Democracy’s Finest Moment

It’s 2016, and here in America, people love to talk about how democracy is broken. Some would go further and argue that it never really existed to begin with. There’s too much money in politics. The system is rigged. Our institutions are old. How can we possibly fix it?

It’s been nearly 240 years since our Founders decided enough was enough, that America had to be free. Free from oppression, free from monarchy, free from powerful interests that take too much; free to choose, free to elect, free to prosper. For two and a half centuries, America has been the symbol of self-determination to the world, and our ideas have spread all across this globe because they’re good ideas. But the haters are right that democracy is reaching what could be a terminal crisis, or perhaps its finest moment.

As our ideas have spread throughout the world, so too has our thirst for dirty energy. The fuels that powered the industrial revolution were first liberated in Britain, but it was America that magnified their influence into the mighty carbon economy we inhabit today, built on a backbone of coal, oil, and natural gas. For centuries we’ve burned these fuels, and we’ve changed our atmosphere as a result. There is now 40% more carbon dioxide in the air than there was when our country was founded, a number which only continues to climb.

The unintended consequences of this unfettered burning of carbon have been devastating. Global temperatures are skyrocketing; wildfire season is now year-round in many places; storms are more devastating; flooding happens on sunny days; drought is more severe; whole islands are being gobbled by the sea.

People all over the world are realizing how destructive climate change is going to be, and we’ve only borne witness to the very beginning of its effects. If we sit back and let things play out along their present course, there will be twice as much carbon in the atmosphere than when we signed the Declaration of Independence, and possibly much more. And the climate will react to that extra carbon by undermining our food security, water security, and energy security. It will be hard to maintain the Republic when our citizens are hungry, thirsty, and fleeing the coastline that refuses to stay put. The foundation of our democracy will be crumbling beneath our feet.

A climate-disrupted world would be ripe for conflict. It will be less stable as refugees move from cities ravaged by the sea, farmers escape from drought, hungry people migrate for food. Think the Syrian refugee crisis on a global scale, happening right in our own borders. In those conditions, democracy would have a hard time surviving; despots rise when conflict is at its peak, and climate change certainly represents the peak of conflict.

That’s why we’ve reached what could be democracy’s finest moment, the triumph of the people over the interests of a select few. The only ones who benefit from carbon pollution are fossil fuel companies; the rest of us are sweltering in the heat, looking for a glass of water. The future of our country, and indeed the world, is at stake, and it all comes down to a simple question: how do we get carbon out of the economy?

The Founders believed that the key to a functioning democracy was a good education, yet far too many of us have remained in the dark about the true consequences of carbon pollution. Climate deniers like to pretend that fossil fuels are cheap sources of energy, but given that the cost of burning it is the future of our country, most people would consider that too expensive.

When so much is threatened by the simple act of burning, it’s clear that it’s time to stop. It’s time to take carbon out of the economy, and time to educate ourselves on how to deal with our climate problem. If we don’t, we’ll be enslaving our children to a world of tyranny and oppression, a world at odds with American values. If we’re serious about saving our democracy, we will ignore the few voices who throw money into politics on behalf of fossil fuels, and cast off the chains of carbon that have held us down for so long.

We have again reached that moment where we, as Founders of the future, must decide that enough is enough. We must take the long-term view, the one that looks not just 240 years into the future, but a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand. We are the only ones who can avert dangerous climate change for the next hundred generations of humanity. Will we put our children behind bars, or will we let them free? This is our decision. And the choice we make could be democracy’s finest moment.