Gov. Jay Inslee on the Climate Crisis: ‘We Cannot Give in to Defeat and Pessimism’
15h
Insights + Opinion
Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington comforts Marsha Maus, 75, whose home was destroyed during California's deadly 2018 wildfires, on March 11, 2019 in Agoura Hills, California. Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times / Getty Images
By Governor Jay Inslee
Climate Week this year coincides with clear skies in Washington state for the first time in almost two weeks.
In just a few days in early September, Washington state saw enough acres burned – more than 600,000 – to reach our second-worst fire season on record. Our worst fire season came only five years ago. Wildfires aren't new to the west, but their scope and danger today is unlike anything firefighters have seen. People up and down the West Coast – young and old, in rural areas and in cities – were choking on smoke for days on end, trapped in their homes.
Fires like these are becoming the norm, not the exception.
<p>That's because as the climate changes, our fires change. Climate scientists tell us that if greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current path, later this century the <em>average </em>year in Washington will eventually be warmer than the single hottest year of the 20th century. The heat leaves our land and vegetation dry and primed for ignition, with blazes for which our landscapes are not evolved to cope. We're seeing more acres burned, and more days with our state swathed in hazardous smoke and ash.</p><p>Rain, cooler weather, and heroic firefighting efforts have finally tamped down the fires and poor air quality; but the burn scars remain, and they are most acutely felt by those who lost homes, businesses, and loved ones in fires this year.</p><p>I have seen the chaos firsthand in recent visits to burned areas both east and west of the Cascade Mountains. As communities in Malden, Bonney Lake, and Graham, Washington, recover from the damage done this month, it's not enough for us as leaders to help our towns recover from one devastating event after another. We need a plan to stop these increasingly ferocious natural disasters from becoming uncontrollable. The situation demands that <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/t/climate-change/" target="_blank">climate change</a> be front and center in this plan – because it is the root and stem of the new challenges we face in disaster response.</p>
<p>While wildfires are the most recent, and some of the most visceral images of climate change, they are unfortunately just one manifestation of a <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/t/climate-crisis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">climate crisis</a> with far-reaching implications.</p><p>From the woods and prairies to the oceans, rivers and streams, we see the damaging effects of climate change. West Coast marine waters are acidifying at twice the global rate, our streams are becoming too warm to support salmon, and our agricultural productivity is falling as a result of record heat.</p><p>But we cannot give in to defeat and pessimism. This is not a lost cause.</p><p>There is broad consensus on what we need to do to slow and turn back the effects of human-driven climate change: all hands on deck for a global decarbonization that grows jobs and protects communities.</p>
<p>Every year, Climate Week gives us the opportunity to highlight this urgent need. But we need every week to be Climate Week. Given the science, knowledge and tools at our disposal, it is unacceptable that more has not been done to address the terrifying implications of climate change in the 21st century. We have no more time to waste.</p><p>We face a powerful oil and gas industry that has sunk its claws into Congress and numerous state governments, and a presidential administration backed by a major political party dedicated to protecting polluters and spreading lies and confusion about the science. On the flip side is the urgent and painfully clear scientific consensus, coupled with the fact that the majority of Americans support action now on climate change.</p><p>This is a battle that we can – and must – win, beginning with our votes in November.</p><p>And winning the fight won't just protect our communities from the dangerous effects of climate change. It will create enormous new economic opportunity.</p>
<p>The latest jobs report from E2, a national nonpartisan group of business leaders and investors focused on sustainable energy policies, shows there are already more than 3 million clean energy jobs in America today. If we can find the will to massively accelerate the development of renewable resources, we can create millions of more jobs.</p><p>If 2020 has taught us anything, it's that facts are stubborn things, and denial can be fatal. The federal government's failure to accept the reality of the Covid-19 crisis once again demonstrated why aloofness is no replacement for proactive leadership.</p><p>While we know this administration would be wise to change its destructive path – by bringing our country back into the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, by putting in place strong clean car standards, or by restoring key environmental protections razed by Trump's cronies – we know they won't. However, public opinion is clear even after years of misinformation and downright lies. There is not enough oil money in the world to stop the American people from rising up for what's right, and it's time to hit back.</p><p>Let this Climate Week be a reminder not merely of the long road ahead, but of our own power to make that journey together. Start now, so that in Climate Week 2021 we'll have a little less distance to cover.</p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in</em><em> <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/" target="_blank">Rolling Stone </a></em><em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>
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Vote as if the Climate and the Future of Humanity Depend on It—Because They Do
16h
Insights + Opinion
Four more years will be enough to cement in place Trump's anti-environmental policies and to make sure it's too late to really change course. Enrique Meseguer / Pixabay
By Bill McKibben
To understand the planetary importance of this autumn's presidential election, check the calendar. Voting ends on November 3—and by a fluke of timing, on the morning of November 4 the United States is scheduled to pull out of the Paris Agreement.
President Trump announced that we would abrogate our Paris commitments during a Rose Garden speech in 2017. But under the terms of the accords, it takes three years to formalize the withdrawal. So on Election Day it won't be just Americans watching: The people of the world will see whether the country that has poured more carbon into the atmosphere than any other over the course of history will become the only country that refuses to cooperate in the one international effort to do something about the climate crisis.
