Andrew Yang is the Climate Candidate

His 5 Unique, Ambitious, and Realistic Strategies to Address Climate Change

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

The 2020 United States Presidential Election will be the most consequential election in the history of the planet. As we sit here in the 11th hour of our climate crisis, we are faced with a difficult decision. We have to decide who should lead us for the next four to eight years. People that vote singularly on the issue of climate must determine which candidate will be the best for the planet. Our next leader must have the vision to ambitiously pursue the deep decarbonization of our economy and simultaneously prepare our society for the possibility of a less habitable and more volatile planet.

The current field of Democratic candidates for President is highly qualified and reliably committed to addressing the challenge of climate change. Each candidate is proposing massive investments and a variety of new programs to achieve high-level climate goals. A Green New Deal, or a similar stimulus package, seems inevitable if a Democrat is elected to the presidency in 2020. However, it should be abundantly clear that there is only one candidate that has a true “whatever it takes” set of strategies — Andrew Yang. Consider the following five strategies that only Andrew Yang is proposing.

1. “Getting the Boot Off Our Throats” (The Freedom Dividend)

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.” — Rachel Carson

The Freedom Dividend is a form of Universal Basic Income (UBI), which would give every American adult $1,000 per month, no strings attached. This has effectively been piloted in Alaska, where the dividend is funded by oil revenue. Andrew Yang describes this Freedom Dividend as a right of citizenship, and his primary motivation for suggesting this is the massively disruptive consequences of automation and artificial intelligence (AI).

Andrew Yang has also argued that putting money in the hands of main street America will allow more Americans to be better stewards of the environment. He describes this concept in interviews as “getting the boot off our throats.” This makes sense, as 59% of Americans can’t pay an unexpected $500 bill. How can we expect low- and middle-income Americans to purchase the most sustainable products or to make investments in energy efficiency improvements to their homes or to purchase new more fuel-efficient vehicles if they can barely afford to pay their current bills? If we as a society decide to implement the Freedom Dividend, then overnight there would be an increase of millions of Americans suddenly able to make better purchasing and investment decisions for the environment.

2. The Climate Amendment

“The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.” — Alexis de Tocqueville

There is no way our Founding Fathers could have ever predicted anthropogenic climate change. Our founding documents were signed decades before the initial scientific findings about climate change emerged in the 19th century, and it wasn’t until the 1930’s that scientists started suggesting that humans might be causing global warming. However, our Founding Fathers did give us a way to address unforeseen societal challenges by amending the Constitution of the United States. We’ve made amendments to our Constitution 27 times, and will likely soon add the Equal Rights Amendment to that sacred list.

Andrew Yang is proposing a Climate Amendment to the United States Constitution. The purpose of this Climate Amendment would be to require federal and state governments “to protect, preserve, and improve the environment” with the goal of “preventing future administrations from undoing the work of combating climate change.” If you want your government to get serious about climate change, a good place to start would be amending the country’s sacred governing documents. This is a bold proposal, as it would require two-thirds of the United States Congress to vote for the Climate Amendment, AND three-quarters of the state legislatures to vote to ratify the amendment. This would inherently require a major shift in the thinking of Republican legislators across the country. Imagine if there was a major shift in how conservative legislators think about climate change. We wouldn’t just see a Climate Amendment passed; we would probably also see sweeping climate investments from every state in the Union.

3. Nuclear Power

“Once you have an innovation culture, even those who are not scientists or engineers — poets, actors, journalists — they, as communities, embrace the meaning of what it is to be scientifically literate. They embrace the concept of an innovation culture. They vote in ways that promote it. They don’t fight science and they don’t fight technology.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson

At the December Democratic Primary Debate, Andrew Yang was the only candidate on stage that was supportive of keeping nuclear power on the table as a climate solution. The public perception of nuclear is not good. People for a long time have been concerned with the potential risks of nuclear power plants and the high cost. However, Andrew Yang very effectively communicated in December that we can innovate to a better nuclear solution, and we are. Bill Gates and others are investing in the development of next generation nuclear reactors that would have far less risk than the current reactors.

Andrew Yang is an entrepreneur and a problem solver. If you tell him there are obstacles and challenges associated with a solution, he is more likely to unpack the obstacles and challenges and try to overcome them, and he is less likely to dismiss a solution simply because you tell him it will be difficult. Andrew Yang is also not a career politician. He is more of a technologist or economist than he is a politician, and as such he knows how to evaluate cutting-edge technology and the economics associated with it. Climate voters may not be ready to fully support nuclear power as a climate solution, but they should be more willing to get behind a candidate that doesn’t write off solutions solely based on public perception.

4. Moving People to Higher Ground

“It is foolish to view realism and idealism as incompatible or to consider our power and wealth as encumbered by the demands of justice, morality, and conscience.” — Senator John McCain

Andrew Yang is the only candidate to admit that we are going to have to pay to move people to higher ground. He has an entire policy proposal called “Move to Higher Ground.” While all of the other candidates are talking about climate resiliency as an infrastructure investment, Andrew Yang has come to terms with the reality that some people will need to relocate. He has argued on multiple occasions that poor communities are often hit the hardest by climate change, so it is unrealistic to think they will be able to relocate without help from the government. Andrew Yang’s website states, “We need to help individuals and communities prepare for this inevitability, either through direct adaptation of their residences, or by helping them to relocate.” Andrew Yang’s approach to climate adaptation is proactive and shows deep empathy for the low-income communities that will be affected by major natural disasters.

Furthermore, Andrew Yang is not conceding any climate goals in the name of climate adaptation. He, like the rest of the Democratic field, has ambitious emissions reduction goals. He has set a goal of implementing a zero emissions standard for all new passenger vehicles by 2030. And, he has set a goal of achieving a 100% emissions-free electric grid by 2035. This is on par with every other candidate in the field. Andrew Yang is making a subconscious argument that you can be both realistic and idealistic at the same time.

5. Replacing GDP with an American Scorecard

“You have to have a certain realism that government is a pretty blunt instrument, and without the constant attention of highly qualified people with the right metrics, it will fall into not doing things very well.” — Bill Gates

Andrew Yang is running a human-centered campaign, and one of his most powerful proposals is deprioritizing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the singular measure of a successful economy. Andrew Yang’s proposal is to replace GDP with an American Scorecard that would measure things like public health, education outcomes, and environmental quality. This simple change would inherently alter the rate of progress on environmental issues. This change would effectively increase the priority of addressing climate change. This would also fundamentally change the way we look at infrastructure investments particularly in the areas of energy, water, and transportation. We’d be able to measure our environmental successes in a much more granular and highly visible way. Andrew Yang has remarked, “Our economic system must shift to focus on bettering the lot of the average person. Capitalism has to be made to serve human ends and goals, rather than have our humanity subverted to serve the Marketplace. We shape the system. We own it, not the other way around.” We can shape a system that addresses climate change by deprioritizing GDP.

If you are a climate voter, consider Andrew Yang’s five unique, ambitious, and realistic strategies. We need these ideas to be talked about. This election will define the future of climate progress.