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

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178 farther horizons
Having done that, we might get down to the serious business,
in Eric Roston’s words, of “weaning civilization from the fuels
that enable it, without disrupting civilization . . . the most diffi cult
civic works project ever undertaken—much harder than growing
civilization in the fi rst place” (Roston, 2008, p. 187). That will
require, among other things, recalibrating governance to the way
the world works as a physical system—work begun in the late
1960s and early 1970s by a bipartisan coalition that passed the
National Environmental Policy Act, the major pollution control
laws, and the Endangered Species Act, among other legislation.
We now need to return to that agenda, transcending party affi liations
and ideologies of left and right. In the present emergency
we will have to act with extraordinary unity and foresight. And
the list is long.
We must, in short order, build a world secure by design, restore
fairness to the tax system, rebuild democracy, and relearn the civil
arts of deliberation and thoughtful civic engagement. We must create
an economy fashioned to protect natural capital, rebuild cities,
and re-create intercity and light rail transportation systems that
were dismantled long ago for the greater convenience and profi t
of the auto industry. We must devise policies that penalize carbonbased
fuels while rewarding effi ciency and the use of solar and
wind power. We must devise public and private ways to preserve
soils, forests, biological diversity, and open spaces. We must restore
the capacity of government to ensure fairness, provide equal access
to justice, and protect the commons, including the public airwaves
now dominated by the merchants of fear, ridicule, and discord.
We must create a system that dispenses justice fairly, not merely
expand prisons for young males who are disproportionately Black
or Latino. We must harness the energy and creativity of all our
citizens to build a green economy and solar energy. And we must
refashion our neighborhoods, communities, towns, and cities in
ways that overcome the “nature defi cit disorder” that isolates our
children from the natural world (Louv, 2005). That means a society