<p>Trump's withdrawal benefited oil executives, who have donated millions of dollars to his reelection campaign, and the small, strange fringe of climate deniers who continue to insist that the planet is cooling. But most people living in the rational world were appalled. Polling showed widespread opposition, and by some measures, Trump is more out of line with the American populace on environmental issues than any other. In his withdrawal announcement he said he'd been elected "to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris"; before the day was out, Pittsburgh's mayor had pledged that his city would follow the guidelines set in the French capital. Young people, above all, have despised the president's climate moves: Poll after poll shows that climate change is a top-tier issue with them and often the most important one—mostly, I think, because they've come to understand how tightly linked it is not just to their future but to questions of justice, equity, and race. </p><p>Here's the truth: At this late date, meeting the promises set in Paris will be nowhere near enough. If you add up the various pledges that nations made at that conference, they plan on moving so timidly that the planet's temperature will still rise more than 3 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels. So far, we've raised the mercury 1 degree Celsius, and that's been enough to melt millions of square miles of ice in the Arctic, extend fire seasons for months, and dramatically alter the planet's rainfall patterns. Settling for 3 degrees is kind of like writing a global suicide note. </p>
<p>Happily, we could go much faster if we wanted. The price of solar and wind power has fallen so fast and so far in the last few years that they are now the cheapest power on earth. There are plenty of calculations to show it will soon be cheaper to build solar and wind farms than to operate the fossil fuel power stations we've already built. Climate-smart investments are also better for workers and economic equality. "We need to have climate justice, which means to invest in green energy, [which] creates three times more jobs than to invest in fossil fuel energy," United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said in an interview with Covering Climate Now in September. If we wanted to make it happen, in other words, an energy revolution is entirely possible. The best new study shows that the United States could cut its current power sector emissions 80 percent by 2035 and create 20 million jobs along the way. </p><p>Joe Biden and Kamala Harris haven't pledged to move that quickly, but their climate plan is the farthest-reaching of any presidential ticket in history. More to the point, we can pressure them to go farther and faster. Already, seeing the polling on the wall, they've adopted many of the proposals of climate stalwarts like Washington Governor Jay Inslee. A team of Biden and Bernie Sanders representatives worked out a pragmatic but powerful compromise in talks before the Democratic National Convention; the Biden-Harris ticket seems primed to use a transition to green energy as a crucial part of a push to rebuild the pandemic-devastated economy. </p>
<p>Perhaps most important, they've pledged to try to lead the rest of the world in the climate fight. The United States has never really done this. Our role as the single biggest producer of hydrocarbons has meant that our response to global warming has always been crippled by the political power of Big Oil. But that power has begun to slip. Once the biggest economic force on the planet, the oil industry is a shadow of its former self. (You could buy all the oil companies in America for less than the cost of Apple; Tesla is worth more than any other auto company on earth.) And so it's possible that the hammerlock on policy exercised by this reckless industry will loosen if Trump is beaten.</p><p>But only if he's beaten. Four more years will be enough to cement in place his anti-environmental policies and to make sure it's too late to really change course. The world's climate scientists declared in 2018 that if we had any chance of meeting sane climate targets, we had to cut emissions almost in half by 2030. That's less than 10 years away. We're at the last possible moment to turn the wheel of the supertanker that is our government. Captain Trump wants to steer us straight onto the rocks, mumbling all the while about hoaxes. If we let him do it, history won't forgive us. Nor will the rest of the world.</p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in</em> <em><a href="https://www.thenation.com" target="_blank">The Nation</a></em> <em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>
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A woman marks down her vote on a ballot for the Democratic presidential primary election at a polling place on Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020 in Herndon, Virginia. Samuel Corum / Getty Images
By Oliver Milman
The climate crisis is set to be a significant factor in a U.S. presidential election for the first time, with new polling showing a clear majority of American voters want decisive action to deal with the threats posed by global heating.
<p>Seven in 10 voters support government action to address climate change, with three-quarters wanting the U.S. to generate all of its electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind within 15 years.</p><p>Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for a presidential candidate who supports the complete shift to clean energy, with a further seven in 10 voters supporting US involvement in the Paris climate agreement, which commits countries to tackling dangerous heating. Two-thirds of voters said climate should be a priority for whoever wins the election.</p><p>"There may be a divide on Capitol Hill but the large majority of us are worried about climate change and want to see leaders deal with it," said Ed Maibach, director of George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communication. "This is the first election where climate change has featured heavily. It's unlike anything we've seen in American politics before."</p><p>Over the past decade, the crisis has become a sharply partisan political topic as Republicans embraced denial and obfuscation of the escalating crisis. Donald Trump called climate science a "hoax" and his administration set about dismantling every policy put in place by Barack Obama to reduce planet-heating emissions.</p><p>However, the new polling, on behalf of the Guardian, Vice Media Group and Covering Climate Now, by Climate Nexus, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, shows that the political landscape among voters appears to be shifting.</p>
Do you support or oppose each of the following policies as part of the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic?
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<p>Democrats are becoming increasingly alarmed over the climate crisis, with 90% describing it as either a "very serious" or "somewhat serious" problem and more than eight in 10 supporting a Green New Deal, a vast government-led climate program, to combat it.</p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/22/us-politics-minute-sign-up-email-newsletter-app-notification" target="_blank"></a><p>This concern is filtering through, to a lesser degree, to Republican voters. More than half say climate change is a very or somewhat serious problem, with 41% backing the Green New Deal, despite it being widely vilified by Republican party leaders. A further 51% of Republican voters support U.S. involvement in the Paris climate accords.</p><p>The polling suggests Trump, who has triggered the U.S. withdrawal from the agreement and routinely disparages climate science, will be the first U.S. president to face a voter backlash over the climate crisis. His Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, meanwhile, has vowed to reduce U.S. energy emissions to net zero by 2050 and promised a $2tn investment to create millions of new jobs in clean energy industries.</p>
<p>"Republican officeholders really do have to worry about this," said Maibach. "Young Republicans are becoming less accepting of the party line that climate change isn't real or isn't a serious problem. They don't want climate denial any more, moderate Republicans don't want climate denial any more and women voters largely don't want to support climate denialist candidates any more either."</p><p>The surge in voter appetite for climate action follows a barrage of disasters that have hit the U.S. recently, including huge wildfires that have scorched the west coast and powerful hurricanes that have pummeled the U.S. south. Scientists say rising global temperatures, caused by humans burning fossil fuels, are aiding the spread of wildfires and making hurricanes more intense.</p><p>Trump's first term in office has also seen a growing youth-led climate protest movement, with the Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg as its figurehead. Younger U.S. voters see the climate crisis as a top-tier issue, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/11/25/u-s-public-views-on-climate-and-energy/?utm_source=adaptivemailer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=19-11-25%20climate&org=982&lvl=100&ite=5010&lea=1139465&ctr=0&par=1&trk=" target="_blank">polling has shown</a>, while the latest opinion research shows broad support for a greater focus on the issue in the media.</p><p>More than six in 10 respondents said the media should explicitly outline the link between extreme weather events and the climate crisis, while nearly three-quarters want moderators to ask questions about the climate crisis during the three televised presidential debates, which start next week. In 2016, no questions were asked about climate during the debates between Trump and Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> </em><em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>
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Young Republican Climate Activists Split Over How to Get Their Voices Heard in November’s Election
22 September
Climate
The 2020 presidential election poses a critical test of climate conservatives' willingness to put their environmental concerns before party politics. filo / Getty Images
By Ilana Cohen
Four years ago, Jacob Abel cast his first presidential vote for Donald Trump. As a young conservative from Concord, North Carolina, the choice felt natural.
But this November, he plans to cast a "protest vote" for a write-in candidate or abstain from casting a ballot for president. A determining factor in his 180-degree turn? Climate change.
