Climate Patriotism

Defending America’s future demands bold climate action now.

“Patriot (noun ˈpā-trē-ət, -ˌät): one who loves his or her country…” From the from the Ancient Greek πατριώτης (patriotēs, “of the same country.”)

To love our country, we must care about its future.

We can’t care about our nation’s future without taking into account the ways our actions today are shaping that future, and attempting to steer a course that will leave our countrymen better off in days to come. To love our country today is also to wish to see it secure and prosperous tomorrow.

So to be patriots, we have to work to be good ancestors to those coming after us. And being good ancestors today means, perhaps above all else, fighting climate change. No greater threat faces America in the coming years than climate chaos. We learned that with Katrina; we’ve learned that with droughts and floods and wildfires; and now we’re learning it afresh as our nation recovers from the assault of a superstorm of unprecedented size. (I wrote this after Hurricane Sandy. It’s all still true today.)

There’s a lot of confusion on this point, so it’s worth speaking plainly. Climate change is here. The jury’s in on that. And climate change is changing the weather. The more we pollute, the more (and more dangerously) things will…