The 2020s Through Partisan Lenses — What Will It Mean for Climate Change?

We have met the enemy, and s/he is us.[i]

— Pogo

For much of the decade of the 2010s, I’ve spoken and written about climate change — calling it the greatest threat facing the nation. I was wrong.

The greatest threat is our collective unwillingness to bridge the gaping and deepening divide that separates Republicans and Democrats. As our nation’s climate has grown warmer, our politics have turned colder. (See Figure 1) Where the federal government was once considered a part — albeit an imperfect one — of needed solutions, it is now considered a primary problem.

There is no national policy issue on the table today that does not reflect and suffer from the increasingly hardened differences between the nation’s major political parties.

The political division reflects two opposing Americas — of almost equal electoral strength. The federal government remains in gridlock at a time when concerted action is needed to address climate change and other of the nation’s pressing problems.

As we begin the 2020s, it is critical for Americans — all Americans — to step back for a moment and take stock of what the national body politic has become. As Lee Drutman writes —