Climate Change Legislation Had Better Be Next

One more quote from Krugman on climate change, on why it's on the backburner:

But the larger reason we’re ignoring climate change is that Al Gore was
right: This truth is just too inconvenient. Responding to climate change with
the vigor that the threat deserves would not, contrary to legend, be devastating
for the economy as a whole. But it would shuffle the economic deck, hurting some
powerful vested interests even as it created new economic opportunities. And the
industries of the past have armies of lobbyists in place right now; the
industries of the future don’t.

Nor is it just a matter of vested interests. It’s also a matter of
vested ideas. For three decades the dominant political ideology in America has
extolled private enterprise and denigrated government, but climate change is a
problem that can only be addressed through government action. And rather than
concede the limits of their philosophy, many on the right have chosen to deny
that the problem exists.

So here we are, with the greatest challenge facing mankind on the back
burner, at best, as a policy issue. I’m not, by the way, saying that the Obama
administration was wrong to push health care first. It was necessary to show
voters a tangible achievement before next November. But climate change
legislation had better be next.