<p>Climate didn't become a voting issue for Abel until months after the 2016 election. As a college freshman at Seton Hall University, he found himself increasingly frustrated by lackluster Republican responses to an issue now <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/21/across-the-globe-millions-join-biggest-climate-protest-ever" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">leading</a> millions to march in the streets. </p><p>Abel felt that his party's future, like that of his generation, depended upon it addressing climate change with the appropriate urgency.</p><p>While his progressive counterparts helped propel a "<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/c686caa2-a8c5-11e9-984c-fac8325aaa04" target="_blank">Squad</a>" of climate leaders into Congress, Abel advocated for market-driven climate solutions like carbon pricing as a spokesperson for republicEn, a right-leaning climate advocacy organization. </p><p>"The Green New Deal was actually a big catalyst for a lot of young Republicans coming forward and pushing for serious Republican solutions" on climate change, said Abel. </p><p>Momentum on the left stirred new conversations on the right, as young conservatives banded together in hopes of sustaining both their party and the planet. Their cries for climate action helped open older Republicans' eyes to the risk of losing young voters, and a seat at the table in future climate policymaking, if the GOP didn't change its tune.</p><p>"Over the next 10 years," Abel said, he "wants to see Republicans come together with Democrats to come to a realistic solution," along with Republicans proposing "more and more solutions" of their own, including around what Abel considers a critical "middle ground" measure to advance decarbonization—carbon pricing.</p><strong><strong></strong></strong>
<p>"Because we're still kind of relatively new to actually taking this topic seriously and proposing policy," said Abel of the GOP, "I think our policy response could be more robust and more detailed."</p><p>Only a decade ago, Abel's story might have been a novelty. Now, it's commonplace. From <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wildfires-west-coast-death-toll-burn-2020-09-15/" target="_blank">raging</a> wildfires on the West Coast to Hurricane Sally's massive <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54174831" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">flooding</a> in the South, climate disasters are politicizing young people across the ideological spectrum who have experienced them first hand. </p><p>Younger Republicans are much more engaged with climate change than their parents and grandparents, said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. The program's research <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/do-younger-generations-care-more-about-global-warming/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">shows</a> young Republicans are more likely than older ones to believe in human-caused global warming and to support climate action. </p><p>Frustrated by party leadership that doesn't <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/24/millennial-and-gen-z-republicans-stand-out-from-their-elders-on-climate-and-energy-issues/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">represent</a> their call for urgent climate action and public discourse that discounts their views, young Republicans also seem more willing to pose their own climate solutions. They don't want to see a World War II-style mobilization; they want pragmatic proposals advancing private sector innovation. </p><p>The 2020 presidential election poses a critical test of climate conservatives' willingness to put their environmental concerns before party politics. While some young Republicans who prioritize the issue of climate change remain loyal to Trump and others turn to Biden, a growing number like Abel are not supporting either candidate. </p><p>Given <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/swing-state-margins/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Trump's thin margin of victory in 2016</a>, young conservatives who choose not to vote for either major presidential candidate may help Biden just as much as those who vote for him over Trump, Leiserowtiz said, depending on the state they vote in. Millennials and Gen Zers will <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/essay/an-early-look-at-the-2020-electorate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">comprise</a> 37 percent of eligible voters in November, which gives them vast electoral influence, if they vote.</p><p>If youth show up in force to oust Trump from office, their votes could provide a "powerful warning sign" for the GOP, Leiserowtiz said. It would affirm that for Republicans to win the youth vote and have a path to the White House moving forward, they must embrace climate action now. </p>
Fractures Among Young Climate Conservatives
<p>While young conservatives have united around the urgency of climate change, they remain divided over how to bring their concerns to the ballot box. Some embrace right-wing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-attacks-republican-convention/2020/08/24/434e5b46-e66d-11ea-970a-64c73a1c2392_story.html" target="_blank">attacks</a> painting Biden as a "tool of the left" and find his climate agenda "radical." Others can't find a way to justify voting for Trump, even if it means breaking with their party.</p><p>Patrick Mann from Orange County, California, voted for Trump in 2016. But today, he's leading Aggies for Joe at Texas A&M University and is co-founder of Texas Students for Biden. </p><p>Mann grew up watching wildfires ravage his home state, nearly forcing his family to evacuate in 2017. The GOP is failing to "meet the moment" for climate action, Mann said. He's hoping Biden will deliver on a promise to "<a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/caucus/2020/01/06/joe-biden-democrat-president-iowa-caucus-restore-soul-our-nation/2806422001/" target="_blank">restore the soul of our nation</a>." </p><p>Taylor Walker from Pensacola, Florida, is also determined to make her voice heard on climate, including by casting her first-ever vote for president—but not for Biden.</p><p>Walker, a statewide campus coordinator for the conservative environmental advocacy group American Conservation Coalition, felt compelled to act on climate change after seeing the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/gulfspill-impacts-summary-IP.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lasting environmental and economic damage</a> the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico wreaked on her home state. As a practicing Christian, Walker feels a "responsibility from God to steward the environment," which means fighting climate change while protecting industry. </p><p>She lauded Trump's <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2018/06/22/trump-tweets-full-endorsement-of-desantis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">support</a> of Ron DeSantis' run for Florida Governor in 2018. Walker appreciated DeSantis' <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2019-01-11/florida-gov-desantis-signs-executive-order-to-protect-states-waters" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ambitious environmental vision</a> and said he "passed quite a few green initiatives in the first few months of his term." The governor's environmental <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article239258123.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">record</a> since has been controversial, with DeSantis earning dismal ratings from the Sierra Club and <a href="https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/ron-desantis" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">League of Conservation Voters</a>. </p><p>Walker also praised Trump's <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/09/08/reversal-trump-ban-oil-drilling-off-coasts-florida-georgia-south-carolina/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">recent</a> commitment to banning offshore drilling on the state's coasts, which came two years after he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/01/04/trump-administration-plans-to-allow-drilling-off-all-u-s-waters/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">proposed</a> vastly expanding oil and gas drilling in U.S. continental waters. The move "shows a good faith investment" in finding clean energy alternatives, Walker said.</p><p>Walker said she'd examine both major presidential candidates' platforms and records on climate policy up until Election Day, but she doesn't think there's much, if anything, the Biden campaign could do that would convince her to swing left. If Trump can help pivot the GOP in greener directions, she said, "then more power to him."</p>
A False Equivalency
