Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of

leadership in the long emergency S 103
and forestall. Second, in order to consistently implement climate
policy across all branches of government, this and all future
presidents will need the capacity to coordinate actions of federal
departments and agencies that now often confl ict. The president
and Congress will need an expanded federal capacity to assess
technologies similar to that once provided by the Congressional
Offi ce of Technology Assessment, which was terminated in Newt
Gingrich’s “Contract with America” in 1994. In addition, we will
need to expand the foresight capacity of government in novel
and creative ways that more fully engage the National Academy
of Sciences; the broader scientifi c community represented by the
American Association for the Advancement of Science; federal
laboratories, such as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory;
and the president’s science advisor. We need new ideas as
well. British journalist George Monbiot, for example, proposes a
“100-year committee” whose purpose would be “to assess the
likely impacts of current policy in 10, 20, 50, and 100 years’ time.”
Governments, by whatever means, must learn to reconcile shortterm
imperatives with long-term trends in imaginative and effective
ways. But that requires that those presuming to govern have
the capacity and willingness to see connections across political
lines, geography, species, and time.
In the decades ahead, presidents will also need a greater capacity
to respond quickly and effectively to climate-driven disasters.
The failure of the federal response to the devastation caused by
Hurricane Katrina, again, is a textbook example of what not to
do. We must anticipate and prepare for a future in which hurricanes,
large storms, fl ood, fi re, drought, and acts of terrorism may
become the norm. For that reason the capacity of federal government
to respond to emergencies must be much more robust
and effective, not just for occasional events but for multiple and
perhaps frequent events.
But no such changes are likely until the great encampment
of K Street lobbyists is disbanded and sent packing. They have