Code red: How we can work together to save our planet — and our democracy

Our democracy is on the brink of collapse, and so too, according to this week's report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is our planet.

Yet, by focusing on the protection of our environment, we can alleviate the most severe consequences of climate change and at the same time save our democracy.  

America’s uncivil political war surrounds us in media-hyped anger every moment we’re connected to our smartphone, convincing us that our cultural divide is too wide to surmount. The truth is the opposite. 

From our experience, most Americans can work together to resolve their differences on almost any issue, simply by talking. Robust civil discourse, even if it begins in anger, can lead us to understanding and shared purpose.

We have gathered citizens across the divide hundreds of times. At most, 15% of us on the far left and right are unable to hear each other at all. The rest of us are "resolutionaries" — we make our case, hear others, empathize, meet diverse needs and form healthy communities. 

But today’s political and media industries don't give us the chance. They favor the voices of extremists, deepening our fear of each other and drowning out the reasonable, silenced supermajority. 

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For more than 30 years, each of us has gathered folks at odds with one another on issues that seem impossible to resolve. Time and again, we find solutions that 7 in 10 can support. The results compromise no one’s principles and weave together the wisdom of the left and the right, revealing how they fit together to be greater than their sum. 

Nowhere is this more true than on the environment. It is a myth that the left wants to protect the planet and the right does not. Saving the planet’s living systems is a pro-life movement we all support.

Political power brokers make billions by dividing us into separate voter siloes – a blue echo chamber that barrages us with vile conservative hate, and a red silo that insults us with ugly progressive arrogance. 

All of us value nature

But there is an easy way to overcome this. Recently we convened a Living Room Conversation among conservatives, progressives and not-so-sure voters to explore common ground solutions for our planet's environmental challenges. Three areas of broad and linked agreement quickly emerged. 

First, we all love nature. We sense how sacred she is. Some of us are imbued with a primal impulse to hunt or gather the fruits of nature, as our forebears did for millions of years. Others let industry do the work for us, but enjoy simply knowing that nature is out there.

Many of us love to bring our families to parks and on adventures to sacred spaces. Most of us know our survival depends on preserving the vital ecosystems that allow creation to flourish. And when we sit quietly in nature, nearly all of us sense the presence of a lifeforce that we may not be able to define, but that is unmistakably present. 

Second, most of us seek to be wise stewards of nature, preserving her capacity to create. We favor harnessing the sun and wind whenever we can, with backup from traditional sources like natural gas and emerging ones like batteries. This simply makes common sense. 

Third, most of us agree, on reflection, that we can’t make pollution free. It is important that we all pay for the pollution we generate, not as a punitive penalty for our sins, but as a constant reminder to reduce our negative and enhance our positive footprints on the planet. Charging for pollution, then returning the money to the public, ensures that incentives align with needs. 

Majority can support solutions

A quick application of En-ROADS, a powerful online tool developed by MIT scientists, suggests that conservation, clean electrification, and a revenue-neutral price on carbon and waste can achieve the global goal of a maximum 1.5 to 2-degree Celsius increase in global temperatures by 2100. This is one of many possible low-cost, nature-based solution sets that the majority of us can agree to when we talk. 

It’s time for Americans to talk. Political power brokers want us to believe our differences are too wide, so we will leave public policy in their hands.

But there is a growing movement to bridge differences and talk, not just about democracy and the environment, but about every issue, every need and every choice. The solutions to the overwhelming problems we face in our environment and in our democracy will be found by people who understand that our differences make us whole. 

We are the resolutionaries. Let’s take America forward, again.

Bill Shireman is president and CEO of Future 500, a nonprofit dedicated to finding common ground for the common good. Joan Blades is co-founder of Living Room Conversations.