> Is this really what you think? That the people concerned about climate change > are really just interested in changing economic policy?

Yes, Here's some examples:

Environmental Justice and Economic Degrowth: An Alliance between Two Movements

https://doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2011.648839

You can read this wonderful socialist article

https://monthlyreview.org/2023/04/01/marxian-ecology-dialect...

Or from "International socialism"

https://isj.org.uk/degrowth-and-marxism/

Or you can get a degree!

Master's Degree in Political Ecology Degrowth and Environmental Justice

https://www.uab.cat/web/postgraduate/master-in-political-eco...

This is an irritating strawman. I never claimed that no environmentalists have socialist views, or that the movements don’t sometimes overlap in policy preferences even when their motivations for such policies are wholly different.

My point is simply that the vast majority of climate advocates are arguing for policies that conserve and preserve what we have into the future, and that demand the long-term costs of many of our current policies and practices are actually accounted for vs. kicking that externality to the future public. There is no hidden agenda to upend society.

Many of the desires practices are growth-friendly fixes: carbon pricing, deregulating solar, advanced nuclear[1], electrifying transport, ceasing public subsidies for coal and oil. They aren’t campaigning to upend capitalism itself, but to adapt our economy so we can continue to thrive without cooking the planet, destroying ecosystems, and damaging long-term health of the natural world we rely on for life, not just recreation.

Pointing to a handful of degrowth manifestos or niche graduate programs doesn’t prove that mainstream environmentalism is really a Trojan horse for anti-capitalism. If you’re looking to debate climate policy, let’s stick to the proposals most people are actually pushing—and whether they’ll work—not whether some fringe authors happen to share an ideology.

[1] Not all environmentalists support this, I'll grant, but I don't know any who don't personally