Climate moderation is climate denial, and we should demand strong climate policy as something crucial, not something we can compromise on. If you believe the projections of scientists as they warn us about the perils of different courses of action, half-measures on climate is a choice to let tens of millions of people die or be displaced. Scientists tell us what the effects of different courses of action would be: the results of inaction, of mild action, of moderate action, of comprehensive overwhelming action like a Green New Deal. The only way to believe that moderate action will not kill millions and displace hundreds of millions is to reject the science.
Remember, Democratic proposals on climate change are ones that assume the ideal case, with Democratic executive power and the ability to pass legislation. There is no a middle ground that will somehow win bipartisan support and pass while a more ambitious proposal wouldn't— if Republicans do have some legislative power, they will not compromise on anything. We know this. We've seen this. A Republican compromise on climate would be doing nothing and only building ten more coal plants instead of twenty.
Any candidate's climate proposal comes with the assumption that they would be able to enact it. It might be watered down in the process of passing, but a proposal is a target. It’s a goal. It might get watered down due to lobbying and industry considerations and fears about job losses and whatever else, but it has to be a goal. Of course, a moderate climate policy is still better than nothing, but we won’t even get a moderate climate policy as long as Republicans are in power. So if they aren’t, and Democrats do have the power to pass climate change policies, they cannot be moderate half-measures.
They have to deal with this planetary crisis as the crisis it is, which is a bigger threat to national security, tens or even hundreds of millions of lives around the world, the war and conflict their displacement would create, cities with thousands of years of culture lost forever, a collapse of biodiversity with thousands of species becoming extinct, low-lying lands and most island nations in the world disappearing to sea level rise from a melting Arctic, and all these horrors taking place right now.
It has to come with this assumption, because a “moderate” policy, or even a policy that’s just trying to keep things the way they are instead of creating more pollution and opening more coal plants and loosening fuel efficiency standards or environmental regulation— even a policy making that much concession to Republicans— has no chance of passing either way. So if Democrats do have the power to pass any climate change policy, it needs to be bold and comprehensive.
A “moderate” climate policy” is leaving millions of lives on the table, for what? A meaningless, half-assed gesture at compromise?
If you know anything about American political reality, you know that slight gesture will make no difference. It won't bring Republicans to the table. It won't stop them calling your plan extreme and socialist any more than they would for a Green New Deal. All it amounts to is deciding to let millions die, and hundreds of millions lose their homes, and cities with hundreds of years of history be lost to the waves, for nothing.
How can we justify this? Will our argument for a “moderate” policy be that, actually, this moderate plan won't cause any more damage or kill any more people than the more comprehensive plans on offer? Because that's just glorified climate denialism. There is no way to describe a rejection of the science, and a rejection of what scientists will say in different scenarios with different levels of action, than as climate denialism.
Either we are saying we’re willing to let millions die if Democrats ever won the power to do anything about climate, or we’re just climate deniers rejecting the science, just in a slightly different way from Republicans.