How to fix climate change politics
The very existence of the phrase “climate change politics” should tell you that something is wrong.
Climate change is science, not politics. It’s pretty indisputable given the evidence that the climate is changing in a quick and deleterious way, and we know how to help fix it. And yet, it has become an issue aligned with the partisan division in the US.
The thing is, we’ve solved environmental prisoner’s dilemma type problems that require collective action through government policy before, with politics as only a minor factor: we banned DDT and CFCs; no nuclear bombs have been detonated for effect since 1945; lead paint and leaded gasoline are a thing of the past.
I am not an expert on politics. I follow closely and worked in the industry for six months, but I don’t really know a lot of politicians or activists or anything like that. So take this opinion with a grain of salt. But from someone who considers himself relatively non-partisan who really wants to fix climate change, it’s frustrating, and here’s what I think we need.
What the Democratic Party needs to do
It’s pretty simple. When a political party is in power, history shows that they only get to do one or two things before they run out of political capital, achieve gridlock through infighting, or lose power. The Biden administration needs to make that one thing climate change. Not healthcare, not abortion, not guns, not taxes. Climate change. Do it first. It’s the only one of these that represents an existential, time sensitive crisis.
Secondarily, there’s this thing that the Democratic party does, which is try to tie its positions together. In this case, that means calling out that climate change disproportionately affects poor communities and communities of people of color. This may be true, but doing this makes it harder, not easier, for people to support climate change; it makes you feel that to buy into climate change you have to buy into the whole Democratic agenda. Keep the climate change messaging, which polls show people generally buy, separate.
What the Republican Party needs to do
Climate change is happening with or without you. Get on board and be a leader with solutions. Own the framing rather than being pinned into a corner by the Democrats: talk about how we should help pig farmers because pigs are greener than cows, stimulate small business wind power in rural states, whatever. It will also be a good strategic decision, because, again, polls show that most people believe in climate change.
The Green Party that needs to exist
Because, again, I have been radicalized, I looked closely at the Green Party to see if I should sign up. I was horrified by what I found: just a generic far-left party. The Green Party’s ballot statement contained one small paragraph about climate change and like nine large paragraphs about things that weren’t climate change. This is not useful.
The Green Party that needs to exist, that I hope someone will create and grow, only cares about climate change. Its agenda is to pass climate change legislation. It has no position on abortion, guns, race relations, labor issues, taxes (other than a carbon tax and other environmental incentives), or anything else. It is a big tent full of people who care about climate change and believe whatever the hell they want about everything else.
In addition, the Green Party is anti-nuclear power, which I think is a horrible position, since that is the shortest path towards zero emissions from electricity, which many countries have already proven is achievable with modern technology.
What you can do
I’m not sure yet how to meaningfully affect the unfortunately-existing politics of climate change, but I’m going to keep looking. There are lots of organizations trying to combat climate change; most of these are lobbying organizations, or ones that try to organize collective action (through signing petitions, for instance). You can certainly easily find one and donate to them, or sign some petitions.
But it’s hard to measure the effectiveness of these organizations. Does lobbying lawmakers matter? Do petitions matter? Do climate protests matter? The answers to all of these are difficult, and might be no.
There is certainly room for grassroots action to affect climate change policy, but honestly, I’m not sure yet what the most effective way to support this is. But one way I can definitely help is by mitigating my own personal carbon footprint; Save the Damn Planet represents our attempt to share that with everyone. And make no mistake about it, we do need to pitch in directly: any political solution will be slow to arrive and likely insufficient anyway.
Mike Develin, with Alisa Peters, built Save the Damn Planet.