Page 101 - Esquire (November 2019)

eningly what they tell us is if we don’t get our act together and make Iowa, where the droughts will ruin the crops whether or not you
massive changes away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sus- carry Mahaska County.
tainable energy within the next eleven years, the damage done to What we have is a monumental election aimed at prying the gov-
our country and the rest of the world will be irreparable.” Elizabeth ernment out of the hands of grifters and con men and profiteers. That
Warren said, “How have we gotten ourselves into this mess? How would be hard enough all on its own. But it is being conducted with
has it gone this long when the climate science year after year after this enormous rolling catastrophe going on barely offstage. Just as it
year has told us it’s getting more and more dangerous out there, it’s can be argued that this election may be a turning point in our com-
getting worse and worse for life on this earth?” mitment to republican self-government—as reelecting the current
Pete Buttigieg said, “This is the hardest thing we will have done cer- president would mean endorsing everything he’s done to destroy the
tainly in my lifetime as a country. This is on par with winning World delicate checks and balances built into the system and, therefore, to
War II, perhaps even more challenging than that.” Beto O’Rourke admit to ourselves that we don’t believe anymore not only in their
said, “We can convene the ingenuity, the innovation of the private ability to secure the promises of the Constitution but also in our ca-
sector. We can lead from the public sector through those parameters pacity to govern ourselves at all—so it can be said that it also is a turn-
and mandates that we set. We can perform to that, and we can lead the ing point in our commitment to a livable planet. We are running out
world on the greatest challenge that we’ve ever had.” And Cory Book- of chances in both of these.
er said, “I’ve watched presidential campaigns [and never] have we ev- Washington governor Jay Inslee talked about all of this. Inslee ran
er had a forum like this discussing for president specifically to address the climate crisis head-on. He
what it is for humanity, as has been since has dropped out, but his brief effort had a major effect on the
said by every single candidate, the race. Several of his erstwhile opponents, most notably Warren and
most existential crisis to our coun- Castro, took the time to discuss his ideas for confronting the crisis.
try and to the planet Earth.” Several months earlier, he’d sat at a picnic table overlooking the
It was a remarkable chorus of THE Cedar River at a park outside Ce-
warnings and of determination, dar Rapids and someone asked him
and it was completely appropriate if he thought that, in their present
to the crisis at hand. Unfortunate- OCEANS state, America’s democratic insti-
ly, it also was a campaign event in tutions were capable of producing
the presidential race of 2020. One a response equal to the magnitude
of these people would have to run DON’T CARE of a planetary crisis. At the time,
against an incumbent who forges Inslee was pushing hard for a de-
weather maps to make himself bate among the Democratic can-
look less ridiculous, and who once didates devoted entirely to the
blamed the climate crisis on clev- WHO WINS climate crisis. That debate nev-
er Chinese scientists, a president er happened, but the movement
who brags about pulling the United for it produced the CNN town
States out of the Paris climate ac- THE ELECTION. hall as well as a later one, hosted
cord. And in the difference between by MSNBC.
that forum and this president lies “When you have a threat to the
an existential question just as pro- very survival of the nation, and
found as the one that the climate when the ability to surmount that
crisis poses to the world at large: YOU CAN’T threat requires massive new tech-
Are the political system and insti- nology, significant changes in vir-
tutions of the United States strong tually everything we do, to expect
enough to confront the kind of chal- SPIN the public to be able to distin-
lenge that the climate crisis pres- guish between candidates based on
ents? Can we work existential ques- sixty-second answers is just ludi-
tions into what has become a spavined national political dialogue? THEM. crous,” Inslee said.
On the day before the town hall, Politico, the Beltway’s most suc- “It’s easy to hide in sixty sec-
cessful tip sheet, ran a long story about how the climate crisis could onds. . . . It’s very difficult to see
cause problems for the Democrats in the upcoming election. It wedged anything close to the meaningful
the climate crisis into the procrustean context of both interparty and progress that you need. If you get
intraparty conflict. How far is too far? Is the vaunted Green New Deal to the tipping point that I believe we’re at, then these profound chang-
too far? Is it the equivalent on the Democratic side of the climate de- es are possible. And I do believe in the theory that tipping points—
nial championed by the White House and supported by the Repub- it’s happened on marriage equality, it’s happened on marijuana.
lican party? The Politico piece was a judicious evaluation as far as it “There are moments where you get a tectonic shift, and I believe
went, but it left out one important element: we’re close to that. There’s the wave of urgency and the wave of prom-
The oceans don’t care who wins the election. It doesn’t matter to ise. Both are spiking at the same time. The objective evidence [is]
a hurricane whether a Democratic member of Congress represent- there’s been a twelve-point rise in Americans who say we have to
ing a “red” district is troubled by what his constituents might see do something about it. That’s significant. It’s the number-one issue
as extremist policies to meet the emergencies. You can’t spin them. among Iowa primary voters now. Americans are coming to grasp it,
The parking lot will fall into the lake even if your plan polls well in and it’s because of the visual imagery that they’re seeing. They’ve
seen it now on TV and in their neighborhood. ”
Every issue in this campaign is in some way about the climate cri-
sis. It doesn’t matter how good your health-care system is if epidemic
disease runs rampant. Your immigration policy could be the most ju-
dicious and humane ever devised and it’s still (continued on page 114)