Despite the fact that polls indicate most Americans put a low priority on dealing with the climate crisis (with the percentages giving it a high priority registering in just single digits), our leadership needs to make clear—in oratory and policy—that this is no single-digit matter.

While there have been some important moves in the right direction the past few years, we are far, far away from the level of commitment that is needed.

Although she has moved in a much better direction in this matter than where she was two years ago, and has set forth a number of important, valuable proposals, we need soon-to-be President Clinton to be far more aggressive in this matter than she has so far indicated she will be.

We need a climate hawk in charge of several Cabinet posts, not just at the Environmental Protection Agency or Department of Interior. At Transportation. At Defense. At Agriculture.

In last night’s debate, the climate crisis was just a blip, an afterthought. The issue only arose because Clinton brought it up, without a single question on the subject from Lester Holt. Media moderators argue that climate questions don’t make for good television. Really? How about asking the candidates what they think about the conspiracy of Exxon executives to withhold information about climate change they knew to be true and to spend hundreds of millions lying about it and smearing the climate truth-tellers for decades? That doesn’t make for good television?

You would think—given their penchant for turning even small disasters into major events with intense coverage—the media would view the climate crisis with an eye to their viewership numbers considering how disastrous that crisis is already becoming and how much worse it will soon be. Why not coverage about what many cities and some states are doing?

Hoi polloi progressives also need to become more aggressive. Dealing with this crisis isn’t just the job of our leaders to ameliorate the results of a quarter-millennium of burning fossil fuels so prodigiously. Climate Mobilization is where we need to be. See also Bill McKibben​ on this.

Taking aggressive action is more than a mere matter of saving us from the worst impacts. It’s about creating an entirely new energy and agriculture and transportation system. A modern, sustainable infrastructure to replace the rickety and counterproductive one that exists. It’s about creating tens of millions of new clean, green jobs. This isn’t pie-in-the-sky rhetoric; it’s reality.

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