As our president, Don Trump ignominiously slouched off the international stage, abdicating America’s international responsibilities and damaging our relations with allies we have honored for three-quarters of a century. Without America’s “can-do” spirit, innovative thinking, and sheer confidence, the world may have lost the last great struggle which united all nations. It took a draft-dodging coward to lose America’s pride of place as leader of the free world which my father’s peers—the Greatest Generation—fought and won in World War II. In Jay Inslee’s speech before the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), he muses what our generation will be called. I believe that, if we do not take up the challenge of defeating our climate emergency, they may very well call us cowards or worse.
Jay Inslee relates an interchange that David Wallace-Wells, who authored The Uninhabitable Earth, had with a questioner who asked David how he manages to get up in the morning when he sees so clearly all of this awful truth about the world’s climate:
And [David Wallace-Wells] says, no, no, you don’t understand my book. My book is one based on optimism and confidence, which seems a little oxymoron. And he said, what you need to understand is this is a problem that is within our control. It’s the right kind of problem to have. It’s within our destiny to control.
Jay Inslee makes exactly that case when he speaks to the CFR, and he has the policy plans to prove it. He highlighted a few of the 27 policy initiatives in his Global Climate Mobilization plan to the members of the Council on Foreign Relations; however, he prefaced that with his vision of how it can be done. Other candidates seem to me to put out laundry lists of separate issues which they tick off one by one. Jay Inslee has a whole-government, whole-world strategy with defeating climate crisis as the organizing principle which is something entirely new, drawing from United Nations resources right down to local NGOs and working on all scales.
So I am calling for a new approach to foreign relations, one you might call a global climate mobilization, because nothing else is up to the task that faces this. I believe that defeating climate change must become the organizing principle of our entire foreign policy thought process. It cannot be think as one of the things on our to-do list; it has to be the organizing principle for the next administration of the United States. And I would intend to make it job one not the first day, but every day, because I’m convinced that if it’s not job one it won’t get done. We all know how much political capital it takes to get something done in D.C., and we have to make it the top priority. And I am the candidate—so far the only candidate for president of the United States—who has basically said this, that it has to be the top priority of our effort. [emphasis added]
Gov. Jay Inslee possesses an integrative intellect which conceptualizes problems as existing on all scales from local to global. He also possesses an encyclopedic grasp of all the parts and organizations which constitute how the world works both nationally and internationally. This is a potent combination of talents in combination with thirty years of executive experience.
Astonishingly, Governor Jay Inslee agrees with David Wallace-Wells that it is America’s destiny to lead the world in the struggle to defeat climate catastrophe. Both Jay Inslee and David Wallace-Wells see this problem as an opportunity to make the world over again. Both men expect America to be successful.
And when you think about this from a historical context, the world has never been potentially so united. There’s really never, ever been anything in world history that we all share in every single one of our boroughs and towns and countries, other than this crisis. And we can see this as a new step forward for civilization, and this could be the most unifying thing we’ve ever done as a species. And as Churchill said when they asked him, well, how are you assured of victory, he said because without victory there is no survival. It is the only option. So I remain confident in our ability to do this, and I remain confident that you will give me some brilliant ideas how to effectuate my plans.
He is speaking to an educated audience which understands diplomacy and the international community. There are some rarified ideas out there in this community and in the UN that hold that, when the fabric of society is rent due to war or disaster, it is the best time to introduce change because many of the old structures are not in the way.
“Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.”
~ President John F. Kennedy
Jay Inslee quoted President John F. Kennedy at the end of his remarks, identifying him as simply “Kennedy”. To the generation who remembers JFK (to which I belong), that one name and the lofty ennobling nature of the quote was enough to recall when America’s leader called us to our best, not our worst.
Governor Inslee speaks for the first twenty minutes of the video. He is speaking extemporaneously only looking down at his notes when he moves from one topic to the next.
For the full transcript of Governor Jay Inslee’s speech, please see Angmar’s post Election 2020 Series with Jay Inslee U.S. Role in Global Climate Action Council on Foreign Relations
Global Climate Mobilization
Governor Jay Inslee's Action Plan for American Leadership on the Global Climate Crisis
CLIMATE CHANGE ANXIETY SUPPORT GROUP
dailykos.com/...
A Green Revolution: Climate Anxiety Support Group
(Dk on Facebook)
facebook.com