What do I wish each presidential candidate would say to the American public about climate change? That they know they have applied to be one of the most powerful people in one of the most powerful countries on earth. That climate change is one of the biggest problems the world has ever faced. That they will consider it their job, every day, to be bigger than it. And that we should hire (or fire) them accordingly.
(This blog was written in response to the question posed in this blog about what the presidential candidates should have said had they been asked a climate question at the debates)
It is admittedly almost impossible to think about where climate change is headed: human brains aren’t designed to deal with the inconceivable. But there are two very simple things our presidential candidates can do—that they have not been doing so far—to lead us in actually tackling the climate challenge.
- Say climate change.
- Don’t compromise.
Say climate change.
Can rhetoric take carbon out of the atmosphere? Do words really matter? Yes. Especially when uttered by opinion leaders. Especially when uttered by a could-be president.
“If there has been a candidate who has
deliberately not uttered climate change
in an election season but then come out swinging
once in office, I would love to know.”
When we allow a taboo around the climate issue, we look like apologists for our own cause, and only add fuel to the opposition (Harry Potter readers can surely relate: a Voldemort/He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named analogy is sometimes aptly used to describe this problem). Think about any number of other large and intractable world problems: genocide, economic crisis, poverty, war, AIDS. Why isn’t there political shyness about using any of those terms?
Proponents of action’s collective historical reluctance to actually say climate change—and to push other leaders and media to do the same—is unique, strange, and unhelpful. When federal climate legislation was in play, the logic was that other words (“green jobs” and “clean energy,” for instance) could achieve more or less the same goals without galvanizing the political opposition. And in this election season, many key advocates fear that saying “climate change” will cost a would-be champion a win. Sit tight, stay quiet, goes the logic: once in office, the candidate will be the climate champion we know they always intended to be. If there has been a candidate who has deliberately not uttered climate change in an election season but then come out swinging once in office, I would love to know. Moreover, research suggests that candidates who are willing to name the climate problem can galvanize their base and actually pick up more votes than they lose, building a base for action while in office.
We will never reach climate goals at the scale of the problem, rather than scaled to the problem of politics, unless we—and our leaders—are willing to say the words: climate change.
Don’t Compromise.
Then again, there is admittedly a fair case to be made that in the United States, the climate cause would be better off if the words had never been spoken, and a conservative champion of the cause introduced the climate change issue for the first time tomorrow. It is hard to start fresh on an issue with climate’s baggage: a three-decade slog on the issue has in some sense made easy things look hard, and hard things look impossible. Where policy and solutions are concerned, this history has made compromise look like ambition, and ambition look like radicalism.
The lesson for leaders here is that we cannot afford to compromise—we must ask for what science and safety require, and no less.
In our polarized political world, marginal progress and big asks often incur similar political “costs” (while big asks have the perk of galvanizing support). For evidence, you need look only as far as this year’s second presidential debate, which produced some startling one-upmanship seemingly intended to demonstrate which candidate loves the fossil fuel industry the most. Watching begged the question: If your climate policy is going to be publicly painted as aggressive no matter what you do (or don’t do), why compromise? Shoot for the moon. Pursue a policy that is at least aggressive in its substance as the counter-spin will make it sound, and better serve your country and the climate in the process.
Meg Boyle is program officer for The Connect U.S. Fund
