After the Republican success in the mid-term elections, it’s no surprise that a search of Twitter for “Steyer election Koch” — meaning for discussions of the relative impact of the millions spent on campaigns by the liberal billionaire Tom Steyer and the conservative Koch brothers — turns up a lot of heated assertions.
On election night, Peter Dykstra, writing for The Daily Climate, had posted a thorough critique of false equivalence in stories (including in The Times) equating the two efforts to influence races in which coal, climate change or related issues were relevant. He used a baseball analogy, saying Steyer had just entered a game in which the other team has long had “big bats, a huge payroll, and a different rulebook.”
But to me, the debate over whose money mattered more and the warning about false equivalence (which is valid) both miss a factor I’ve been noting for awhile.
The two teams are not playing for the same outcome.
I made this point in a talk a couple of years ago, and Kathy Zhang, then a student, created this simple, but telling, cartoon to illustrate the point:
With last night’s political outcomes in mind, which stick figure would you label as Tom Steyer and which as one of the Koch brothers?
Would the relative amounts of spending be the prime factor determining who moved the boulder?
The Koch brothers and their allies want to maintain the status quo, while Steyer and others seeking a political path to a post-carbon economy have an epic challenge in trying to prod Americans out of a fossil-fueled comfort zone that took a century to form.
I’m sure Steyer is in this for the long haul and it’s clear that he, like any smart investor, is hedging his environmental bets, putting money into far more than political campaigns.
Given that the fight for new energy norms requires an unlikely mix of urgency and patience, along with relentless experimentation, I’d say he’s on a good course.
Addendum | Zhang, who was a student then, is now working in communications for the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Keep up the good work, Kathy.)