\n<\/p>\n
What kind of response have you gotten from the White House in response to your resolutions and in the calls for this emergency?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, in the past, it\u2019s been polite interest\u2014and that it wasn\u2019t quite right, and that they have competing demands. But [the devastation] is unbelievable. As somebody who\u2019s been pretty climate savvy, I have been deeply concerned. But this exceeds my worst fear for the intermediate term. I\u2019ve had no doubt that this is where we\u2019re going. But it\u2019s happened much more rapidly and much more intensely. And I think that there\u2019s an opportunity here, if the president makes that declaration, to capitalize on it. It\u2019ll make his job easier, not harder.<\/p>\n I did want to ask about the \u201ccompeting concerns.\u201d The Supreme Court has<\/strong> tied the administration\u2019s hands<\/strong><\/a> on some climate initiatives. We\u2019re also heading into an election year that could determine how the US addresses\u2014<\/strong>or does not address<\/strong><\/a>\u2014climate change at a<\/strong> really critical window<\/strong><\/a> for reversing this or mitigating it. What do you see as the practical limitations or the political risks that the president has to maneuver, and how do you navigate those?<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s where the declaration of the climate emergency comes in, because it does unlock broader powers\u2014and makes it less likely that they will be torpedoed by the Supreme Court or get bogged down in understandable legislative morass. I think giving him that clarity of purpose, enhanced powers, will give him what he needs to be able to contend with these come competing, overlapping, accelerating challenges. I don\u2019t know what the challenge is going to be next month. But I\u2019ll bet it\u2019s going to be something that we are going to need more resources for, more tools\u2014and there will be greater urgency. The president has an unimaginable job\u2014the competing interests, a war in Ukraine, a challenge with China, these are existential threats. But having a climate emergency declaration will help him meet these impossible demands, because they\u2019ve never been more important, they\u2019ve never been more compelling, they\u2019ve never been more complex.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t want to use the word \u201chopeful,\u201d but just what is your sense of how the public pressure is going to build as these things just become more and more in-your-face and difficult to overlook?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think that\u2019s the reality for the president. It is<\/em> going to build. I appreciate you referencing the politics. I think it should not be bound up in politics. But I think that emergency speaks to reinforcing some of the political dynamic for the president, because as you know, some of his supporters have been disappointed, to be charitable. People for whom this disaster has been building and building, and who can\u2019t fathom why the federal government is not pulling out all the stops\u2014I think this helps cut through that. I think it simplifies things for the president. And, as I said, we\u2019re seeing every week, there\u2019s some new metric about extreme heat, about what\u2019s happening with the oceans, with fire, smoke, air quality\u2014it is truly beyond my comprehension, in terms of how these overlapping crises are descending with greater frequency and greater intensity. I think it is something that is not going to be possible to ignore.<\/p>\n There\u2019s still people who deny climate change, who think it\u2019s a hoax. But we\u2019re talking about a minority of the population, and I think the group we need to focus on are those who are persuadable, the folks in the middle, the folks who didn\u2019t believe that it would ever get to be this bad. I think there is a mindset developing that will reward government action. There are people who are depending on government action as never before. Look no further than what\u2019s happening with Hawaii. I think the number of people who care about this is growing. And I think the people who are climate deniers or who feel that there\u2019s no role for the federal government are people who haven\u2019t had their<\/em> community catch fire\u2014and it\u2019s just a matter of time before that circle of need expands.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n