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

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104 politics and governance
corrupted democracy and undermined our prospects for too long.
Despite recent and voluminous evidence of infl uence peddling
and scandal, their power is scarcely diminished and poses a signifi -
cant threat to any effective climate and energy policy. President
Obama and those to follow must permanently curtail the power
of money in U.S. politics. While there is no shortage of ideas on
how to do so, the best solution would be to remove money from
the electoral process once and for all by publicly fi nancing elections
to national offi ces.
Early on, federal policy must encourage climate mitigation
and adaptation at state and local levels. Presidential leadership
will be necessary to cement partnerships with governors, mayors,
and business leadership to build locally and regionally resilient
economies, food systems, and distributed energy networks that
would enhance the capacity to withstand the disruptions of climate
change. Distributed energy in the form of widely dispersed
solar and wind technology would buffer communities from supply
interruptions, failure of the electrical grid, and the shock of
sudden price increases. Similarly, the resuscitation of local agriculture
would reduce dependence on long-distance transport from
distant suppliers.
In the 1930s, President Roosevelt experimented with a variety
of ways to put Americans to work doing useful things. The Civilian
Conservation Corps, for example, put the unemployed and
youth to work building roads, schools, and public buildings and
restoring the public lands. Updated to the 21st century, that model
is a good one for the establishment of green economies such as
that proposed by attorney Van Jones to engage the disadvantaged
and unemployed in a new green economy built from the bottom
up ( Jones, 2008). The energy and creativity of young people,
trained in renewable energy technologies, could be deployed to
build wind farms, install solar technologies, and improve energy
effi ciency in low-income communities while creating millions of
new jobs.