After Denver

After attending Climate Reality's three-day leadership training in Denver, I have a certificate, a green lapel pin, a few new friends, a dozen or so friendly acquaintances - and a much greater commitment to becoming active in the cause of combatting AGW.

AGW.  Anthropogenic Global Warming.  My choice of terms, not anything official from Climate Reality.

Because, while I have taken the training and signed on with the organization to spread its message, I've never been much of an "organization man".  Climate Reality is an impressive group, as is - I can now say - its founder and chairman, Al Gore.

But I'm still my own man.  Always will be.

But about Al Gore.  The Denver event was Al Gore's event.  I'd expected him to give a welcome address and drop in occasionally to cheer us on.  Not a bit of it.  Of all the speakers, teachers, and panelists we heard over our three-day training, Al Gore shouldered the greatest part of the burden.  He did give a welcoming address, as well as a moving "commencement" speech at the end.  He also chaired several panel discussions.

But the main thing he did was to train us in adapting and presenting of own versions of his famous, and constantly updated, "slide show" - the original of which was featured in the film that won him the Nobel Prize, An Inconvenient Truth.  

Mr. Gore has built a sophisticated organization around this slide show, which has trained some 11,000 volunteers to spread the word about Climate Change, and is rapidly ramping-up its operation.  There were just under 1000 of us at Denver, culled from nearly three thousand who applied to attend.

Two more training sessions will be held in 2017.  The effort is global.  Climate Reality is an impressive organization.

I came away from the Denver training with two main thoughts.  First, I want to do my part as a Climate Reality "leader" - essentially, as a teacher and public speaker.  I want to present a personalized version of the "slide show" - which is what we're mainly asked to do - to as many groups as possible in my part of Virginia.

But second, I want to work outside Climate Reality on the one thing I believe will do the most good - building a third party of the progressive center.

This, in truth, has long been my hope for America.  At the Denver training, as I expected, an overwhelming majority of the attendees were Democrats, or at least, outspokenly anti-Republican.  It would be fair to guess that an overwhelming majority were politically liberal.

For sure, most of them looked at the issue of combatting climate change as a partisan, left-vs.-right battle.

And I don't.

I can readily agree with my fellow Climate Reality members that Donald Trump's administration will be a disaster for America's role in the struggle to maintain a livable planet.

I just don't agree that electing Hillary Clinton would have been a great deal better.  Eight years of Barrack Obama got us a little closer to doing something real about AGW.  Mr. Obama certainly said the right things, and there were some important executive actions - if mostly too little, too late, and too easily reversed by his successor.

But the problem is, the climate fight has become bogged down in partisan trench-warfare.  Democrats embrace the issue of climate change, so Republicans feel obliged to deny its reality, or its urgency.  And that leads to Congressional gridlock.

But not even the Democrats place the issue high on their list of priorities.  Maintaining entitlements, better pay for teachers, equal pay for women, abortion rights, child care, blue-on-black violence, tax breaks for the middle class, infrastructure projects, and a half-dozen other issues - all demanded by one or another of the Democratic Party's constituent tribes - outweigh doing something about a planet which is rapidly warming to a point where really bad things will happen to us all.

And keep happening for centuries, because irreversible processes will have been set in motion.

Now, I don't for a minute believe that America's political paralysis will doom the planet.  Other countries - less troubled by corporate-funded denialism - are moving forward rapidly on this issue.  As are many American cities, a handful of states, and more than a few forward-looking corporations.

We will - as Al Gore believes and argues - save the planet.   The rapid pace of technological change, coupled with market forces and the leadership of the EU (especially Germany and the Scandinavian nations), many developing nations (which will skip right over the fossil fuel stage), and China, will likely save the day.

But in the process, America will cease to lead the world - politically and economically.  We will fall behind, yielding our place of prominence to those who offer real solutions to a grave existential problem.

History works that way.

For me, the answer has long been a new party.  A distinctly nationalistic party, embracing American exceptionalism and American leadership in the world.  A party that sees leadership on AGW as both a noble cause and as an opportunity to extend this nation's influence - for the good - for another half-century or more.

I'll keep writing about this.  And presenting the Climate Reality slide show.  Because to me, the two things go together.

We'll probably survive America's partisan political gridlock.  Just not as the world's leader.

And that shouldn't be.