it’s not, that climate is in fact primarily an elite concern) but if that’s what Huntsman means, he’d at least sound like someone who maybe knows of WTF he speaks. Unfortunately, he later says in the interview, “I think in many ways the whole [climate] discussion has been eclipsed by the jobs deficit right now. We are in a serious economic hole because we have a jobs deficit. There isn’t a whole lot of bandwidth for anything else.” And since it’s been rather abundantly clear these past few years that the string-pullers among us don’t especially care about unemployment, this indicates that Huntsman’s full of nonsense.
In the end, that, unfortunately, is the most compelling explanation. And that’s because, for Huntsman, it’s true to form. Rather than take a coherent and recognizable position on climate change — be it conventionally right-wing or left-wing — Huntsman finds himself prevaricating his way into a muddled middle. He thinks it exists, more or less, but he doesn’t think we should do anything about it… because “people” aren’t convinced it exists — but not him! — and, also too, jobs.
The mushy middle: ostensibly the realm of the truly reasonable and fair-minded, in truth the land where untalented politicians go to speak very reasonably in front of the mirror before their weekly appearance on the Sunday morning talk show circuit. This is Huntsman country, and the weather’s fine — more or less, depending on who you ask, provided the economy allows, and so on.