<p>Young climate conservatives may fear climate denial and delayed climate action, but more than that, they fear the growing political momentum around the Green New Deal, the massive spending it entails and <a href="https://joebiden.com/climate-plan/" target="_blank">Biden's citing of it</a> as a "crucial framing for meeting the climate challenges we face."</p><p>Many don't want to split with their party to support a Democrat whose <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/03/757220130/joe-biden-on-bipartisanship-gun-control-and-regrets-over-inaction-after-a-traged" target="_blank">allegedly bipartisan intentions</a> they doubt. If stymieing what they consider a radical green agenda means re-electing a climate change denying president, so be it. </p><p>"I'm scared of climate change, but I'm also scared of the Green New Deal and what it means for America," said Ben Mutolo, a republicEN spokesperson and junior at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. </p><p>Mutolo felt encouraged by former Ohio Governor John Kasich's <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2020/08/17/kasich-speech-to-democratic-convention-follows-years-of-building-conservative-credentials/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">appearance</a> at the Democratic National Convention, but he still struggles to see himself voting for Biden. Though the candidate paints himself as a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-12/harris-biden-different-generation-similar-political-instinct" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">centrist,</a> Mutolo believes he's "cozying up to the ultra-progressive left." </p><p>Mutolo, who wants to see market-based climate solutions like a carbon tax, feels torn between a candidate whose climate plan relies on taking an "<a href="https://joebiden.com/environmental-justice-plan/#" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">All-of-Government approach</a>," and one with no efforts to reign in global warming at all. <span></span></p><p>Leiserowitz said he appreciated how a conservative might feel Biden's climate plan "doesn't jive with their limited government, free-market approach."</p><p>But he sees a strong distinction between voting for a presidential candidate with a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/biden-climate-plan.html" target="_blank">$2 trillion climate plan</a> that includes large renewable energy investments, which have <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/politics-global-warming-april-2020/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">bipartisan support</a>, and a candidate trying "to take the country in the opposite direction, towards more fossil fuels."</p><p>Equating the two seems "hard to square rationally," said Leiserowtiz. But most people don't vote rationally. Research <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/1/15515820/donald-trump-democracy-brexit-2016-election-europe" target="_blank">shows</a> they vote based on their social and political identities, not policy positions, and are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3834737/" target="_blank">influenced</a> by messaging from their social circles.<br></p><p>As someone ready to talk climate solutions, rather than debate science, Mann, the Texas A&M student, has struggled to connect with Republican peers supporting Trump. He believes that people concerned about climate change have a moral imperative to support Biden. "Voting for someone who took us out of the Paris Agreement, you're not going to get progress on climate change," said Mann. "Trump is not making America a leader on this." </p><p>Given the vast threat posed by climate change, Mann said, a vote withheld from Biden is just as problematic as a vote for Trump. </p><p>Mann knows he can't change people's minds, but that won't stop him from trying. "All I can do is plant ideas in their mind of why it's important" to elect Biden now and put climate leaders into office beyond this November, he said. "Hopefully, those grow."</p><p>While some young climate conservatives like Mann are engaging their peers in discussions about the presidential election, others like Walker are more concerned with raising awareness of market-driven climate solutions or getting out the vote for local and Congressional races.</p><p>Whatever their course of action, the chance to help shape climate policy for a critical next four to eight years isn't lost on any of these young climate conservatives. How they cast their ballots, and in what numbers, may solidify for the right a reality already made clear on the left—political survival now goes hand in hand with efforts to stabilize the climate and invest in the futures of today's youth and those of generations to come. </p>
<p><em><em>This story originally appeared in</em> <em><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org" target="_blank">Inside Climate News</a> </em><em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20092020/young-republicans-climate-change-biden-trump-voting" target="_blank"></a></em></p><p><em>.</em><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2647767066#/" target="_self"></a></p>From Your Site Articles
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By Julia Mahncke
U.S. President Donald Trump has undone many major pieces of climate policy during his term, walking out on the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming and eliminating numerous Obama-era environmental regulations.
<p>Trump's Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, has promised as part of his presidential campaign to invest $1.7 trillion in a "clean energy revolution and environmental justice" over the next decade. It falls some $14 trillion short of what the progressive U.S. senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, pledged on climate action during the Democratic primaries. </p><p>However, climate change doesn't even make the top 10 concerns among registered voters, even as the U.S. faces extreme weather from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/californian-wildfires-blaze-as-lightning-strikes-more-than-11000-times/a-54628620" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wildfires</a> to <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/hurricane-laura-leaves-over-a-dozen-dead-in-southern-us/a-54750273" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">storms</a>, which scientists say are becoming more prevalent thanks to global warming. The issue ranks 11th behind the economy, health care, Supreme Court appointments and the pandemic, according to a survey conducted by the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/08/13/important-issues-in-the-2020-election/pp_2020-08-13_voter-attitudes_4-01/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Pew Research Center</a> published in August. </p><p>While climate change doesn't top the voters' agenda, it's still one of the most divisive issues among Trump and Biden supporters. Some 68% of Democratic voters see climate change as high priority compared to 11% of Republicans, found the Pew survey.</p><p>But what are the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/joe-biden-vows-to-end-this-season-of-darkness-for-america/a-54643451" target="_blank">Biden</a> and Trump campaigns promising to do on climate change and the environment — and how does it tally with what voters want?</p>
Biden a Climate Disappointment?
<p>Biden, Barack Obama's former vice president, plans to recommit to the Paris Accord and ensure that the U.S. achieves a 100% clean energy economy and reaches net-zero emissions by 2050. Biden has also promised a halt to fossil fuel subsidies, going further than the Democratic National Committee, the governing body of the Democrats, which dropped that demand from its platform earlier this month.</p><p>Prior to <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/kamala-harris-formally-accepts-us-vice-president-nomination/a-54629507" target="_blank">Kamala Harris' announcement as Biden's running mate</a>, the California senator had been vocal in her support for bold climate action. Harris co-sponsored the New Green Deal, calling on Congress to implement a 10-year government-driven mobilization to decarbonize the economy, while also backing job retraining and social and environmental justice. </p><p>But some Democratic voters are disappointed with the Biden/Harris ticket, believing <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/us-bernie-sanders-halts-bid-for-democratic-presidential-nomination/a-53065293" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sanders, who dropped out of the Democratic race for president in April</a>, would have been the better candidate. </p><p>"I have two kids, so I have to be mindful and hopeful, but I lost a lot of hope since Bernie Sanders didn't get the bid," said Karen Antunes, as she wrapped up a picnic with her kids and little dog in Peninsula Park in Portland Oregon. </p><p>That won't stop her voting Democrat though.</p><p>"We have to. The Trump thing has got to end," added Antunes. "But I'm not excited."</p><p>Most progressive voters like Antunes might prefer to unite behind <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-biden-isnt-trump-but-thats-not-enough/a-54644348" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Biden against Trump's reelection</a> even if they don't feel his commitment to climate change action goes far enough.</p><p>"I don't think the differences between Biden and Sanders on the environment — or any other issues — will matter much to Democratic voters compared to the difference between Biden and Trump," said Stephen Ansolabehere, director of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University. </p>Republicans: Economy Trumps Climate Change
<p>Over the last few years, Trump has <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/trump-climate-change-denial-emissions-environment-germany-fake-heartland-seibt/a-52688933" target="_blank">dismissed climate change as a "hoax,"</a> not human-caused, and called environmental activists "perennial prophets of doom."</p><p>The U.S. president's 63 bullet-point election agenda, which is divided into categories like "Jobs," "Eradicate COVID-19" and "End our reliance on China," makes no direct mention of climate change or the environment. </p><p>Instead, tucked away under the heading "Innovate for the future" toward the bottom of the list, there are two promises: "Continue to Lead the World in Access to the Cleanest Drinking Water and Cleanest Air" and "Partner with Other Nations to Clean Up our Planet's Oceans." </p><p>The plan outlines no path to clean water or air.</p><p>The lack of climate change mentions in Trump's agenda might please many Republican voters since they are "obviously less supportive of regulations," said Daron Shaw, a professor specializing in voting behavior at the University of Texas at Austin and co-director of the Fox News Poll.</p><p>"Democrats are much more willing to take stronger measures," said Shaw, adding that few Republicans support policies such as a significant carbon or fossil fuel tax. "But if you ask Republicans about recycling, if you ask about fuel efficiency standards, they're very supportive of those sorts of smallish behaviors."</p>Growing Impatience Among Young Republicans
