In a word, everything. A potentially violent insurrectionist movement threatens to undo our democracy. Its leaders have repeatedly said so, and we have good reasons to believe them. But an even larger danger is on our doorstep: searing heat, massive storms, and floods, fire, and drought threaten to force tens of millions of Americans to permanently flee their homes.

Both the assault on democracy and climate chaos are on the ballot in 2024. They are converging crises that threaten to destroy our common future. If successful, the assault on the institutions of democracy would destroy much of the capacity and political will necessary to deal with a rapidly destabilizing global climate. Millions of climate refugees fleeing newly uninhabitable places will stress governments at all levels and trigger conflicts over water, food, resources, and land. Such conflicts will push already overstressed domestic and international institutions to the breaking point.

Whether and how we respond to the crisis of democracy will determine whether we can manage the long emergency of climate change. What needs to be done? Obviously, a lot, starting with the election of 2024.

Many people have given up on democracy, hoping that authoritarian leaders will prove tougher and more effective. History shows, however, that authoritarian leaders maintain power by violence, corruption, and lies, not by solving complex long-term problems like climate change.

The case for democracy, on the other hand, is anchored in the beliefs that “we the people” have an unalienable right to say how we are governed, by whom, and to what ends, and that no one can be trusted with unchecked power. The climate crisis adds another: without an engaged, competent, and supportive citizenry—that “mighty reservoir of experience, knowledge, beauty, love and deed”—no government can cope with the full effects of a destabilizing climate.

But time is short and “There is such a thing as being too late” as Martin Luther King warned. What’s at stake in 2024? Nothing less than the peoples’ right to imagine and create a just, decent, and democratic future on a habitable Earth.