The American people want Congress 
to act on climate change
by more than a 20-point margin.
What do the President and Senate leadership
think about that?
"I don't care. I don't care.
It's just one of those things"
"Irrelevant." 
"I don't care."
Okay, they don't say they don't care 
about what the American people think, but they don't
and there's no reason we should expect
them to, because the American people
don't elect them, or reelect them. 
The states do,
through the Electoral college and 
Senate elections in individual states.
And 31 out of 50 states are more Republican 
than the American people as a whole.
And among Republicans only 40 percent favor 
more congressional action on climate change.
And only 15 percent think climate change is a 
serious problem that must be addressed now.
So our election system puts the planet
at a severe electoral disadvantage,
not just in 2020, but for the foreseeable future.
That gives us only two possible ways
to get sustained congressional action on
climate change.
The first is to convince a lot of
Republicans that it's a serious problem.
And a lot of people have been trying to
do that, very patiently, for a long time.
But very few Republicans are open to
persuasion,
because not taking climate change seriously
has become a defining
element of the Republican Party identity
so much so that despite decades of
flooding and burning the percentage of
Republicans who think climate change is
a serious problem is exactly the same as
it was 20 years ago. So if you're hoping
to save the planet by convincing
Republicans, more power to you but don't
put all our eggs in that basket.
The other way—the only other way—to get
Congress to make and keep a commitment
to address global warming is for the
American people to exercise our right to
self-government and unrig the election system—
get rid of the Electoral College, and put the
people in charge of choosing the
president and leaders of Congress.
democratism has a plan to do that.
Subscribe to this YouTube channel if you
haven't already, and then go to
democratism.org and sign the
petition calling on your local
legislators to support a vote of the
people to require popular election of
the president and
fair representation in Congress
