Although climate change is a global problem, the blame for inaction by the entire world rests almost entirely on deniers in the U.S. Congress, almost all of whom are members of the Republican Party. This is because no country wants to do anything about saving the planet as long as the richest and the most technologically advanced country in the world—which has inflicted the most damage on the planet—is watching idly while the crisis is getting worse by the day.
Unfortunately, selfish politicians have decided to make climate change a wedge Issue. Fifty percent of GOP members of Congress are climate science deniers. Among the general public, this number is only 10 percent. That is also because these climate science deniers keep spreading misinformation. Why should there be such a difference between the American public and the Republican Party? I suspect it is because the GOP is not really an anti-science party. It is faking it.
With so few climate science deniers among Democrats and Independents, there is a clear consensus on the science in the United States as a whole. All we have to do is find a way to out the fake climate science deniers.
Here is my plan.
All 535 members of Congress who uphold scientific truth should be given a prize based on how well they present a case to the public for tackling global warming.
They will be required to post a ten-minute video that would be rated by the scientists of the entire world who are willing to volunteer to listen to 535 such speeches. Scientists will rate each speech on a scale of 1 to 100 based on how well the speaker understands climate science and how good a case they make to the public about taking on global warming. Only after they are rated will the speeches be posted on the internet for the general public to watch.
The prize awarded to each politician would depend on the rating they receive. It could be one million dollars per month for someone who scores 100, half a million for someone who scores 50, and so on. This award would be taken away any time the majority of scientists find that the member of Congress is deliberately lying about settled science.
All the 139 climate science deniers will become climate science believers overnight, because I suspect they already believe the climate science but have been lying about it. Even the genuine climate science deniers would lie to say they believe in climate science. In a two-year term, a House member could earn $24 million; a Senate member could earn $72 million in a six-year term.
We just made telling lies about climate science extremely expensive. If all 535 members get perfect scores, the total cost would be $6 billion per year. The entire Congress would become pro-science overnight.
You might say that it is not fair to reward corrupt politicians with such a large sum. You have to think of this as a ransom being paid to 139 corrupt politicians who have forcefully turned the GOP into an anti-science party and prevented any action to address climate change. To the rest of Congress, it is an reward for upholding scientific truth.
Climate change will then stop being a wedge issue. Money will be a non-issue once both parties are interested in solving the climate crisis. We have seen how trillions of dollars started flowing to address the coronavirus crisis in no time. The U.S. can then pressure other countries to spend their money too.
This is my advice to all concerned citizens and climate activists: Shouting slogans in the streets of Europe will not help; nor will begging, blaming, shaming, or yelling at the politicians. What will help is transforming the U.S. Congress into a pro-science body. For that we need a few billionaires to spare $6 billion per year for a few years until the U.S. starts spending serious capital to confront the climate crisis and starts taking a leadership role in the world on saving the planet.
Let us all beg Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin to each chip in a billion dollars every year and put golden handcuffs on the entire U.S. Congress. It is a tiny price to pay for saving humanity.