Perhaps the most politically difficult aspect of climate change is that, after decades of denial and delay, there is no longer any coherent “moderate” position to be had. To allow temperatures to rise past 1.5° or 2°C this century is to accept unthinkable disruption to agriculture, trade, immigration, public health, and basic social cohesion. To hold temperature rise to less than 1.5° or 2°C this century will require enormous, heroic decarbonization efforts on the part of every wealthy country. Either of those outcomes is, in its own way, radical. There is no non-radical future available for the US in decades to come. Our only choice is the proportions of the mix: action vs. impacts. The less action we and other countries take to address the threat, the more impacts we will all suffer. Politicians who hamper the effort to decarbonize and increase resilience are not moderates. They are effectively choosing a mix of low action and high impacts — ever-worsening heat waves, droughts, floods, and hurricanes. There is nothing moderate about that, certainly nothing conservative. For years, climate scientists, advocates, and activists have been trying to get politicians to understand this about climate change: that indifference and inaction are not neutral. Every day that goes by, more damages are baked in and getting the problem under control is more difficult. The cost of preventing future impacts is tiny relative to the cost, in lives and money, of adapting to them. The only way to conserve what Americans love in this country is to act aggressively to limit carbon emissions, commercialize clean-energy technologies, and wind down fossil fuel production — and help other countries to do the same. To do less means to conserve less, to accept more loss. Has the Democratic Party taken this message to heart? We’re going to find out in coming weeks. I’m going to describe some political forces that threaten to limit or constrain Democrats’ climate ambitions in favor of “moderation” and then take a closer look at the political drama going on in DC these days around infrastructure. We’re about to get an unusually clear test case of Democrats’ commitment to climate policy.The right is creating a new “other side” in the climate debatePretty much every demographic outside of hard-core conservatives is concerned about climate change and wants to address it — most notably young people, who aren’t exactly flocking to the GOP these days. A few people on the right are belatedly and begrudgingly recognizing this fact and its electoral implications.Lisa Friedman of The New York Times brings news of a budding Republican climate caucus. The story is hilarious and sad and worth reading, but here is the nut of it:“There is a recognition within the G.O.P. that if the party is going to be competitive in national elections, in purple states and purple districts, there needs to be some type of credible position on climate change,” said George David Banks, a former adviser to President Trump …So, at least some Republicans think science denialism is no longer working and the party needs “some type of credible position on climate change.” The question is, what is the minimum viable position? What’s the least they can do while appearing to do something?Here is the party’s opening gambit:A package of bills [House Minority Leader Kevin] McCarthy [R-CA] introduced on Earth Day championed carbon capture, a nascent and expensive technology that catches carbon emissions generated by power plants or factories and stores them before they escape into the atmosphere. It also promoted tree planting and expansion of nuclear energy, a carbon-free power source that many Republicans prefer over wind or solar energy.Friedman rightly notes that these policies would do very little to reduce emissions. But she also calls them “limited government, free-market policies,” which is a bit of right-wing spin we ought to reject. Carbon capture is entirely dependent on government subsidies