Early hedging against degrowth.

Edit: There is a Breitbart article (fictional editorial?) about this: (Warning: Right Wing Media)

Today, in the year 2064, as we look back over the last 50 years, it might seem as if the Abundance Revolution was inevitable, since so much wealth was involved. After all, it was wealth just waiting to be unleashed.

James P Pinkerton writes an editorial from the future about the Abundance Revolution, which takes place in 2014 and is caused by Cliven Bundy’s take over of federal land under Obummer. That event was cattle farmers (years before Yellowstone) who didn’t want to pay grazing fees, took over a national park and made a Chud version of CHAZ with militias and everything. They wanted to kick off a civil war, if you read their writing and listened to their hopes and motivations.

Here is how James describes the animus for the Abundance Revolution:

Yet paradoxically, on the eve of the Abundance Revolution, many of America’s leaders, on the right as well as the left, were preaching a strict doctrine of overall austerity.

Indeed, as we look back and study the events of 2014, we can see the results of the Green elite’s ideologically-driven effort to squelch even the relatively small amount of prosperity that Americans were then enjoying. That is, it was the Green elites who unwittingly opened the door to the Abundance Revolution and the fantastic increase in wealth that Americans have since realized over the last half-century.

It is, essentially, a reaction to climate change. Specifically the idea that to curb and survive the effects of climate change, we have to stop eating beef/meat, stop using ICE cars, turn over ranch lands to make solar farms, etc.

It also hits home for real estate developers and people (read: industries) who don’t want to dump chemicals into natural waterways:

Yet beginning in the 1970s, the federal government’s approach to land management changed dramatically. Whereas once Uncle Sam had supported development where possible, through dams and other kinds of infrastructure, the new federal policy was the opposite: The Greens, gaining control of federal policymaking during the 1970s, saw federal ownership of the land as an opportunity to stop any sort of development or economic growth. And a key tool for the Greens was the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973. ESA represented a radical expansion of federal power: In the past, the national parks had been set aside to protect endangered species; yet after ESA was passed, the entire country became, in effect, a national park. As a result, in any location where activists could identify an “endangered species,” they could squelch development. And so enforcement of ESA became a kind of racket, in which clever biologists and litigators could team up to block any sort of development and take effective control of any land.

Yet as a reminder of the wisdom that power begets hubris and then nemesis, it was overreaching on the ESA’s power that led to the Battle of Bunkerville; Bundy and other ranchers in Nevada were pushed off their land to protect the desert tortoise, a species that could easily have been protected–if that were really the issue–in zoos or nature preserves. But instead, the Greens got greedy, and that led to the moment when Bundy drew his famous Line in the Desert.

So in addition to acute climate change reaction, you have an underlying chronic crankery against the EPA and environmentalists. Because by protecting endangered species, that land can’t be acquired by beef farmers or industry or real estate.

The third triggering incident came on April 18, 2014, when the Barack Obama administration announced that it was delaying, yet again, any decision on the Keystone Pipeline. This move was widely regarded as cynical pandering to a sect of Green billionaires, led by the infamous Tom Steyer of San Francisco. The Obama administration and many Democrats seemed happy enough to bow to Steyer’s wishes in return for campaign cash, but in this instance, the pandering was so flagrant that the decision blew up in the administration’s face. While the liberal media were happy with the Keystone decision, the legacy press was no longer powerful enough to sway public opinion. Instead, the struggle for public opinion was swayed by activists who took to alternative and social media to make the case in favor of Keystone–and against the Reign of Steyer.

It wouldn’t be the Obama era without a dash of Koch-backed oil anxiety.

I don’t know where it’s at now, but it started in libertarian opposition to degrowth. That’s why it’s called abundance. They want to project the idea that everything (especially oil) is plentiful and accessible. There is no limit to land or water or any resources, just government regulators and environmentalists holding everything back. So when forms of degrowth become necessarily, these people will violently oppose it. They will be the ones guarding Peter Thiel’s AI companies’ coal power plants.