I’m sweating my butt off in a bear suit – can we finally move on climate change?

I spent the last two weeks of July in a seven-foot polar bear suit stalking the sidewalks outside the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, and then the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, clamoring to shift the conversation, even for a minute, to the climate crisis.

I held up signs, posed for photos, talked with reporters and made some videos. Yeah, it’s gimmicky and even a little goofy — especially for a law professor — but if that’s what it takes to get people talking, I’m in.

{mosads}I had thousands of conversations in that costume, some fun, some heartfelt, some utterly confounding.

All were enjoyable, even those with people who think climate change is some kind of incredible hoax perpetrated by thousands of respected and independent scientists around the globe who are somehow in league with “at least China and maybe even ISIS” (that’s a direct quote from one guy) to take over the world.

More than anything, though, I was struck that the vast majority of people who stopped to talk to me at both conventions acknowledge that global warming is real. (Recent polls back up my own non-scientific findings from the bear suit.)

So if people in both parties grasp the realities of this crisis, what’s holding us up? No surprise here: A small group of very determined and well-funded interests who would like us to drill and frack for more oil and gas, rather than use the sun, wind, batteries and a bevy of renewable-energy strategies. Corporate fossil fuel interests still control the political process because of their unlimited (and frequently secretive) election spending. Yet our current clean-energy sources possess technologies that are already operational and economical on a large scale.  

I thought a lot about global warming in the bear suit, not least because I was standing around in sweltering heat and humidity. I was able to cool off with a cold beer at the end of the day, but most people and polar bears can’t escape the creeping crisis taking over our planet. The signs are all around us with rising seas, blistering heat waves, collapsing coral reefs and global systems destined to go disastrously wrong if we don’t do something about it and soon.

The rapidly melting Arctic is the ultimate disconnect for a guy in a polar bear suit.  I’m dancing around, holding up signs, giving high-fives to everyone within reach. In the past few years, Frostpaw — as part of the Center for Biological Diversity’s campaign for climate action — has followed President Obama to Hawaii and Martha’s Vineyard, rallied against the Keystone XL pipeline, and even been arrested in a protest on Wall Street.

And Frostpaw dances on while the world waits and real action stalls. It’s not just that the Republican-controlled Congress can’t acknowledge the scientific reality of global warming. When Congress spends tens of billions in fossil fuel subsidies annually, and then subpoenas state attorneys general who dare question oil and gas industry obfuscation, you know there’s a problem. And we’ve recently learned that ExxonMobil and its allies will not only litigate against, and otherwise block, virtually every government action on global warming, but have also known about the reality of climate change for decades. 

While President Obama has not been immune to Big Oil and Gas, he and his administration have taken some solid actions to combat global warming, particularly over the past 18 months.   

But make no mistake: None of what’s been done so far is enough — not the Paris agreement, not the Clean Power Plan, not the soaring rhetoric or nonbinding pledges for reductions in carbon pollution. We need stronger international action, more ambitious cuts to power plant pollution and emissions from airplanes and other unregulated sources, and a halt to new drilling and fracking on public lands. This climate mess doesn’t end until there’s a massive, rapid, large-scale shift away from the fossil fuels that have put us in such a deep hole.

I’m still optimistic that the United States can capture the opportunity of job-creating clean energy programs that not only put Americans to work, but also clean our air and our atmosphere for our future generations. Because as hot as I was in that polar bear suit, it will be much worse for all of us if we don’t change our ways fast.

William J. Snape III is senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity, and a professor at American University, Washington College of Law.

The views expressed by authors are their own and not the views of The Hill.