Many of us thought we could not possibly go through another cycle in which this issue plays little role in the Democratic primaries and no role at all in the general election. Depending on which polls you follow, public concern about the climate crisis is at or near a high. Finally, people are seeing with their own eyes how threatening this problem is. In California, fire risk is now so severe that in certain parts of the state, electric companies are preparing to cut off the power, for days or even weeks, to keep wires from sparking blazes. Who says civilization cannot go backward?

In fairness to the Democrats, turning the climate issue to their advantage in a general election is certainly going to be tricky. Only a decade ago, Republicans like John McCain took the problem seriously, but now the Republican Party can be counted on for relentless demagogy about any solutions proposed by the Democrats. The Bolsheviks are coming!

Worse, the environmental movement, a core element of the Democratic base, is famously fractious. When Mr. Obama was pushing a 2009 bill that would have restricted carbon emissions, some environmental groups actively opposed it, wanting a tougher bill. We see where that got us. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, still harbors a grudge about that opposition from the left, and rightly so.

But I think there’s a way for the Democrats to run on climate in a general election. The polls tell us that people really love clean energy; Republican voters don’t love it quite as much as Democrats, but they are not far off. Even some Republicans who do not think climate change is a problem seem to like wind turbines and solar panels. I think a Democrat running with a sunny, positive message about the benefits of the energy transition could pick up intense climate voters without scaring off the center-right.

But to get to that point, we need a serious climate debate in the Democratic primaries. All the candidates want to curb fossil fuel emissions, but there is far from a consensus on how to do it. Should nuclear power be part of the solution? A tax on carbon emissions? Tougher regulations? The candidates disagree. Let’s hear what they have to say. If we do, we’ll also see which candidate, under competitive pressure, displays the rhetorical skills the party needs to make this a winning issue in a national election. If the D.N.C. continues with this ludicrous position of stamping out climate discussion in the primaries, we’ll never find out.

So I have a proposal for the Democratic candidates: All of you care about the climate crisis, and many of you have already put a lot of work into showing the voters that you do. I suggest that you simply refuse to accept the D.N.C. edict. If the party will not host a climate debate, agree among yourselves that you are going to have one. Ask one of the cable channels to put it on the air.

As David Hawkins, director of climate policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, pointed out on Twitter, if enough of you agree to do it, the D.N.C. will have to fold. Right now they are trying to bully Jay Inslee, but it will only work as long as he stands alone.

That means you have it in your collective power to give Democratic voters the debate on the climate crisis that they need and deserve.

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