Only One Candidate Fully Gets The Urgency
Both of the Democratic candidates for President believe in the science on Global Warming. Both believe that human activity is driving it, that it poses a threat to humanity, and that it is necessary that we do something to counter it. It qualifies as another of the issues where it is said that both Democrat candidates share a similar goal, differing only on which approach can best reach that goal. To me it is the issue that most starkly illustrates the true fundamental difference between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, between an approach sometimes characterized as pragmatic incrementalism, and bold action.To me it strongly illustrates the insufficiency of the former, and the necessity of the latter.
Our planet no longer has the time needed for incremental changes to rectify the crisis we are in. While the ongoing collapse of the American Middle Class conveys a similar message in regards to our own economy, nothing has reached as undeniably a catastrophic turning point as that presented by the imminent collapse of Earth's polar ice sheets.
Bernie Sanders clearly appreciates the severity of the environmental threat facing us and the potential consequences of it. He is not hesitant to speak of it in the most urgent of terms. Here is some of what he just said regarding it at the Brooklyn Democratic Debate (emphasis added):
SANDERS: ...Now, what I think is when we look at climate change now, we have got to realize that this is a global environmental crisis of unprecedented urgency.
(APPLAUSE) (CHEERING)
And, it is not good enough. You know, if we, God forbid, were attacked tomorrow the whole country would rise up and say we got an enemy out there and we got to do something about it. That was what 9/11 was about.
We have an enemy out there, and that enemy is going to cause drought and floods and extreme weather disturbances. There's going to be international conflict...
LOUIS: I have a question for you. You've said that climate change is the greatest threat to our nation's security. You've called for a nationwide ban on fracking. You've also called for phasing out all nuclear power in the U.S. But wouldn't those proposals drive the country back to coal and oil, and actually undermine your fight against global warming?
SANDERS: No, they wouldn't. Look, here's where we are. Let me reiterate. We have a global crisis. Pope Francis reminded us that we are on a suicide course. Our legislation understands, Errol, that there will be economic dislocation. It is absolutely true. There will be some people who lose their job. And we build into our legislation an enormous amount of money to protect those workers. It is not their fault that fossil fuels are destroying our climate. But we have got to stand up and say right now, as we would if we were attacked by some military force, we have got to move urgency -- urgently and boldly...
SANDERS: What you do do is say that we are going to have a massive program -- and I had introduced -- introduced legislation for 10 million solar rooftops. We can put probably millions of people to work retrofitting and weatherizing buildings all over this country.
(CHEERING)
SANDERS: Saving -- rebuilding our rail system.
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: Our mass transit system.
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS:If we approach this, Errol, as if we were literally at a war -- you know, in 1941, under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, we moved within three years, within three more years to rebuild our economy to defeat Nazism and Japanese imperialism. That is exactly the kind of approach we need right now.
BLITZER: Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: Lead the world.
What I find most striking here is the direct comparison Bernie Sanders makes between our current need to mobilize to fight Climate Change and the need America faced to mobilize against the Fascist threat in World War II. Sanders made more than a mere comparison, he drew a direct equation, and that equation could not be more revealing. The United States of America did extraordinary things to confront the existential threat posed to it by World War II. The people of the United States of America made an extraordinary effort, complete with requisite personal sacrifices.
Not only did millions of men and women enlist in the military to serve their nation in time of war, but scores of millions of Americans rationed gas, rationed rubber, and rationed various foods. Millions of Liberty Gardens were planted, millions of Liberty Bonds were purchased. Our entire manufacturing infrastructure was totally transformed from a peace time to a war time setting in less than the time that it takes to launch and pursue most modern presidential campaigns.
America did all of that under the leadership of Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, the very same President who rallied the American people to overcome the devastating effects of the Great Depression through his own bold vision, through the dramatic new programs he ushered in to confront America's challenges, and through the sweeping changes he introduced to regulate the American economy and protect American families.
FDR neither ran nor governed as a pragmatic “progressive”, pursuing “realistic” incremental changes. Virtually none of the ground breaking programs that he introduced, nor any of the heroic sacrifices he called on our people to shoulder, would have been thought of as “realistic' by the pundits of those times prior to Roosevelt's presidency. But they were exactly what those times called for, and America had it in it to rise to the occasion. Bernie Sanders asks no more, and no less, from our nation now. And shame on those who say that we just don't have it in us.
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