Been wondering what’s up with Theda Skocpol’s climate-bill report you’ve been hearing about? Here’s the deal: Skocpol, a Harvard professor of government and sociology, was commissioned by the Rockefeller Family Fund to write a report analyzing what went wrong during the unsuccessful 2009-10 push to pass climate legislation. The resulting 145-page opus — “Naming the Problem: What It Will Take to Counter Extremism and Engage Americans in the Fight Against Global Warming” [PDF] — has kicked up a lot of controversy, and you can read all about it here at Grist:
• A summary of the report by Philip Bump: Why the environmental movement couldn’t get cap-and-trade passed
• A three-part response from Grist’s David Roberts:
1) What Theda Skocpol gets right about the cap-and-trade fight
2) The road forward from cap-and-trade
3) If you want to pass climate legislation, fix U.S. politics
• A response 350.org activist and author (and Grist board member) Bill McKibben: Beyond baby steps: Analyzing the cap-and-trade flop
• A response from author and Environmental Defense Fund VP Eric Pooley: Why the climate bill failed: It’s not that simple
• A response from Climate Progress blogger Joe Romm: The problem wasn’t the green groups: What Skocpol gets wrong about the climate bill fight
• A response from activist and author Mark Hertsgaard: Missing the point of the cap-and-trade defeat
• A response from climate organizer Mike Tidwell: Harvard professor has it right: U.S. climate push requires intense grassroots support around ‘cap-and-dividend’ bill
• And, finally, a follow-up piece from Skocpol herself: Learning from the cap-and-trade debate
(Skocpol also weighed in with comments under some of the above posts.)
Haven’t gotten enough yet? Stay tuned — there might be still more …
