What to do Right Now
Environmentalists’ top priority should be finding agreement with diverse players
Forgive me for putting a damper on your (too) hot summer, but I’m back with an obvious and urgent reminder. We are facing a climate emergency. Time is not on our side.
Yes, there have been some victories. In the US, the most important was the IRA bill, which can deliver trillions of dollars to build out the clean energy system we need.
But we face two timely and huge obstacles that need more attention.
Diverse climate-concerned advocates are struggling amongst themselves to agree on how to accelerate the buildout of clean energy. Tough decisions need to be made quickly about where new energy infrastructure is located to minimize adverse impacts on biodiversity, communities, watersheds, and open space. But this is not happening quickly enough. (See this article from Heatmap News to read more).
While Democrats broadly support climate policy at the federal and state levels, Republicans do not. This endangers even the policy wins we’ve made thus far, not to mention thwarts future progress.
Now is the time to prioritize tackling these two problems. There is a real opening, as these specific policy matters are being debated and as we begin in earnest work on the 2024 election.
I’ve always believed that environmentalists should prioritize building skills to achieve compromise and win over folks with very different points of view. I’ve also tried to respect the folks who disagree with me, who feel that compromise is akin to complicity. But as I watch the clock, I can only conclude that we don’t have time any more for lengthy battles over this stuff.
On the first obstacle, there is reason to be cautiously encouraged. One example: Audubon — the world famous conservation organization focused on protecting bird habitat — just published a paper outlining their views on how we can optimize for both accelerated buildout of clean energy infrastructure and better outcomes for birds. They call for a lot of careful, science-based compromise.
I remember well how we did this kind of thing when I worked at The Nature Conservancy. In circumstances like this, we always utilized the so-called mitigation hierarchy: avoid, minimize, and compensate (in that order). I encourage all leading environmental NGOs to make this practice a priority.
On the second obstacle, there is much less reason to be optimistic. The Republicans just published their plan to decimate federal climate policy and agencies. To me, it’s breathtaking that such a plan would go public in a time of emergency. It reminds me that all environmentalists should make maximum effort to grow our constituency asap — especially in red states.
I understand it can be daunting to reach out to those with staunch opinions different from your own. But making the effort can be rewarding. And it’s necessary.
I experienced this first hand at TNC. I went to one of the unlikeliest of places to talk about climate change: the Kiwanis Club of Birmingham, Alabama. Preparing my remarks, I really wasn’t sure what to expect. After all, polls at the time showed that many Alabamans believed climate change was not real.
But I was pleasantly surprised. Even if people disagreed with many of my points, there seemed to be genuine acceptance of my putting the climate issue squarely on the table. And maybe I even persuaded a few people to rethink their stance. Either way, audience members told me afterwards that they appreciated my effort to lead a respectful and constructive conversation on such an important and polarizing challenge.
Now I’m not saying any of this is easy. It’s the opposite of easy. But I think it’s job number one for environmentalists.
And we all can do our part.
Start by getting in the same room with the people with whom you disagree. Make a real effort to make sure everyone feels heard. For those of you in a position to engage in important decision making, make an effort to see that deadlines are set because the situation is (obviously) getting worse by the minute. Just keep practicing holding this type of dialogue. You’ll improve. You’ll make new friends. You’ll likely learn that those with opposing views have arguments that deserve your consideration. When you make errors (like I do), try to learn from that too but don’t stop trying.
It’s the only way forward. And the time is now.
Onward,
One Place where Bipartisan Climate Action May a Bit Easier.
Getting permits has become as big a barrier to building climate mitigation projects as getting funding. This is a great place to start bipartisan climate work.
Getting faster and more sensible permitting is a Republican friendly initiative – it's getting the government off our backs. It can appeal to Democrats because it does little good for the government or others to fund climate mitigation if building it gets stopped or long delayed in the permitting process.
The sweet spot here is not lowering standards, but rather in changing from slow moving legal processes to getting the parties together to understand each other’s viewpoints, science, and attitudes in a rapid back and forth dialogue. This leads to better understanding, better decisions, much lower costs, and less time to get to the point of either killing bad projects or permitting good ones.
If the dialogue process fails, one can always go back to a drawn out legal process, but in many cases the parties can come to agreement without all that if they have the opportunity to talk directly rather than through legal filings. We need both nonprofits and businesses to be more open to collaborative solutions rather than winning the fight.
The 2nd obstacle you highlight is problematic to say the least. At some point I hope the Republican Party rebounds from its descent into disinformation and its movement away from facts and evidence. While the world remains addicted to, and dependent on, fossil fuels, highlighting the difficult timing of a fulsome green transition, the fossil fuel companies are complicit in the pernicious deny and delay cycle we've been subject to since the late 70s. They're in a similar position legally to the tobacco companies, Purdue Pharma, and the NRA/gun lobby, i.e., pursuit of immoral profits over the health of society.
I wonder what would happen politically if the fossil fuel giants were offered a deal: immunity from future prosecution for facilitating intentionally harmful climate change in exchange for admission that they have known for decades about the cause and effect between fossil fuel emissions and climate change, plus $X billions/year to help fund a green transition.