March 17, 2014

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

By ExchangeMonitor

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
10/26/12

CLIMATE CHANGE NOT MENTIONED IN DEBATES FOR FIRST TIME IN 24 YEARS

The failure to mention climate change during Monday’s third and final presidential debate marks the first time in a generation that the topic has not been discussed during any of a presidential cycle’s debates, environmental groups noted this week. While the debate, which focused on foreign policy, touched on threats to the nation’s security, trade with China and the U.S.’ role in the Middle East, neither candidate nor moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS News brought up the issue. Environmental groups were quick to point out that this marks the first time for that omission to occur since NASA scientist James Hansen told Congress in 1988 that evidence of the greenhouse effect is unequivocal. “For the first time since 1984, the presidential and vice presidential debates have ignored the threat of climate change,” Brad Johnson of the website Climate Silence said in a statement following the debate. “President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Governor Mitt Romney, and Representative Paul Ryan have failed to debate the greatest challenge of our time. Climate change threatens us all: the candidates’ silence threatens to seal our fate.”

Other environmental groups also spoke out against the omission. “Climate change is a global threat that requires a global response. Yet neither candidate saw fit to address climate change’s implications for foreign policy,” Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth Action, said in a statement. “By ignoring climate change, both President Obama and Governor Romney are telling that rest of the world that they do not take it seriously, and that America cannot be expected to act with the intensity and urgency needed to avert catastrophe. Their silence prepares a future for our children and grandchildren in which we will face deeper droughts, fiercer forest fires and killer storms, messier spills and dirtier air. America deserves better.”

Energy Production Gets Top Billing in Previous Debates

While the two previous presidential debates led to several discussions about domestic energy production, neither candidate chose to wade into the issue of climate change. Both candidates throughout their campaigns have acknowledged that global warming is occurring, but have disagreed about the extent of the contribution of humans, as well as what should be done about the problem. Environmental groups have criticized both campaigns—as well as all of the debates’ moderators—for treating the issue as a niche concern. “Climate change deserved a proper airing during the debates,” Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, said in a statement this week.

Schieffer later said that he had questions about climate change teed up for the debate that he did not have enough time to ask. “Obviously there are only so many you can get to,” he told Politico this week. Schieffer is the second debate moderator who said he omitted questions on the topic. Following last week’s town hall-style debate, moderator Candy Crowley of CNN said she also had a question for “all you climate change people,” but that she instead opted to ask about the economy since she thought the issue was something that was more on voters’ minds.

The seeming unwillingness to discuss climate change by both candidates and debate moderators represents a sharp contrast from the 2008 debates, when the issue surfaced in every meet-up between candidates Obama and Sen. John McCain. Even during the vice presidential debate that year, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said she believed that climate change is occurring. “As the nation’s only Arctic state and being the governor of that state, Alaska feels and sees impacts of climate change more so than any other state…There are real changes going on in our climate,” she said. “I don’t want to argue about the causes. What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts? We have got to clean up this planet. We have got to encourage other nations also to come along with us with the impacts of climate change, what we can do about that.”

 

 

Comments are closed.

Partner Content
Social Feed

NEW: Via public records request, I’ve been able to confirm reporting today that a warrant has been issued for DOE deputy asst. secretary of spent fuel and waste disposition Sam Brinton for another luggage theft, this time at Las Vegas’s Harry Reid airport. (cc: @EMPublications)

Load More