That’s the title of my new article in Salon. I had proposed “The political fight of the century,” but the editors wanted a stronger headline — and subhead:

Americans must not allow global warming deniers to block the policies needed to avert catastrophic climate change. Our future is at stake.

Now that the relevant science is settled — namely that failing to quickly embrace strong greenhouse gas reduction policies would be the greatest act of self-destruction in human history — the fight to save a livable climate will indeed be the greatest political fight of our times. As the piece concludes:

Conservatives can’t stop the impending catastrophe with anti-government rhetoric. But they can prevent progressives and moderates from stopping it by blocking aggressive climate legislation. Progressives and moderates will need all their political skill and tenacity to overcome the obstructionism of the anti-science, anti-technology conservatives. This is unlike any previous political fight; it is a fight to save the health and well-being of the next 50 generations, a fight to preserve our way of life. Losing is not an option

The article summarizes the current state of conservative anti-science intransigence on climate, which I have discussed at great length (see “Is 450 ppm politically possible? Part 6: What the Boxer-Lieberman-Warner bill debate tells us” and “Krauthammer, Part 2: The real reason conservatives don’t believe in climate science“.) I then describe how I think the next couple of decades will play out, assuming most conservatives continue to press what they are convinced is a rhetorical and political advantage in opposing strong climate legislation:

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No, 450 is not politically possible today.

OK, that was clear before. But the debate over the Climate Security Act made clear it won’t be politically possible anytime soon, for two reasons:

1. The vast majority of conservatives have not budged an inch on climate science even in the face of now overwhelming direct scientific observation and a much deeper and broader scientific understanding of the dangerous impact of unrestricted human greenhouse gas emissions on the climate.
2. Equally important, conservatives now have a very potent political issue to beat back advocates of an economy-wide cap & trade system — high gasoline prices. And gasoline prices are probably going to be much higher over the next few years (see “Must read CIBC report: $7 gas by 2010, 10 million cars off the road, 1970s style GDP growth“). That is one reason I would leave transportation out of an economy-wide cap & trade, but that will be the subject of another post.

I live-blogged the debate at the time. Here are the highlights — or, rather, lowlights — from the GOP side that make clear just how far conservatives are from understanding climate reality:

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