“But while [the authors] conclude that it is technically possible to achieve the rapid changes required to avoid 2.7 degrees of warming, they concede that it may be politically unlikely.”
– Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040 (The New York Times)
I am so glad that you are interested in the environment. Every voter has an issue, and every issue has a voter base. That’s why I, a professional political speechwriter, am here to listen. And to answer your question, sure, why not, I’ll throw in a couple words for the environment at the end of a long list of platitudes.
Tonight, my candidate’s got a couple paragraphs up top on Trump. We’ve got a couple applause-lines on paid family leave. We even got two sentences on Syria, but that’s not till later. So, if you want me to throw in some vagaries on climate change at the very end of a long-winded checklist of progressive values? Why the hell not, but it’s gotta be brief.
We’ve got a lot of mouths to feed in this short victory speech. After the Supreme Court, ICE, transgender rights, and corporate taxation, we really only have time for the phrase, “I believe in climate change” – at the very end. That post-racial Irish dance troupe who phone banked for us is performing next, and we’re already behind schedule.
The environment wasn’t on the list initially, but that doesn’t mean we don’t care about it. It’s just that climate change is everybody’s problem, so it’s therefore kind of nobody’s problem, you know? People don’t turn out to the polls for battery subsidies.
Those in the inspirational speech writing business know that a brief shout-out to climate change always finishes up the liberal roll call. We keep references to it simple because rich liberal men take it up as “their issue,” but are usually anti-carbon tax and the worst effects of climate change will probably never touch them. But it fits their brand, like how “the troops” fits that of rich conservative men: they don’t know any troops, they aren’t directly affected by anything the troops do, but let’s throw ‘em in at the end of a long speech to bring the whole thing home and remember where we stand.
Yes, a Green New Deal would be a sensible economic program that could strengthen our economy and revive our union base in post-industrial swing states. And yes, my winning candidate will be the first-ever elected administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. But this campaign got a lot of support from the LGBT community. And while the EPA has the power to affect precisely zero LGBT issues, we gotta throw them a bone here. PFLAG paid for our yard signs.
So to conclude, I agree that climate change is a fact and it is consequentially irrelevant whether it is “believed” or not. I agree that many voters view it as the most important challenge of the 21st century. But listing off “we support the non-binding aspirations of Paris” – like it’s the last inventory in a shutting-down factory – is all we got time for tonight. Jeff Bezos is the keynote speaker.
