I admit that electability drove me for much of the run up to the primaries. “Anyone but Trump,” was my motto, and everyone but Trump seemed to be in the running. But the climate crisis had caught my attention. Perhaps it was when my family had to evacuate due to the fires in our county. Perhaps it was the friends who knew enough to sag with sorrow about the future our planet and our peoples faced. I’d been looking slant at the issue because I didn’t see many models for how to handle it, with urgency and grace. Mary DeMocker was one of the first, when she spoke to a group at the Grange in my adopted hometown of Sebastopol. The title of her book spoke to me: The Parents’ Guide to Climate Revolution: 100 Ways to Build a Fossil-Free Future, Raise Empowered Kids, and Still Get a Good Night’s Sleep.

 

What we need now is not this man or that man (and that’s what it’s come down to: this man or that man or that man). What we need is the Green New Deal. And Bernie Sanders is the only one of those men who embraces the Green New Deal. But all of us who are in this fight to save the planet are in it for way more than which one of these candidates triumphs now or in the fall. We have to be. It’s a steep path ahead no matter what. But we are a growing and determined group—I hope you are one of us—and it is growing and determined groups that change the course of history.

 

So as we face the disappointments of the primary, I want to pull out words from two leaders in the push for the Green New Deal.

 

Bernie Sanders gave a speech (reprinted in full here in the NY Times) that outlined the many questions he wanted to ask of his “friend Joe” in the next debate, and one of them said:

 

“Joe, how are you going to respond to the scientists who tell us we have seven or eight years remaining to transform our energy system before irreparable harm takes place to this planet because of the ravages of climate change?”

Please give this question the utmost consideration. We must have a candidate who has a real and immediate answer. Joe Biden does not. And we do not have time for better-than. Electability is not enough. We have to change the direction of the world. Part of this is learning how to be a powerful coalition, a movement, a team.

In response to the vitriol that has been thrown at Elizabeth Warren for not endorsing Bernie Sanders, we had this in the New York Times:

Mr. Sanders’s highest-profile surrogate, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, said she understood Ms. Warren’s hesitation and suggested it was a teachable moment for the left.

“I always want to see us come together as a progressive wing,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said. “I think that’s important and where we draw strength from. But at the same time, I come from the lens of an organizer, and if someone doesn’t do what you want, you don’t blame them — you ask why. And you don’t demand that answer of that person — you reflect. And that reflection is where you can grow.” Elizabeth Warren Is Unlikely to Endorse Bernie Sanders. Here’s Why. NYTimes 

This is crucial–we have an opportunity to approach this moment as organizers and activists, to learn and grow and connect. And as we move toward necessarily coalition, let’s keep in mind the issues and policies that matter most.

Here, then, is Joe Biden, speaking after this past Tuesday’s primaries:

“I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else,” Mr. Biden said in Detroit on Monday night, campaigning with new endorsers like Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Senators Kamala Harris and Cory Booker. “There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.” NYTimes 

 

Neither of these men in their late 70s can be much more than a bridge, can they? And yes, either of them is better by far than what we currently have. But better than now is not enough. If we don’t get someone who embraces the Green New Deal, our kids’ life expectancy isn’t going to be much longer than our candidates.