A (Political) Climate In Crisis: Moth To A Flame
Essay first posted on Medium.
I will never give up on attempting to change the minds of those who think the climate crisis is a hoax. However, any real participation from this confused-about-science group will likely only occur after we develop the platform that can make the changes required, and they see those changes being implemented. That means our flight path must change now.
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Today we are relying on our political process to plan most everything out, and get much of it off the ground. That has been a colossal failure, a continual crash and burn. Rather than incrementalism coming to the rescue at some point, we have a reversal-of-reality-fight to the climate’s death on our hands.
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For millennia, there have always been forces allied against the future, and the changes it has wrought. Of course, good proposals, innovations and ideas were thwarted in the past, which may have created terrible aftereffects, yet we have never put the entire future of humanity in jeopardy exactly like we have done with human-caused climate change.
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Okay, a nuclear holocaust has a similarly fraught flavor. But only a few people in high places have control over it, under many restrictions. While not perfect or without its problems, it is understandably contained. Whereas the climate crisis is a multi-pronged, Gordian tangle of billions of human interactions, and often inaction, particularly by a million political entities, and politicians around the world, and many thousands of large corporations.
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The slow motion plane crash of global warming is just much more difficult to fathom than instant annihilation by weapons of war. Think of it as already 40 years of arguing with the Flight 93 hijackers to land the plane safely at the nearest airport. Unfortunately, the hijackers are about half our extended family, and friend group, and the other near half are our neighbors, and other local residents. Why is nearly half our country trying to bring down the human species? We need trained pilots (scientists) to land the plane. Let them do it!
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The Human Perception Predicament.
Anyone can say the climate cannot be harmed by humans, and believe it is true merely because no individual life is long on this earth. Living an average of 70 to 80 years does not necessarily give one the ability to directly experience the worst, fear-generating tremors of the climate crisis. Especially when they do not actively pursue the knowledge, and since in 2020 the realities of the climate crisis are still on the “fringes” for many Americans.
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For Mass Acceptance To Set In.
Before American minds get to 90% “human-caused climate change is real” saturation, it would take:
Horrible hurricanes with five feet of rainfall, and…
Thirty foot storm surges twice a year this year, then…
Three times the next year, four times the year after, etc.
The same for Russia type heatwaves here, and…
A noticeable, half a foot each year, sea level rise with…
Severe droughts in their area for months, plus…
Mass migration into their personal town space.
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While I may be off by a few percent, time is running out either way. What I am trying to get across is that waiting for a greater consensus is ridiculous, and more and more counterproductive. It could happen next year, or never. We must start with never in mind now, or we will never truly get started on the real thing.
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An Outside Of Political Party Coalition Required.
The next step is building a coalition outside of political parties. Even though it may be mostly Democrats, gaining enough independents, never Trumpers, and a few still Republicans, as well as non-voters, to arrive at something above 60% of legitimate support, would be the objective. This minimum level of strong, to very strong, support for action on climate will insure that corporate America, many thousands of city mayors, and most governors follow our lead.
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Then a development structure is required to effectively implement the plan for saving the earth’s climate. The projection must focus on completing everything as soon as possible. While the 2050 timeline has been bandied about, any such stretching is likely to push it passed the date. Therefore, a faster timeline is required. Forty years of stalling cannot encourage more.
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To make this steep climb into the future, and keep our momentum afterwards, we must retool our implementation structure for more rapidly societal solutions. The political environment’s influence on problem solving societal concerns has been disastrous, and after exponentially growing since the 1980s. We cannot continue appeasing the climate denier charade cavalcade, and its backsliding promenade any longer.
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No current politician or corporate CEO will be around in a hundred years. However, our children’s children, and their children beyond will be. Allowing such ephemeral perspectives, as politicians and CEOs have, to guide us into the future is in retrospect pointless. Each wants to please or appease us today, so we vote for them, or buy their product tomorrow.
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We will never get enough politicians and CEOs to consistently own up to the future. The intermittency of political power automatically gives more power to corporations and billionaires. There is no flight plan around this power dynamic within the current political structure. Therefore, an adjunct consistent power dynamic is required: a We The People System.