<p>Some younger Republicans are starting to become critical of their party's inattention to climate change. During the recent Republican National Convention, a small group turned to Twitter during the online event, to ask "#WhatAboutClimate"?</p><p>Another Pew study from June 2020 found that millennial and Gen Z Republicans, currently aged 18 to 39, are more likely than older GOP voters to think humans have a significant impact on the climate and that the federal government is doing too little to tackle the problem.</p><p>That doesn't mean they're ready to switch allegiance to the Democrats, though. </p><p>"Being a Republican is very much rooted in my upbringing," said Kiera O'Brien, who founded the group Young Conservatives for Carbon Dividends (YCCD). "Conservatism at home in Ketchikan, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/alaska-climate-change-threatens-indigenous-traditions/a-50722471" target="_blank">Alaska</a>, has a focus on community and nature." </p><p>O'Brien dislikes the Democrat's "regulatory approach to climate" and is instead lobbying for free market solutions to climate change through YCCD.</p>Reframing Climate Action
<p>Environmental policies can be a complicated issue when it comes to federal elections and hard to address for presidential candidates. Many regions in the U.S. have unique challenges: from wildfires in California and storms wiping out harvests in Iowa to <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/speaking-truth-to-power-female-activists-dominate-top-environmental-prize/a-43499770" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">water pollution in Flint, Michigan</a>.</p><p>Harvard's Ansolabehere also pointed out that opposition to climate policies in the past were typically connected to the fear of losing jobs and that prohibiting coal or retooling the auto industry will "adversely affect employment" in places like Kentucky and Michigan.</p><p>Daron Shaw added that Republicans typically "try to frame environmental issues as a matter of high taxation and job killing proposals with the hope that they can peel off Democrats."</p><p>Biden might be trying to assuage fears that tackling climate change means job losses by framing his plan as an opportunity for employment in new industries and a reinvigorated green manufacturing sector.</p><p>But when it comes to the swing states of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio, Trump's climate record and support for jobs in the fossil fuel sector might give him the upper hand. His backing for <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/we-need-to-talk-about-virgin-plastics/a-48458223" target="_blank">ethane cracker plants, which take natural gas</a> and converts it into the basis for making plastics, has received a lot of support, said Ansolabehere, especially from local unions. </p>From Your Site Articles
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Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) speaks at a primary election night event at Malden Public Library on September 1, 2020 in Malden, Massachusetts. Allison Dinner / Getty Images
By Jake Johnson
Bolstered by an energized climate movement, small-dollar donors, and support from prominent progressive lawmakers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Green New Deal champion Sen. Ed Markey on Tuesday fended off a Democratic primary challenge from Rep. Joe Kennedy III, whose name recognition and late endorsement from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were ultimately insufficient to topple the popular Massachusetts incumbent.
<p>Declaring victory Tuesday night with a 10-point lead over Kennedy, Markey, 74, shouted out the young voters and activists who fueled his campaign with on-the-ground organizing and social media efforts, including the production of <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/14/exact-right-message-ed-markeys-must-watch-2020-campaign-ad-praised-highlighting" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">viral ads</a> that built enthusiasm for the incumbent senator and laid the groundwork for his <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ed-markey-wins-2020-massachusetts-senate-primary_n_5f4eb790c5b69eb5c035a517" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">comeback win</a>.</p><p>"This campaign has always been about the young people of this country," Markey said in a speech to supporters in his hometown of Malden. "You are our future. And thank you for believing in me, because I believe in you."</p><p>Touting his support for the Green New Deal, the signature issue of the senator's reelection bid, Markey declared that "there will be no peace, no justice, and no prosperity unless we stop the march to climate destruction."</p><p>"This is a matter of life and death. The very future of our civilization depends upon it," Markey continued. "There is no time for simply 'doing what we can.' There is no time for compromise on the existential threat to our time. We must pass a Green New Deal... The time to be timid is past. The age of incrementalism is over. Now is our moment to think big, to build big, to be big. This is what this election is all about."</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e15ddd035eb4431312d8802edb3a01b7"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FJGCPs2LefY?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<p>The Sunrise Movement—the first national organization to endorse the senator's reelection campaign—celebrated Markey's victory as a testament to the growing power of youth-led climate activism in Massachusetts and across the United States. The group said its volunteers made 250,000 calls on Markey's behalf, on top of directing and producing a <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/14/exact-right-message-ed-markeys-must-watch-2020-campaign-ad-praised-highlighting" target="_blank">striking Green New Deal ad</a> that racked up four million views.</p><p>"From the outset, we worked with the campaign to put climate change at the center of this race," Evan Weber, political director for the Sunrise Movement, said in a statement. "As we gained momentum, the establishment clearly felt threatened and sent Nancy Pelosi to throw in a last-minute endorsement to boost funds for Kennedy's big money campaign."</p><p>"Despite this establishment opposition," added Weber, "we won a clear victory tonight—and with that, no one should underestimate the power of the climate movement to elect and defend our champions in Congress."</p>
<div id="0f55a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d0bd98efe5ee810a7bb55355313bd889"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1300979425991888896" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Before tonight, a Kennedy had never lost an election in Massachusetts. But even a 100 year dynasty can not overcome… https://t.co/eKdoYm55sx</div> — Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@Sunrise Movement 🌅)<a href="https://twitter.com/sunrisemvmt/statuses/1300979425991888896">1599012640.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>In a <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1300983895631048704" target="_blank">tweet</a> late Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez—who <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/07/major-party-backing-ocasio-cortez-and-markey-unveil-green-new-deal-outlining-wwii" target="_blank">joined</a> Markey in co-authoring the Green New Deal resolution introduced in Congress last year—hailed the senator's win as a "victory for the progressive movement, for 21st century policy, and for the Green New Deal."</p><p>"Thank you to every single voter, supporter, organizer, grassroots donor, and everyday person who helped make this happen," said the New York Democrat, who <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/20/nancy-pelosi-endorsing-joe-kennedy-over-ed-markey-critics-charge-reveals-ridiculous" target="_blank">slammed</a> Pelosi's decision to back Kennedy against Markey as hypocritical, given her <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/democratic-leaders-stand-firm-on-incumbent-favor-rule-rebuff-liberal-cries-of-blacklist/2019/04/02/117a7714-54bd-11e9-8ef3-fbd41a2ce4d5_story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">approval</a> of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's (DCCC) policy of <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/22/progressives-refuse-back-down-dccc-moves-kneecap-primary-challengers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">kneecapping</a> progressives who challenge incumbents.</p><p>"On a personal note, when I first got to Congress the reception I got in many spaces was very chilly," Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a separate <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1300986944680329217" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">tweet</a>. "Ed Markey wasn't afraid. He offered his expertise and partnership. He wasn't scared of big policy and didn't use kid gloves. It's great to watch him overcome the odds and win tonight."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/02/age-incrementalism-over-declares-green-new-deal-champion-ed-markey-after-defeating?cd-origin=rss" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Pence Offers 'Prayers' as Hurricane Laura Hits Gulf Coast While Dismissing Climate Action at RNC
27 August
Politics
People prepare to board a bus for evacuation before the arrival of hurricane Laura in Lake Charles, Louisiana on August 25, 2020. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP / Getty Images
By Jake Johnson
Just hours before Hurricane Laura made landfall in Louisiana as a Category 4 storm with wind speed surpassing that of Katrina, Vice President Mike Pence delivered a Republican National Convention speech Wednesday night in which he mentioned climate action once only to reject it, continuing the GOP event's ignoring or downplaying of an emergency wreaking havoc and devastation in real time.
