By Julian McCall, Features Editor

Politics through green-colored glasses grants political legitimacy based upon leaders’ ability to ensure social balance and human security within the ecological limits of Earth. Transitioning from our carbon civilization to one harmonious with our planet is the challenge of the 21st century, a challenge that must be met with a political-economic system capable of solving it. 

Revolutionizing our global political structure is necessary to avoid climate failure. Tethering political legitimacy to economic growth and protecting the interests of the economic elite disincentivizes pursuing radical change at precisely the moment we must take grand–and expensive-action to prevent the worst effects of climate change and adapt to the ones we’re experiencing now. Our current political economy isn’t structured to promote such aggressive climate action. Therefore, we must adopt alternative systems that do allow for the green transition. 

Currently, our political structures are premised on the idea that the individual pursuit of wealth is the best thing for society. Considering the world in which capitalism developed–where 81% of the global population were impoverished in 1800–this perspective can be understood. Putting food on the table and a roof overhead was the primary challenge. However, today we have largely solved this problem. Though billions continue to struggle for these human necessities, this is due to our inequitable distribution of resources rather than an inability to provide food and housing for all. 

Now, our challenge is to sustainably live within the limits of Earth. We cannot find adequate solutions within a system that holds perpetual economic growth–a myth of a bygone era and irreconcilable with ecological stability–as a foundational belief. 

Every political system has trade-offs. While capitalism has helped humankind live in better material conditions today than at any point in the past, this is not a neutral position. For example, we accept a certain degree of homelessness, unemployment, and underemployment. Our cheap consumer goods support a global system of worker exploitation, and in exchange for economic growth, we allow a handful of individuals to have more wealth than 4.6 billion people. Our planet is the biggest casualty-as the absurd amount of biodiversity loss over the past two centuries, the dirty air we breathe and water we drink, and the plastic swimming in the ocean attest to. 

Doughnut economics offers an opportunity to stake political legitimacy outside growth. Developed by economist Kate Raworth, this model develops a baseline amount of human prosperity–such as adequate basic survival needs and social equity–with a ceiling of environmental impacts. Within this system, leaders would be judged by their ability to balance these two interests–to stay inside the doughnut. 

We must transition. There’s simply no other option. Already, we are experiencing the first glimpses of what a rapidly warming world entails. If the climate crises occurring in developing countries, such as the famine in Madagascar or the rising sea levels threatening island states like Micronesia, aren’t enough to motivate aggressive action, then this past summer of flooded German towns and burnt resort towns in Utah should illustrate the future of our world. The warmer we make Earth, the more severe the ramifications. 

We forfeited the right to a gradual transition with our decades of climate inaction. Yet, that’s exactly what our political leaders are attempting to enact now. With current international pledges targets, we’ll likely reach nearly 2.5C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. 

Our current system encourages each country to develop its own goals, but this must be a worldwide green transition. We must reduce emissions and help people everywhere prepare for the rising sea levels, droughts, floods, crop failures, and other challenges of a warming climate. This must be global, especially considering that areas least responsible for climate change, such as East Africa and island nations like Micronesia, are already struggling with the effects of climate change. Industrialized countries that burned their way to wealth are responsible for helping the world’s vulnerable adapt. 

Climate change is a fundamentally different challenge than any we’ve faced before. We have limited ability to project what climate conditions will look like in 2050, and even less ability to comprehend the severity of our situation.  Our language reflects this. For example, we still say “summer 2021 was the hottest in U.S. history,” rather than “summer 2021 was the hottest in U.S. history, but will likely be one of  the cooler ones of the century.” 

“We cannot solve problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”–Albert Einstein 

Einstein’s statement is a solemn reminder of the revolutionary change in thinking we must embrace to survive and thrive in the warmer world our carbon civilization is creating. We must actively pursue this change–passively assuming everything will be ok without action is a grave risk to us and unforgivable for our descendants.