ecospirit

Last Thursday night, after years of ducking the issue, the WeatherChannel hosted  eight candidates for President in the 2020 election, five Democrats and three Republicans, to hear their solutions to the climate crisis. These were the candidates: Kamala Harris, Mayor Pete, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Republicans Mark Sanford, William Weld, and Joe Walsh. This was a program by a Middle American station aimed at Middle Americans, with a bold title which would once have been representative of the progressive left. Now it's mainstream.

Though the program covered the science, and a hurricane specialist set up the evening, he pointed out that he was a scientist, whose job was to find the facts and present them to civil society and its leaders to make policy, and garner the will to see the policies through to completion. A friend who watched with me, steeped in the science, said afterwards, "It was just politicians saying what they would do." Precisely. That is the brilliance of the program, 35 years overdue. Folks have heard the science for decades, and closed their ears. They are not swayed by facts, but by stories, and to a degree, the candidates used stories to frame their policy responses.

Most important was that three Republicans running against Trump were on the program. Predictably, they all preferred market solutions to government intervention. Weld was both the most realistic about how bad the situation is, especially for coastal communities, and the one willing to entertain a modicum of public support for renewables. But each of the Republicans clearly understands the existential challenge climate catastrophe represents, and Walsh spoke energetically about how deeply young people cared about the issue. A Republican embracing educated young people, and implicitly, the social movement they are trying to build! Sanford walked a South Carolina beach and lamented how vulnerable his family property in the area was.

On the Democratic side, Warren was strongest, because of her grasp of policy, the tools of government, and the gravity of the problem. But they were all strong. Strongest in terms of passion and willingness to spend lots of public money to fight the battle of the era was Bernie. Buttigieg was just behind them, closely followed by Booker and Harris. True to his political roots, Booker emphasized ecojustice and the vulnerability of the poor, especially people of color.

Booker was interviewed on the streets of Newark, but the most dramatic setting was Bernie's, sitting in front of the burned wreckage of the Camp Fire (which started exactly one year ago). Though there was plenty of footage of melting glaciers, wildfires, hurricanes and their aftermath, the other settings for candidate interviews were too bucolic, especially Buttigieg's, who was seated in front of a quietly flowing river under stately shade trees.

The emcee noted that the Weather Channel had invited the Denier-in-Chief and Joe Biden. Both refused. So, though climate disequilibrium has finally come of age politically, with school strikes every Friday and workers beginning to follow suit, the timeliness of the program was counteracted by the depressing fact that neither of the current front-runners accepted the invitation. Trump loves to call Biden "Sleepy Joe," which is right on the money for this event. Rather than making a bold stand on climate, Sleepy Joe wants to wait and negotiate with the Republicans, who he says will have an "epiphany" after Trump exits. This is a remarkably disingenuous statement from a fellow who witnessed firsthand the ideological fortress the Republicans built during the last administration. This is truly disturbing, and shows how steep the mountain of political resistance remains. As Naomi Klein says in her latest book, a Biden presidency would doom the human race. I stand by her statement.

The producers aired an excerpt of the now-famous Greta Thunberg speech ("I am angry") at the recent UN summit on climate change. Warren's response was, "She should be angry....But she needs to turn that anger into action." As I indicated above, Warren stood out as the candidate with the most detailed set of actions, and it was impressive (without saying it, she endorsed the Green New Deal). But of course the school strikes which Greta is leading (in Charlotte Friday, which I sadly had to miss), ARE her action, for keeping the pressure on governments from the next wave of constituents is a huge one. Without it, neither Warren nor any other president will have the kind of public backing to achieve the necessary impossible.

The stakes are higher with every election. They are mounting for this one like the graph showing carbon emissions. The country, and the world, face the imperative to elect a president who gets the critical nature of the problem, which is the survival of civilization. Trump will be the GOP candidate, which means that somebody other than Biden, the no-show, needs to be his opponent. Elizabeth Warren remains a strong second in the polls, but, like many, I worry that she can overcome the festering misogyny of this country, and the fear of "socialism" from the mainstream electorate. She also has fallen into the same trap as Barack Obama, making health insurance her number one priority. Pursuing this course would probably be fatal for the climate amelioration effort, as would a continued Republican-majority senate, with Mitch McConnell at the helm.

I have not been able to access the ratings, but I hope there was a healthy viewership for this timely program. It should have made it clear to undecideds that combating climate change as if it were a world war is the highest possible priority for this, and all, governments. And I pray that it does its part in getting out the vote for those who already understand the stakes.