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It is not about increasing socialism or decreasing capitalism; instead it is a democracy enhancing, and planet saving, endeavor!
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Hands On The Wheel Of Real Progress.
If we are going to head into the abyss, it must be with our direct hands on the wheel. We do not need to replace the political system, but we must supersede it with a direct hands on the wheel of a real decision making body, and a system that actually gets effective projects started and done.
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Think of the new system rescuing us from the downward climate “debate” spiral as a flying instructor taking over the control wheel, a.k.a. yoke, in a crisis. As long as our legislatures and the Congress are flying in a productive and safe manner, they can go from takeoff to landing on their own. If they are flying into a storm while still glad handing everyone, and smiling like everything is fine, We The People take the wheel.
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Basically, Congress gives us the responsibility, as the citizens of this nation, to democratically handle all the important decisions, and vital projects they are putting off. Starting with the climate crisis.
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With a clear majority of Americans demanding this authority, and more than the 60% joining up each day, we will have that mandate. The system will be set up to manage many areas of society as it expands the platform. Everything is approved by Congress with all constitutional guarantees in place. Once the main framework is set and approved, We The People will take it from there.
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Politicians will not be able to revise or meddle in the work of the system thereafter. The system is an adjunct to government, not intertwined in the federal bureaucracy. It is self contained and self perpetuating. There will be regular reviews and constant oversight by Congress, but only as a way to criticize and/or publicize what is being done. Similar to the Federal Reserve when it comes to the influence Congress has: eyes on, hands off.
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This direct democracy run system is the only way to guarantee the climate plane gets and stays on course. Right now a few billionaires, many CEOs, and thousands of politicians have us flying low, and pointed toward the side of a sheer cliff canyon. We may love most of the things corporations have created for us, but they and politicians have too short of a timeline to keep us from long term disaster. Watching out for our distant future as a surviving species is not their pièce de résistance. We The People are the only ones who can prevent such flame outs and fireballs.
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Yes, It Can Be Done.
We have the technology to implement a better democracy with this additional check and balance system I am proposing. It also provides a phenomenal suite of instruments to tackle our most challenging problems. Deflating, and defeating the climate crisis must be its first focus.
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Imagine an implementation system with reach and logistics of Amazon and the military, all coordinated and completed via American citizens. This can be done mostly with off-the-shelf software, along with one million or more coders volunteering to upgrade everything else that is needed.
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There is also a Jobs Development Platform to hire, assign, and implement a renewable energy nation. A civic system doorway is built to simplify our participation in everything civic related including the signing up, and assigning of duties for Americans to help in times of disaster or pandemic. Training and education is facilitated to upgrade the skills and capabilities of both job applicants and civic volunteers.
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Why are we able to prevent a much “simpler to start” nuclear war from happening for over 80 years, but cannot stop ourselves from crashing our climate plane even after decades of work? The We The People System answers that question, solves that dilemma, and makes it real.
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The consistent power of the WTP System is its most potent element. As it gets closer to the 75th percentile of participants, its power will contain anything the mega-wealthy, corporate community, and its politician do, or do not do that will harm, or is harming, us. In addition, the advanced system structure provides both a better democracy, and more exactitude in developing, and implementing solutions.
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Concluding Collusion Remarks.
I would like to explain all the details of the system today, but I have already written a book about it, and could have written more. Actually, I did, here, and here. That written, the system will not be magically created. A movement is necessary to get enough people on board, then the groundwork must begin.
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Otherwise, we will continue to fly around and down in the vortex circles of the climate “debate” hurricane. To avoid getting sucked in by that mendacious merry-go-round of stupid and disastrous, our future senses must be effectively tuned up, and our progress must be quickly yoked upward, then move faster outward.
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Like a moth to the flame, we fly with fire glazed eyes, dreaming it is but a beautiful sunset, not a globally heated hot end to human progress.
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Story and photo by Richard The Chwalek
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