I should be able to move past this, but my lip curls, my nostrils form a sneer, my hands itch and I struggle to control a cringe when people call themselves "climate hawks".
I'm small g green and have been since I first understood what smog is. Smog bad, yes? I don't care if people call themselves environmentalists, conservationists or tree huggers—provided there's some actual tree hugging going on. It's not too difficult. The more people do it, the less they feel a need to create and manage a brand. The more effort they put into branding, the greater the chances they'll come up with something unforgivably stupid, which is "climate hawk" in a nutshell.
All this branding and rebranding gives people outside the circle jerk the impression that the movement membership consists entirely of perception managers, clip art creative content providers, search engine optimizers, affiliate link proselytizers and bulk mail gurus. That it consists, in short, of marketers in search of a cause that replicates what they do at work.
Anyway, the Center for American Progress wants to know what "climate hawks" should do now that they've been clubbed like baby seals (h/t Drunk Pundit). I believe my first recommendation, that they stop voting for Democrats, would be considered frivolous. My second is that they get arrested with James Hansen. That's probably out of the question too. Okay, how about rebranding themselves, over and over, until they drop from exhaustion? That has the beauty of being something they're doing already. It's frivolous, but if they take it far enough the exhaustion might lead to an epiphany.
Comments (5)
Well, "hawks" are very militaristic and warmongering, bombastic nut cases.
Given the neo-liberal project these days is to feign that they can out-hawk the hawks on the right this seems to fit right in.
Obviously climate doves would just be a bunch dirty fucking hippies singing kumbayah and engaging in useless activities like tree sitting in old growth groves. And that might piss off their corporate sponsers.
Posted by Drunk Pundit | November 22, 2010 12:23 AM
Posted on November 22, 2010 00:23
It's a sad bombast they've adopted. And, yeah, it's in keeping with the Democratic branding trend. They differentiate themselves from the Republicans by one-upmanship silliness.
Posted by Al Schumann | November 22, 2010 10:10 AM
Posted on November 22, 2010 10:10
Al, I think I love you. But I can't hug you, because we're separated by an ocean or two.
Forget for a minute that this is debased niche market posturing of its own sort, and read (at very least) the abstract of this beaut:
http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/27/2-3/213.short
Posted by gluelicker | November 22, 2010 11:03 AM
Posted on November 22, 2010 11:03
They want a login, but the abstract (caveats noted with appreciation) gives a lot to work with. I generally agree. It's not about the science and to an alarming extent it's entirely reasonable to be reflexively mistrustful of the "reality-based" response.
Posted by Al Schumann | November 22, 2010 11:22 AM
Posted on November 22, 2010 11:22
whatfuckingclimateanimalareyou.com is open
Posted by hapa | November 22, 2010 5:20 PM
Posted on November 22, 2010 17:20