I am also getting sick and tired of this idea that the job of politicians is simply to check which way the political wind is blowing and adjust their messaging accordingly. This is how moral cowards act. Think about how this way of doing politics would encourage us to act during, say, the Civil Rights movement, or the Vietnam War. Instead of asking: Is Jim Crow unconscionable? Or Should the war be stopped? we would ask “how does the voting public rank the movement in terms of its core priorities?” And if it turned out that the majority of voters (who were white) didn’t care much about the Civil Rights movement, or actively disdained it (which was true), well, that would be reason enough not to talk about racial injustice. If Americans were indifferent to the war, there would be no responsibility to condemn it.

But when an issue threatens the future of the planet, we have a responsibility to try to shift public opinion. The task of a political leader becomes even more urgent if the public does not appreciate the level of danger they are in. Abandoning the issue is not optional when the fate of the planet is at stake.

I have so far spoken as if the premise of public indifference is true. But here’s the really crazy thing: it’s not even true. The public wants more climate action, not less!