by Tom Laskawy On the front page of today's NYT, we learn that Midwestern Democrats hate the climate. Or something. The ostensible point of the article was to highlight the geographical split between the climate change policy makers from the Obama administration and in the House - who are predominantly from the East and West Coasts - and the moderate Midwestern and Plains state Democrats in the Senate who, according to the NYT, actually care about jobs. For the record, the article, while admitting that President Obama is, you know, Midwestern, ignored the fact that Ray Lahood and Tom Vilsack, Secretaries of Transportation and Agriculture respectively are 1) also from the Midwest and 2) will have a significant role in devising an economy-wide solution to climate change. And this is not to underplay the legitimate concerns that representatives from coal-dependent manufacturing states have. But this mostly just points to the greater weakness of the article - the way it plays into the idea that addressing climate change will be some kind of job-killing catastrophe. This from the same newspaper that could write a feature on the tremendous job creation underway in Iowa related to wind-turbine manufacturing - a serious growth industry given that the nearby Plains States are considered the "so-called Saudi Arabia of wind." Keep in mind that enormous wind turbines will likely never be imported from abroad since one of these monstrous steel blades can barely fit on an oversize tractor-trailer much less be flown around the world on a 747. Indeed, the industry's potential for the Midwest led President Obama to visit a turbine factory in Ohio just the other week.
