Bringing Bipartisanship to Climate Change: Lessons from Robert Inglis, Former U.S. Representative for South Carolina
By Marlaina Rohmann
For decades, environmental experts have been unwavering in their message: climate change is real. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) affirms that evidence proving human-driven global warming is “unequivocal.” Without swift action, they say millions will be displaced — or worse — by its disastrous effects, from rising sea levels to extreme heat waves and falling agricultural output. Just last week, the IPCC body released its most urgent warning yet, calling for “rapid, far reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” to limit the global rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Yet according to recent polls, less than a third of Republicans believe climate change is caused by humans. In these potently partisan times, rallying change around a politicized issue requires a leader from the inside. A leader like former Congressman Robert “Bob” Inglis of South Carolina, who has devoted his post-political life to the climate change agenda.
For over a decade, Inglis, a self-proclaimed “Bedrock Conservative,” conquered election after election in one of America’s reddest states. It wasn’t until the end of his tenure, after traveling the world while serving on the House Committee of Science and Technology, that he acknowledged the physical proof of climate change. Inspired and emboldened, he introduced the Raise Wages, Cut Carbon Act of 2009 — a revenue-neutral carbon tax — while running for his seventh term in Congress. By straying from his party’s status quo, Inglis knowingly took a serious political risk. He subsequently lost the 2010 Republican primary, garnering just 29 percent of the vote.
But this undeniable display of courage did not go unrecognized. In 2015, The John F. Kennedy Liberty Foundation awarded Inglis the Profile in Courage Award, a high honor he now shares with Former President Barack Obama and late Senator John McCain. Today, Inglis is the Executive Director of RepublicEN, a nonprofit he founded in 2011 dedicated to educating fellow conservatives on the realities of climate change. Without his self-described “spectacular faceplant” in the 2010 election, he may never have been able to pursue this noble venture.
The Voices in Leadership series was honored to welcome Bob Inglis on October 2, 2018, for his event, “How to Increase Bipartisan Leadership on Climate Change.“ Interviewed by Gina McCarthy, former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and current Professor of the Practice of Public Health in the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Inglis spoke of the urgency of bipartisanship when combating climate change, imparting practical advice informed by his unique experience as a leader of the “EcoRight.”
Relating to Individuals is Essential
Inglis’ metamorphosis from climate-change denier to eco-educator started with, and still depends on, fostering individual relationships. He continues to use this technique to educate fellow conservatives. For some, patterns of extreme weather are becoming proof enough. “We’re all being taught the realities of climate change,” he said, referring to recent Hurricane Florence, which caused massive destruction in his home state of South Carolina. Even so, he admitted that party affiliations trump evidence for many Republicans, including his former self:
“[F]or the first six years that I was in Congress, I said that climate change was nonsense. All I knew was Al Gore was for it, and that was the end of the inquiry, because I represented a very red district in South Carolina… I admit [it was] ignorant.”
This all began to change, he said, when serving on the Committee of Science and Technology, which gave him opportunities to build connections with climate change scientists in Antarctica and Australia. But Inglis said it was not the physical evidence that convinced him of the rising temperatures — it was the commonalities he shared with the scientists, which made him “more able to hear [the] science.”
In Australia, Inglis remembered recognizing how scientist Scott Heron loved God through his research, and was able to connect over their mutual faith:
“I could see that he was worshipping God in what he was showing me… and I could see it in his eyes, I could hear it in his voice.”
Inglis had a revelation. When trying to relate to fellow religious conservatives, many of whom assume God will fix damage done to earth, he must show them how to use their faith instead to worship and respect what God has created.
Opposition Should Always Lead to a Proposition
In 2009, Inglis, along with most other Republicans, voted against a cap-and-trade style bill focused on clean energy. Yet unlike his peers, he did not vote against it because he did not see the purpose — rather, he envisioned a better solution.
On voting no, he explained:
“[I]f you’re going to oppose something, it’s incumbent upon you to propose the alternative… I needed to propose the alternative. And that’s where it really became clear that I had maybe crossed to the other team in some conservatives’ minds.”
After proposing the Raise Wages, Cut Carbon Act of 2009, Inglis realized Americans were not ready for such a massive step forward, especially during the recession.
However, he saw something similar in voters from both parties: an interest in growing their wealth. Inglis now hopes his organization RepublicEn can “overcome an undeserved inferiority complex” that conservatives harbor when thinking about energy and climate change, and generate innovative solutions that are financially beneficial:
“[W]atch the free enterprise system deliver innovation faster than government mandates, or regulations, or fickle tax incentives could ever imagine. We believe this is a problem of economics that has an environmental consequence.”
Through his innovative yet entirely conservative approach, Inglis is showing fellow conservatives that there is more to climate change than just sacrifices.
We Cannot Move Forward Divided
No matter what political affiliation, we all share the planet. As Gina McCarthy put it frankly, “[Earth is] our common home. We can’t go anywhere else.” Inglis concurred, and reiterated his determination to unite the country around the climate change cause:
“[I]t’s just a matter of overcoming this current “tribal moment” that we’re stuck in. And I happen to believe that climate change may be the issue that could cause us to come up out of this terrible tribal storm, where we might come to realize that we, literally, are in it together.”
This message of unity carries extra weight coming from Inglis, who at one point swore off climate change just because Al Gore believed in it. He even spoke directly to his fellow Bedrock Conservatives:
“If you join this, we can solve it. If you don’t, we can’t.”
Inglis, along with the small but growing EcoRight community, are calling on fellow conservatives to take ownership and initiative in the face of climate change. As he sees the matter, it is “our responsibility in this incredible bit of Eden that’s left …to maintain it and to shepherd it.”
For more from the Voices in Leadership (@VoicesHSPH) series at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (@HarvardHSPH), visit www.hsph.harvard.edu/voices.
Story by Marlaina Rohmann, a first year student in the Master of Science program in Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, interested in the intersection of climate change, nutrition, and the microbiome.
Story edited by Justin Kaplan, Managing Editor of the Voices in Leadership student blog and a second year student in the Master of Public Health program in Health and Social Behavior at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
