Gus Speth (read more about him here), very kindly wrote this to accompany the release of CO2 Newsletter Vol. 1, no. 5. (his testimony to a US Senate committee, in April 1980, is quoted extensively in it.)
What does it mean that we knew enough over 50 years ago to begin serious action on climate change, and didn’t? It certainly does not mean that the issue was forgotten or that the pleas for action were muted or that the problem was too uncertain. I recently wrote a book with MIT Press, They Knew: The U.S. Government’s 50-Year Role in Causing the Climate Crisis (2021), which disposes of those excuses.
We can see now with some clarity that this failure, which in They Knew I referred to as the greatest dereliction of civic responsibility in the history of the Republic, was due and is still due to the confluence of several problematic factors.
In the United States, we will never be able to go far enough, or fast enough, doing the right things on climate, as long as our political priorities are ramping up GDP, growing corporate profits, increasing the incomes of the already well-to-do, neglecting the half of America that is just getting by, encouraging unrestrained consumerism, facilitating great bastions of corporate and money power, and helping abroad only modestly or not at all.
These unfortunate factors and forces are all manifestations of a system of political economy that is not suited to today’s needs. Making the needed progress on climate change, and much else, requires an escape from the fetters of today’s system and an urgent transformation to a new—a next—political economy.
Of course, we must use today’s democracy, flawed though it be, to fight efforts seeking to rollback climate protections, to promote rapid deployment of both technology and policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to adapt to changes we cannot forestall. We must do our best in all these regards, but, beginning now, we must also start to build a new democracy that can address the climate crisis here and abroad with the authority needed—a climate-capable democracy.
Building a climate-capable democracy should proceed down two paths. First, today’s political reality cries out for many straightforward pro-democracy reforms. We know a lot about what is needed in this regard, including actions to shore up voting rights, protect election integrity, and otherwise greatly strengthen our democracy’s functioning.
Beyond such measures, however, deeper changes are needed. We need to recognize that democracy depends for its success on a great many factors in the social and economic spheres as well as the political. Consider the following ways our democracy is constrained today.
When economic inequality mocks political equality, democratic progress is difficult. When corporate power dwarfs people power, democratic progress is difficult. When money is the be all and end all of campaign success, democratic progress is difficult. When the voting public is subjected to repeated lies and endless misinformation and propaganda, democratic functioning is difficult. When future generations and the natural world are not accorded political rights, democracy is deprived and unrepresentative.
In short, there is much that must be done, both working within the current system and also building a new one. I am hopeful but by no means confident.
Gus Speth, 2026