The truth about climate change: It’s bipartisan

Climate change is an issue that is “completely consistent with Christian conservative orthodoxy,” former U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis, R-South Carolina, says.

“It is not hearsay. It is actually starting to pop, and it’s really pleasant to see Republicans come around,” Inglis said on April 4 at the “Climate Forward: Navigating the Politics of Climate Change” conference.

The event drew an estimated 1,000 people, including former Secretary of State John Kerry, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, former California Senator Kevin de León and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. Several business leaders and USC Dornsife faculty members also served on panels.  

The conference was hosted by USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Science’s Center for the Political Future and USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, and the Schwarzenegger Institute at the USC Price School for Public Policy.

Inglis lost his seat in 2010 after arguing that it was time to address climate change, potentially through a tax on carbon emissions. He attributes the loss to his stance, which has since intensified as he advocates for various measures to slow global warming.

New York Times environmental writer Lisa Friedman sat on the panel with Inglis. She told the moderator, Center for the Political Future Director Bob Shrum, that there appears to be momentum to address the problem.

“After the midterm, there were all these stories saying not to expect much on climate change,” Friedman said. “But here we are and there is a lot.”

Friedman noted that U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, has been pushing for legislation that has been dubbed the “Green New Deal.” The resolution represents a broad-sweeping plan to address climate change through multiple measures, including reducing American dependence on fossil fuels to power cars, homes and businesses, and switching to sustainable energy options, such as hydrogen, wind and solar power.

Democrats and advocates who support Ocasio-Cortez say the deal is necessary to slow global warming.

Shrum asked the panel if promotion of the Green New Deal is hurting or helping the cause. Some political experts argue that some key conservative leaders, including U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, may further resist or deny climate change because of the far left officials who promote the Green New Deal.

“It’s sort of analogous to the antiwar demonstration that was successful in creating dissonance that led to the end of the Vietnam War,” Inglis said. “A conservative in Florida just released, just yesterday, an answer to the Green New Deal. It could help us” garner support to address climate change.

However, he said, Democrats who lean liberal should avoid making the mistakes that the “tea party” members of the Republican Party made. “The tea party of the right has learned next to nothing over the last 10 years” with regard to climate change.

Former California Senate President pro tempore Kevin de León, a Democrat, told the panel that California has already experienced government controlled by Republicans that did not address climate change. Since then, the state has become known as a blue state, with most state and congressional seats occupied by Democrats.

The state has the strictest auto emissions standards in the country, he noted.

“California has set the pathway. New Mexico just signed into law 100 percent clean energy,” de León said. Other states taking action include Illinois and even Ohio.

“The economics play out. If it takes putting Old Glory on top of a solar array panel or on top of a wind turbine to make it more patriotic, then so be it,” he said.

Julien Emile-Geay, associate professor of Earth sciences at USC Dornsife, says he finds it incomprehensible that climate science somehow became affiliated as an issue of the left.

“I find it really dumbfounding that it comes to be branded as an issue of the ‘tea party of the left,’” he said. “Theoretically, it should be more oriented to the right.”

Panelist Henry Elkus is the CEO and founder of Helena, a company that focuses on bringing together world leaders to address global issues such as climate change.

Elkus said the challenge with motivating people to support action to address climate change is that the enemy has no face. It does not seem obvious what humanity is up against, despite the abundant imagery of species in peril, cracks in the Antarctic ice and melting Arctic glaciers.

However, “we need to act before we see the villain in all this,” Elkus said.

Watch video of the discussion on the USC Dornsife Facebook page (starts at 17:50 mark).

Find video of all speeches and panel discussions, including keynote addresses by former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Mayor Garcetti, here.