Climate Optimism: Week of July 1, 2019
According to legend, FDR told A. Philip Randolph, civil rights organizer, that he, the President, agreed with Randolph on the need for civil rights legislation. But he needed Randolph to “make [him] do it.”
This phrase is often repeated to describe the activist-politician relationship. The politicians want to make the change. They need the activists to make the issue big enough.
I’ve been thinking recently about the dissonance in this statement. The politician is right that only grassroots organizing can create a lasting shift in public opinion. But the politician isn’t using their impressive power to change the conversation. Is the politician an idealist at the mercy of a less idealistic voting base? Or is the politician a pragmatist waiting for idealistic public support?
It’s a dance that, in thousands of years of human civilization and government, we haven’t been able to figure out. But often, politicians who have disappointed activists will use this tricky dynamic to explain away their inability to move the needle. They wield this idealistic idea as a defense of incrementalism. The politician uses public perception to justify a lack of progress. But by not advocating on behalf of an issue, the politician is actively working against changing public perception. If the public sees a high-profile figure supporting an idea, they pay attention. If they see that public figure ignore the idea, they ignore it, too.
But the logical argument on behalf of this incrementalism fails when public perception is already on the side of the activist. Such is the case of the climate debate.
The Democratic National Committee has refused to devote one of twelve Democratic primary debates to climate change. This is despite the climate crisis threatening every aspect of human civilization. And the climate crisis isn’t a single issue — it’s related to foreign policy, healthcare, immigration, education and housing.
The public is already on board. A recent poll found that 64% of Democratic voters want a climate-focused debate. Fifteen of the 24 Democratic presidential candidates want a climate-focused debate! And during the first two debates, activists from the Sunrise Movement camped outside DNC headquarters for days to put pressure on creating a climate debate.
But the DNC has repeated its unwillingness to devote a debate to climate change. And in the two nights of the first debate, climate change took up less than 15 minutes of approximately four hours.
Sounds like we’re making them do it. But as is too often the case, that doesn’t seem to be enough.
Update, Monday, July 1: Around the time I published this piece, the DNC apparently decided to vote on whether to hold a climate debate of some sort. But I stand by my soapbox.
The quote of the week:
Secretary Castro, who pays for the mitigation to climate, whether it’s building seawalls for people that are perhaps living in places that they shouldn’t be living? — Chuck Todd, to Julián Castro during the first night of the debate
Seawalls are short-term stop-gaps for rising oceans. We need resilient, ecosystem-based mitigations. If we’re still talking about seawalls and not coral reefs, we’ve got so much more work to do on changing the conversation.
