CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOT A POLITICAL ISSUE [View all]

(The heck with it - I wrote this and it's important enough that I want to share this on DU)
(It's also amazing to see this finally re-enter the national conversation)

CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOT A POLITICAL ISSUE

One of the most pernicious aspects of our politics of the last decade is the common-sense defying notion that somehow climate change is a political issue. With no posturing, I must tell you that every time I stop to reflect on that reality, I am amazed by it.

That a small but determined cadre of power-brokers succeeded in convincing a substantial portion of the electorate that this was a political issue - with two actual sides - represents an enormous triumph of propaganda, branding, and labeling over the most essential form of self-interest we all share - the desire to live safe and secure in our own homes.

The point is that we are all in this together. The effects cannot be consigned to some generation far down the road - we are not making an economic gamble played against a distant future; we are validating a short-sighted gamble wagered against our very own destruction.

Climate change must be removed from the partisan political equation. The desire to address climate change needs to be elevated to universal consensus, like, say, the value of proper prenatal care. There are no boogeymen on the left who "advance" climate change for some nefarious end. We're fucking terrified. That's all. No endgame, except that we want us all to live. No endgame, except that we fear dystopia.

We must work as a country and then as a world to meet this problem with a probing will uncompromised by the harrying classes. And while, emotionally, I would like us to look back on this war as silly, that is unimportant in this immediate present. What we must do is look at this war as over.

No one is in this to harm you. We simply believe that to address anything that impacts climate change in a manner that fails to address, you know, climate change, has reached the point of inexcusable insanity, violence upon reality, and unacceptable danger.

The waves crashing over our doorsteps are evidence enough. Both sides must put down their swords and we need to work in earnest toward whatever form of global rescue is still possible. Climate change can no longer be a "political football." I suspect that in many cases this will fall on deaf ears, but if the explosions, the levee breaks, the crashing tides, the uncontrollable rushing sound of the tunnels flooding - if these things cannot break through a willful silence, we will all drown together. And then what a unifying issue this will all be.