<p>"Wildfires are ravaging the West and a historic storm is barreling toward Texas and Louisiana, and yet not a single speaker had anything real to say about the climate crisis that is happening right before our eyes," Lori Lodes, executive director of Climate Power 2020, said in a statement. "Denial is not a plan. Thoughts and prayers are not a solution. We must take action now to stave off even more devastation."</p><p>Judging only by the attention Republican speakers gave the hurricane on the third night of their party's convention, one may not have grasped the severity of the storm that was barreling toward Louisiana and Texas as the evening progressed, forcing hundreds of thousands to evacuate as experts warned of <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/26/warning-unsurvivable-storm-surge-category-4-hurricane-laura-barrels-toward-us" target="_blank">catastrophic damage</a>.</p><p>The night opened with a prayer for those in the path of Hurricane Laura but, as <em>Politico</em> <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/27/hurricane-laura-rnc-trump-speech-402993" target="_blank">reported</a>, "it was nearly two hours before the hurricane was mentioned again" by President Donald Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who said "may God bless and protect the Gulf states in the path of the hurricane." Lara Trump's address came shortly after Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) spent a portion of her <a href="https://www.weareiowa.com/article/news/local/local-politics/iowa-senator-joni-ernst-2020-rnc-speech/524-261ff071-9d2e-43c8-b680-2663d5944c6b" target="_blank">speech</a> smearing the Green New Deal.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/joniernst?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@joniernst</a> joined <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RNC2020?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#RNC2020</a> & spent 1/2 her speech on floods devastating IA, then closed spreading lies about the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GreenNewDeal?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GreenNewDeal</a>.<br><br>She never, however, mentioned the climate crisis, the $355k she’s taken from Big Oil, or GOP abandonment of family farmers.<br><br>Iowans will vote her out. <a href="https://t.co/VI37oC00ll">https://t.co/VI37oC00ll</a></p>— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) <a href="https://twitter.com/sunrisemvmt/status/1298808462160338944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 27, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>Speaking live from Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Pence said at the beginning of his remarks that his "prayers are with" those affected by the hurricane <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-storm-laura-energy/stronger-hurricane-laura-aims-at-heart-of-u-s-oil-refining-industry-idUSKBN25M23P" target="_blank">set to strike at the heart</a> of the U.S. oil and gas industry, sparking <a href="https://twitter.com/BiologistDan/status/1298778265147105280" target="_blank">warnings</a> of a looming "environmental nightmare."</p><p>"This is a serious storm," added the vice president, who said the White House is "working closely with authorities in the states that will be impacted."</p><p>The one time Pence mentioned climate in his remarks was during an attack on Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who the vice president said wants to "abolish fossil fuels, end fracking, and impose a regime of climate change regulations." Biden's climate plan, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/14/more-work-do-major-step-forward-progressives-welcome-bidens-2-trillion-green-energy" target="_blank">viewed</a> by green groups as insufficient but as a step in the right direction, calls for new regulations on the polluting oil and gas industry but would not end fracking or abolish fossil fuels.</p><p>Pence also touted Trump's <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/26/incredibly-reckless-trump-moves-expand-fossil-fuel-drilling-alaskas-western-arctic" target="_blank">destructive efforts</a> to ramp up domestic fossil fuel production and <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/18/the-myth-of-u-s-energy-independence-has-gone-up-in-smoke/" target="_blank">falsely</a> claimed the U.S. has achieved "energy independence" under the current administration.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">3 nights. 69 speakers. <br><br>Now just one mention of climate change: Mike Pence saying they won’t pass a “regime of climate change regulations.” <br><br>Meanwhile...well, just watch the weather channel. <a href="https://t.co/xAoHaqqQ31">https://t.co/xAoHaqqQ31</a></p>— Jamie Henn (@jamieclimate) <a href="https://twitter.com/jamieclimate/status/1298836189277872128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 27, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>Pence's remarks came just before Hurricane Laura made landfall as a Category 4 storm near Cameron, Louisiana early Thursday morning, bringing maximum sustained winds of 150 miles per hour and causing <a href="https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1298892276517744641" target="_blank">widespread power outages</a> across Louisiana and Texas.</p><p>"Laura is a storm of historic proportions," the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/hurricane-laura-08-27-2020-11598502621" target="_blank">reported</a>. "The fast-moving hurricane exploded in intensity Wednesday and had continued to gain strength into the night, with sustained winds of 150 miles an hour, according to the National Hurricane Center, close to the 157 mile-an-hour threshold of a Category 5 storm."</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">BREAkING! Buildings gutted in Lake Charles LA in powerful eye wall of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HurricaneLaura?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HurricaneLaura</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/RadarOmega_WX?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RadarOmega_WX</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ChasinSpin?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ChasinSpin</a> <a href="https://t.co/wP3fPyREIZ">pic.twitter.com/wP3fPyREIZ</a></p>— Reed Timmer (@ReedTimmerAccu) <a href="https://twitter.com/ReedTimmerAccu/status/1298877061252222977?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 27, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">10:30pm UPDATE from the 4th floor of our hotel in Lake Charles! Really now seeing a ramp up in the winds. <a href="https://twitter.com/StephanieAbrams?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@StephanieAbrams</a> is LIVE on <a href="https://twitter.com/weatherchannel?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@weatherchannel</a> down on ground level! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HurricaneLaura?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HurricaneLaura</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LakeCharles?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#LakeCharles</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Louisiana?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Louisiana</a> <a href="https://t.co/cUc9NhX1lO">pic.twitter.com/cUc9NhX1lO</a></p>— Chris Bruin (@TWCChrisBruin) <a href="https://twitter.com/TWCChrisBruin/status/1298828419615072256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 27, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><p>In a statement late Wednesday, Climate Power 2020 warned that flooding from the massive storm "could cause some of the 109 Superfund sites in Laura's path to leak toxic chemicals into neighborhoods and drinking water storage."</p><p>"In 2017," the group noted, "hundreds of millions of gallons of contaminated industrial products and hundreds of tons of air toxins were released into communities because of flooding and damage during Hurricane Harvey."</p><p>Echoing the grave warnings of other experts, meteorologist Eric Holthaus <a href="https://twitter.com/EricHolthaus/status/1298848201651486721" target="_blank">tweeted</a> early Thursday that "Southwest Louisiana will never be the same after this."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/27/pence-slammed-offering-prayers-while-dismissing-climate-action-rnc-hurricane-laura?cd-origin=rss" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders speaking with attendees at the 2019 California Democratic Party State Convention in San Francisco, California. Gage Skidmore / Flickr / CC by 2.0
By Lisa Newcomb
As wildfires burn through California and the western United States, the Gulf Coast prepares for two potential hurricanes within a 48-hour timeframe, and record high temperatures dominate the summer, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday noted the resounding absence of any mention of the climate crisis during the first night of the Republican National Convention.
