We Lack Intensity for Climate Action. So Let’s Do Something About It! Part One
Our Current Political Moment for Climate Action
We haven’t yet built The Climate Movement that is to become the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world.
That’s our destiny. We haven’t yet claimed it.
But we must.
We have the potential within us. But we haven’t yet realized that potential.
It’s time.
The Current Political Moment for Climate Action
Our vision, purpose, and Major Goal as I have articulated them are all wrapped up in one statement: to overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.
I have defined “overcoming climate change” as: to keep warming to 1.5C above preindustrial levels, or with minimal overshoot that is quickly brought back down; we then continue to reduce beyond 1.5C to a level that is natural for our time.
So how are we doing? The short answer: not good.
A recent report by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and five other organizations looking at how things stand 10 years after the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, where 1.5C was enshrined as a goal, puts it succinctly: “global efforts across the highest-emitting sectors fall far short of what’s needed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (°C).”
Around the world the political landscape for climate action has changed, and not in a good way. An Axios piece captures this with its headline: “The World’s Great Climate Collapse.” What it sketches is a political-optical retreat on robust climate action. Being bold on climate has gone out of political fashion, with so-called “leaders” putting their fingers in the wind and judging that climate action is no longer seen as the hot topic for cool kids.
As the Axios piece also notes, actual climate action in the form of the clean energy transition is still taking place. And the Iran War/Strait of Hormuz fiasco has given a boost to this transition.
But if we don’t change the political optics of climate action, we won’t come close to the speed of change needed, and maybe even the scale that’s needed. Clean energy is going to win, eventually. But it’s The Climate Movement that must turn this transition into a transformation with the speed and scale needed to overcome climate change.
If our current political moment doesn’t convince us it’s time for The Climate Movement to become our destiny — the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world — I don’t know what will. It’s time to step up.
Time to Get Unbefuddled
A scene in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation may capture something of our current moment. A middle-aged American actor, Bob Harris (Bill Murray) stuck in a rut whose career has stalled, in Japan shooting a whiskey commercial trying to say the lines “For relaxing times …” with more intensity, as the director yells at him in Japanese — is this a metaphor for where The Climate Movement is right now? Stuck in a rut in relaxing times that need more intensity as the world yells at us in a language we don’t understand?
Are we relaxing with intensity?
As Forrest Gump said, “I don’t know about that.”
We’re not in relaxing times, that’s for sure. But we are stuck in a rut. And we need more intensity. No doubt about that. Maybe we’re a bit befuddled, like Bob Harris.
Well, it’s time to get unbefuddled. Time to get unstuck. Time to get moving again. Time to get intensified. Bob Harris doesn’t have the answer. We don’t need a shot of whiskey. We do need a shot in the arm, and maybe even a kick in the pants.
Friends, the current political optics on climate action highlight a fundamental truth: The Climate Movement is indispensable to overcoming climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.
This is our time. This is our kairos moment. We must seize it. We must realize the potential within us.
Today’s Intensity — In The Toilet
But the fact is, right now, our intensity is in the toilet. We are nowhere near what we need to be. The political optics on climate action for finger-in-the-wind politicians has changed because they don’t see popular support and a movement pushing them for bold action. Simple as that.
As I demonstrated in our last post, polls show good potential for growing our numbers.
But what about our intensity potential? The sooner we realize our intensity potential the sooner we’ll realize our numbers potential. The climate challenge is pushing us to move faster, ASAP.
» What We Need in the US
In Fall 2019 and early 2020, the ramp-up period before the Democratic primaries to pick who would run against Trump, polls showed climate action as a top three concern of Democratic voters, with one even having it #1 (see YouGov graph, below). Democratic candidates started tripping over themselves to offer a bolder climate program than their opponents. This included then-candidate Biden, who earlier put out a plan that I graded as a solid “B.” After these poll results he revised his plan to a solid “A.” During his Administration the boldest climate plan in US history was passed (sadly to be substantially reversed by Trump).
Politicians Respond to Intensity
When politicians know of our intensity on climate action they respond.
What we need is for climate action to rate in the top three of voting issues for both Climate Movement Artist-Athletes and Climate Action Supporters.
» What We’ve Got in the US
As you can see from two YouGov graphs I’ve placed side by side below, we went from climate being the #1 voting issue for Democrats at 24.3% on Dec 31, 2019, to 9.4% on July 13, 2026.
As seen in the Table below, in a Fall 2025 Yale/GM poll, for those issues ranked “very important,” climate change ranked #13 for Liberal Democrats and #17 for Moderate Ds. For Republicans it ranked #24, or next to last, for Moderate Rs and #25 or dead last for Conservative Rs.
For Liberal Ds, it should be in the top two, for Moderate Ds, the top three. It should be in the top five for Moderate Rs, and top ten for Conservative Rs.
When the Yale/GM Fall 2025 poll asked what was the most important voting issue for the midterms, as can be seen in the Table below1, climate change is nearly non-existent: 2% for Democrats (Liberal, 3%; Moderate, 1%) and zero for Republicans.
What all these numbers confirm is what we already know in our gut: our offense is not on the Field of Action. Our offense is on the sidelines, and our opponents have the momentum and the ball.
No Hope-Dope Here
Is this some downer kinda message? What happened to hope?
You’ve come to the wrong place if you aren’t looking for the truth about where we are right now. Realistic hope, authentic hope, hope based in reality — that’s the only kind of hope I offer.
Hope isn’t a drug to dull our sense of reality. No hope-dope here. No feel-good false hope here.
It’s time to face the facts of our current situation as a movement. We’re dead in the water. That’s not to denigrate all those working hard not to make this so.
But it is so.
Hope doesn’t sit on its butt. Hope moves. Hope faces reality, sees what needs to be done, and does it. Every step forward creates hope and more hope.
Facing this reality honors those working to change it.
It’s also time to see what we will be — the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world. That’s our destiny. It’s time to make it a reality, our reality. We’re not waiting for someone to give us hope. We make hope happen. We are the hope.
But to be the hope we’ve got to get in the game. We can’t be the hope on the sidelines. We can’t be the hope if our intensity is in the toilet.
We’re not settling for this. No frikkin’ way. Time to take the ball back and run with it. We’ve got to realize the intensity potential that is within us to make our future come faster.
Our Passion Must Ignite Our Potential
What we need is a sense of passion, our second characteristic/imperative/goal of The Climate Movement.
Here’s what I’ve said about this imperative:
Without passion climate action won’t become what it needs to be: a defining cause of our lives, something we fight for even at personal cost and risk. Passion must drive us to give ourselves to something greater, something worthy of the sacrifices we make. Passion must awaken within us and bring forth who we really are. It fires our creativity and propels us into lives that are meaningful.
Passion pushes us to changes our ways, to do what it takes, to join the struggle, to fight for what’s right, to find our Olympian Fields of Action and make our unique contribution to victory.
We have the potential. Our passion must ignite our potential. How?
Stay tuned for Part Two!
If you are new here, check out our Intro Series. If you like this post, please “like,” comment, and share. And thanks for all you’re doing.
I modified this Yale/GM Table by excluding some of the categories to make the Table shorter.