3 crises we shouldn’t waste 

It seems counterintuitive to be grateful for crises, but they teach us something. They are stress tests that reveal our vulnerabilities.And like the guy said, they rude thing wastefully.

There are no shortage of crises to learn about today, but three have reached existential crisis: loss of faith in democracy, civilization’s assault on nature, and the long-standing but still growing threat of nuclear war. I am.

This year is critical to mitigating these crises or perhaps allowing them to worsen beyond the point of no return.

Let’s start with democracy. I can count at least one 70 major elections They are scheduled to be held around the world in 2024, and some of them will decide the fate of democracy.Fewer 8 percent Nearly 40 percent of the world’s population currently lives in full democracy, compared to under authoritarian rule. The remaining countries, including the United States, are considered hybrid or flawed democratic regimes.

World leaders are closely monitoring the US election and oldest existing democracy It’s survival or whether Americans will elect a president with totalitarian instincts and little respect for the alliances free nations have forged to avert world war.

Since entering national politics in 2015, Donald Trump has severely tested America’s commitment to the Constitution, social cohesion, and decency. President Trump is emboldened to speak up about this issue. end of democracy Because almost Two-thirds of Americans are dissatisfied And.

The unspoken question in November’s vote is not just whether Americans have the will to save their democracy, but whether they have the determination to fix it. President Trump’s stress test reveals challenges for reform, including campaign finance limits, ideological balance on the Supreme Court, ironclad protections for voting rights, term limits for judges and lawmakers, and clarifying the president’s law-abiding responsibilities It helped to make it.

The second existential crisis is the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the increasing dangers of brinkmanship. “Nuclear war is often said to be unimaginable,” the editorial said. new york times It was recently pointed out. But “actually, it’s not imagined enough.”

In recent years, leaders have been thinking: Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un and Trump are engaging in irresponsible trash talk regarding nuclear weapons. American voters must now decide whether to give President Trump unrestricted authority to launch nuclear weapons.The president of the United States has been sole authority Nuclear attacks began in 1948.

The danger of nuclear war is now approaching growing in ukraineConflicts have erupted in the Persian Gulf, the Taiwan Strait, and the Korean Peninsula. “A nuclear attack is more likely now than at any time since the Cold War,” the Times’ editors wrote.

Editor economist It warned that President Trump’s apparent lack of commitment to alliances like NATO “could lead to chaos at a time when the global nuclear balance is becoming more unstable.” …That could create the nightmare nuclear giveaway that the United States has always tried to avoid. ”

“In 2024, candidates’ approaches to these risks deserve even more scrutiny than usual,” the paper said. Darryl Kimball, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. “Presidential leadership may be the most important factor in determining whether the risks of nuclear arms race, proliferation, and war rise or fall in the coming years.”

Global warming will be another factor, increasing tensions between nations. U.S. military officials have been warning for years that climate change is a serious problem. “Threat Multiplier”. This brings us to existential threat number three.

Global warming is the result of civilization’s attack on the earth. Only 1 out of 9 “Planetary Boundaries”Civilizations are on the verge of intersection. Each country has tackled many of these issues with goals and agreements. Often spontaneous and inefficient. “The world is full of good intentions,” but Results are dangerously lacking..

Six months ago, nearly $400 billion in federal funds were invested in clean energy under the Inflation Control Act (IRA). two-thirds Percentage of Americans concerned about climate impacts on their communities.is more than 70 percent He said the federal government should cut America’s climate-changing pollution in half over the next six years. But in the 32 years since the U.S. Senate ratified an international agreement to combat global warming, Congress has done little to loosen the fossil fuel industry’s grip.

Republicans are currently trying to eliminate the IRA’s clean energy incentives.

The U.S. Supreme Court gave a valuable gift to the fossil fuel sector and other companies when it declared in 2010: Campaign spending is free speech It is protected by the constitution. The court’s majority simply argued that campaign contributions do not influence how elected officials vote.

By the 2017-2018 election cycle, the oil and gas industry $360 billion Lobbying and campaign contributions – about $500,000 per day, or $13 for every dollar America invests in renewable energy.In the current campaign cycle, oil and gas companies have already $13 billion parliamentary elections and $133 million Regarding lobbying activities.

When we think about how to fix democracy and governance, we need to ask what our constitution would look like if we wrote it today. Our Founding Fathers could not have predicted 250 years ago that we would create and tolerate the polluting technologies and deadly weapons that threaten the Earth’s ability to support life. They probably expected us to elect leaders who believed in and defended their noble experiment: giving people the power to decide their country’s future.

William Becker is the executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP), a bipartisan initiative founded in 2007 that works with the nation’s thought leaders to develop recommendations for the nation’s climate and energy policy. I am creating it. He is a former senior official at the U.S. Department of Energy.