<p><br/></p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/25/whats-radical-doing-nothing-attacked-extremist-sanders-condemns-gop-ignoring-climate?cd-origin=rss" target="_blank"> Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>
<p>"You wouldn't know it if you watched the first night of the Republican National Convention, but we are in the middle of a climate emergency with scientists telling us we have just a few years to act in order to save our planet for future generations," Sanders said in an email to supporters Tuesday.</p><p>In what <em>NowThis</em> <a href="https://nowthisnews.com/politics/analysis-the-rncs-first-night-was-a-carnival-of-misinformation" target="_blank">described</a> as a "Carnival of Misinformation," the GOP managed to attack Sanders and other progressive <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/25/cori-bush-scares-fascists-progressive-congressional-nominee-targeted-rnc" target="_blank">political leaders</a> Monday night, calling them "radical" and "Marxist," and to <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Kimberly-Guilfoyle-speech-convention-Republican-20-15511869.php" target="_blank">vilify</a> the state of California—which has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/us/california-fires-why-this-year-is-different.html" target="_blank">lost</a> 1.4 million acres to wildfires so far this year—but failed to even mention climate or environmental concerns.</p>
<div id="a25e3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c9f1e3c99410016bf87545d367d6a3de"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1298311678250147840" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">There wasn't a single mention of climate change during the #RNC2020 last night. But we know exactly where Trump and… https://t.co/AkNRbvDs6c</div> — Climate Power (@Climate Power)<a href="https://twitter.com/ClimatePower/statuses/1298311678250147840">1598376600.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"Don't tell me the Green New Deal is radical," Sanders continued in his email. "What is radical is doing nothing to take on the existential threat of climate change while the world burns."</p><p>President Donald Trump criticized Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his state's wildfire mitigation strategies earlier this month, harkening to comments the president has made in the past about clearing forest floors of debris as the key to preventing the destruction caused across the west in recent years.</p><p>"I see again the forest fires are starting," the president <a href="https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article245167945.html" target="_blank">said</a> at a rally in Pennsylvania. "They're starting again in California. I said, you gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests—there are many, many years of leaves and broken trees and they're like, like, so flammable, you touch them and it goes up." Trump went on to threaten withholding federal funds, though he did <a href="https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article245167945.html" target="_blank">promise aid</a> last weekend.</p>
<p>The president, a notorious denier of human-caused climate change, has <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/jun/03/hillary-clinton/yes-donald-trump-did-call-climate-change-chinese-h/" target="_blank">called</a> the crisis a "hoax invented by the Chinese."</p><p>"Here is the truth," Sanders wrote. "In the midst of everything going on right now, a global pandemic, an economic meltdown, a struggle for racial justice, and more, we simply cannot lose sight of the existential threat of climate change which puts at risk the very survival of this planet."</p><p>The senator from Vermont, a champion of the Green New Deal, warned that the time of incremental action in dealing with the climate crisis has passed.</p><p>"We cannot go far enough or be too aggressive on this issue," he said.</p>
<div id="aab88" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c735cd233beaa995831266cef352d196"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1297914792771039234" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">We cannot accept that our children and grandchildren must face worse fires, worse hurricanes, worse floods and more… https://t.co/5cVBtP0J6o</div> — Bernie Sanders (@Bernie Sanders)<a href="https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/statuses/1297914792771039234">1598281975.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Sanders isn't the only one who noticed the RNC's dismissal of environmental and climate concerns Monday night. Conservative climate activist Benji Backer expressed his frustration on Twitter, saying he's "feeling as disenfranchised as ever."</p>
<div id="326b8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="12ac12cbb38f3d8bd97857fb446a772b"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1297954158914318336" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">I've dedicated my life to conservative politics...thousands of hours knocking doors/making phone calls. I've gone t… https://t.co/iUfcg0PSKb</div> — Benji Backer (@Benji Backer)<a href="https://twitter.com/BenjiBacker/statuses/1297954158914318336">1598291360.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah), whom League of Conservation Voters <a href="https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/john-curtis" target="_blank">gives</a> a 3% rating on its environmental scorecard, <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2020/08/24/rep-john-curtis-says-gop/" target="_blank">told</a> attendees at an unrelated event Monday that his party has to start taking the climate crisis seriously.</p><p>"As a conservative, I regret that we have let ourselves be branded as not caring about the Earth," Curtis said. "It's time to stop being on the defensive and go on the offensive."</p><p>He continued: "We don't need to destroy the U.S. economy to be successful. As a matter of fact, I believe a once-in-a-generation opportunity is in front of us."</p><p>But Curtis remains in the minority of Republican lawmakers, and, Sanders wrote, tackling the climate crisis is a duty we share as global citizens.</p><p>"We are custodians of the Earth," he wrote. "All of us. And it would be a moral disgrace if we left to future generations a planet and that was unhealthy, unsafe, and uninhabitable."</p>
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President Trump displays his signature after signing The Great American Outdoors Act on August 4, 2020. The White House
The Great American Outdoors Act is now the law of the land.
