How Will Climate Change Transform American Democracy?
Event
This year, New America celebrates 20 years of creating and incubating the next big ideas that address some of the nation's and the world’s toughest problems. We are thinkers, researchers, problem-solvers, and storytellers, united by our goal to hold our nation to its highest ideals. We recognize the challenges presented by rapid technological and social change, and work to ensure that the solutions made possible by those changes lead to greater opportunity for all. As we reach forward toward the next 20 years of New America, we will strive to be an engine of American renewal, at home and abroad.
If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible. In California, wildfires now rage year-round, impacting thousands of lives. Across the U.S., “500-year” storms pummel communities month after month, and floods displace tens of millions annually.
It’s not just an environmental catastrophe we have to worry about. The relentless climate change-related disasters also threaten to strain the very underpinnings of American democracy: uprooting communities, destroying tax bases, increasing racial and class inequalities, reducing trust in government and creating a less stable world beyond our borders.
But just as climate change is a human-made disaster, its solutions can be too. So how do we plan for such a future? And how do we work to prevent and mitigate the worst of it?
Join the New America Fellows Program and Future Tense for a conversation with David Wallace-Wells, author of the New York Times bestselling book The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, and Vann Newkirk, Staff Writer at the Atlantic, about the far-reaching impacts of climate change and steps policymakers and citizens can take to address short-term threats and build long-term strategies for resilience.
Agenda:
5:30 - 6:00 PM: Registration & Reception
6:00 - 7:30 PM: Discussion
Follow the conversation online using #UninhabitableEarth and by following @NAFellows and @FutureTenseNow.
Speakers:
David Wallace-Wells, @dwallacewells
2019 National Fellow
Author, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming
Columnist and deputy editor at New York Magazine
Vann Newkirk, @fivefifths
Staff Writer at the Atlantic
Co-founder, Seven Scribes
Copies of The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming will be available for purchase through our bookselling partner Solid State Books.
This is a partnered event with:
