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

210 S farther horizons
gatherings, engage the global community, and serve as the voice
of the powerless, including posterity. Perhaps one day it could
merge with a similar body summoned by Virgin Airlines owner
Richard Branson and including Jimmy Carter, Vaclav Havel,
Nelson Mandela, Beatrice Robinson, and Desmond Tutu into a
Global Council of Elders. But at any scale the point is the same:
in diffi cult times ahead we will need to hear the voices of the
wisest among us to guide, cajole, admonish, and inspire us along
the journey ahead. And those who govern will need their counsel,
steadiness, and vision.
Beyond the details of policy and a reformed governing system,
the president must resuscitate the role of the president
as educator-in-chief using the offi ce in the way Theodore
Roosevelt once described as a “bully pulpit.” Americans will
need to learn a great deal about climate and environmental science
in a short time. By skillful communications and the use of
the powers of the federal government, the president can help to
raise public understanding about climate science to levels necessary
to create a constituency for the long haul. The president
and others in leadership positions will need as well to build the
case for:
• federally fi nanced elections to remove money from the electoral
process;
• reforming the Federal Communications Commission to
restore the “fair and balanced” standards for use of the public
airwaves;
• ending the revolving door between government service and
private lobbying;
• desubsidizing coal, oil, gas, and nuclear power;
• reducing the Pentagon budget by, say, half to accord with a
more modest U.S. world presence in the world and a smarter
strategy that aims for security by design for everyone not
brute force to protect corporations; and