<p>President <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/donald-trump" target="_self">Donald Trump</a> signed the bill, which passed the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/great-american-outdoors-act-conservation-2646197665.html" target="_self">Senate</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/great-american-outdoors-act-2646574786.html" target="_self">House</a> with bipartisan support, on Tuesday. It is considered a major U.S. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a> milestone.</p><p>"You cannot overstate the importance of this bill and what it will mean for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/national-parks" target="_self">national parks</a>, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-lands" target="_self">public lands</a> and communities across the country," <a href="https://www.npca.org/" target="_blank">National Parks Conservation Association</a> (NPCA) President and CEO Theresa Pierno <a href="https://www.npca.org/articles/2618-npca-celebrates-park-victory-decades-in-the-making" target="_blank">said</a> when it passed the House in July. "This is the largest investment our country has made in our national parks and public lands in more than 50 years, and it comes not a moment too soon."</p>
<div id="e0008" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ffc07febbf5d2d585ad06d3f43e2be56"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1290667833999929344" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">🚨Breaking News: The President has just signed the bipartisan #GreatAmericanOutdoorsAct. It will help: 🏗️ Restore… https://t.co/RPefKPMn7S</div> — Fix Our Parks (@Fix Our Parks)<a href="https://twitter.com/FixOurParksUS/statuses/1290667833999929344">1596554165.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The bill is important because it secured permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) for $900 million a year, EcoWatch <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/great-american-outdoors-act-2646574786.html">previously reported</a>. This fund uses <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oil-and-gas" target="_self">oil and gas</a> revenue to finance national parks and historic sites, along with local and state parks and recreation areas. The bill also earmarked $6.5 billion over the next five years to address the maintenance backlog currently burdening the National Park System, NPCA pointed out.</p><p>Trump claimed the bill signing as a major environmental legacy for himself and the Republicans.</p><p>"From an environmental standpoint and from just the beauty of our country standpoint, there hasn't been anything like this since Teddy Roosevelt, I suspect," he said at the signing ceremony, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/us/politics/trump-land-conservation-bill.html" target="_blank">The New York Times reported</a>. "At some point, they'll have to start thinking about the Republican Party and all of the incredible things we've done on conservation and many other fronts."</p>
<p><br>Trump's remarks overlook the fact that his administration is the only one in history to strip more protections from public lands than it added, the <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2020/05/21/485260/anti-nature-president-u-s-history/" target="_blank">Center for American Progress calculated in May</a>. In fact, the administration has tried to gut protections for 35 million acres, an area roughly the size of Florida. Trump has also moved to roll back 100 environmental rules since taking office, according to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html" target="_blank">New York Times tracker</a>.</p><p>Trump undercut his own conservation bonafides Tuesday when he mispronounced California's famous Yosemite National Park as "Yo-Semites" twice in his speech.</p><p>"When young Americans experience the breathtaking beauty of the Grand Canyon, when their eyes widen in amazement as Old Faithful bursts into the sky, when they gaze upon yo-Semites, yo-Semites, towering sequoias, their love of country grows stronger, and they know that every American has truly a duty to preserve this wondrous inheritance," Trump said, according to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/video-trump-mispronounces-yosemite-national-park-as-yo-semite-twice-2020-8" target="_blank">Business Insider</a>.</p>
<p>The park is one of the most frequented tourist destinations in the U.S. and welcomed 4.5 million people in 2019. However, the lead official at the park's visitors center told <a href="https://www.fresnobee.com/news/california/yosemite/article244730067.html" target="_blank">The Fresno Bee</a> that Trump's mistake was not uncommon.</p><p>"We hear it all the time, especially from East Coasters for some reason," CEO of <a href="https://www.yosemitethisyear.com/" target="_blank">Visit Yosemite Madera County</a> Rhonda Salisbury said. "I'm always shocked that people don't know how to say Yosemite. I think foreign visitors know how to say it correctly more than American visitors."</p><p>Trump's signing ceremony also obscured the bipartisan origin of the new law. Only Republicans were present, and Trump did not mention any Democrats during his speech, The New York Times reported.</p><p>In fact, the bill was introduced last year by Civil Rights icon and Georgia Democratic Representative John Lewis, who passed away in July. Trump made no mention of this.</p><p>He did credit the man who <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/3422/all-info" target="_blank">introduced</a> it in the Senate, Colorado Republican Cory Gardner. Gardner is one of two Republicans who Trump said convinced him to sign the measure. Trump had previously wanted to cut funding for the LWCF by almost 97 percent, according to <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/510272-trump-signs-major-conservation-bill-into-law" target="_blank">The Hill</a>. But a more than hour-long meeting with Gardner and Sen. <a href="https://thehill.com/people/steve-daines" target="_blank">Steve Daines</a> (R-Mont.) persuaded him otherwise.</p><p>Gardner told reporters in June how he and Daines persuaded the president.</p><p>"I showed him a picture of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and I think Steve showed a picture as well and he looked at the park and said 'it's beautiful' and we pointed up at the picture of Teddy Roosevelt on the wall and said this could be the biggest accomplishment going back to Teddy Roosevelt," Gardner said in The Hill article.</p>
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Any realistic hopes of averting disastrous climate change rests heavily upon the outcome of the November 2020 election. John McColgan / Wikimedia Commons
By Oliver Milman
This story was originally published in The Guardian on July 27, 2020.
It was a balmy June day in 2017 when Donald Trump took to the lectern in the White House Rose Garden to announce the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, the only comprehensive global pact to tackle the spiraling crisis.
<p>Todd Stern, who was the U.S.'s chief negotiator when the deal was sealed in Paris in 2015, forced himself to watch the speech.</p><p>"I found it sickening, it was mendacious from start to finish," said Stern. "I was furious … because here we have this really important thing and here's this joker who doesn't understand anything he's talking about. It was a fraud."</p><p>The terms of the accord mean no country can leave before November this year, so due to a quirk of timing, the<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/04/donald-trump-climate-crisis-exit-paris-agreement" target="_blank"> U.S. will officially exit the Paris deal on 4 November</a> – 100 days from now and just one day after the 2020 presidential election.</p><p>The completion of Stern's misery, and possibly any realistic hopes of averting disastrous climate change, rests heavily upon the outcome of the election, which will pit Trump against former vice-president <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/14/joe-biden-climate-jobs-plan" target="_blank">Joe Biden, who has vowed to rejoin the climate agreement.</a></p>
<p>The lifetime of <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf" target="_blank">the Paris agreement</a>, signed in a wave of optimism in 2015, has seen the five hottest years ever <a href="https://www.noaa.gov/news/2019-was-2nd-hottest-year-on-record-for-earth-say-noaa-nasa" target="_blank">recorded</a> on Earth, unprecedented wildfires torching towns from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/20/last-day-in-paradise-california-deadliest-fire-untold-story-survivors" target="_blank">California</a> to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2020/feb/11/counting-the-cost-of-australias-summer-of-dread" target="_blank">Australia</a>, record heatwaves baking <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/weather/2019/jun/26/europe-heatwave-cities-prepare-to-limit-effects-of-record-temperatures" target="_blank">Europe</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/17/india-heatwave-rain-brings-respite-for-some-but-death-toll-rises" target="_blank">India</a> and temperatures briefly bursting <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53140069" target="_blank">beyond</a> 100F (38C) in the Arctic.</p><p>These sorts of impacts could be a mere appetizer, scientists warn, given they have been fueled by levels of global heating that are on track to triple, or worse, by the end of the century without drastic remedial action. The faltering global effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions and head off further calamity hinges, in significant part, on whether the U.S. decides to re-enter the fray.</p><p>"The choice of Biden or Trump in the White House is huge, not just for the U.S. but for the world generally to deal with climate change," said Stern. "If Biden wins, November 4 is a blip, like a bad dream is over. If Trump wins, he seals the deal. The U.S. becomes a non-player and the goals of Paris become very, very difficult. Without the U.S. in the long term, they certainly aren't realistic."</p>
<p>Nearly 200 countries put their name to the Paris accords, pledging to face down the climate emergency and limit the average global temperature rise to "well below" 2C above the era before mass industrialization started pumping huge volumes of planet-warming gases into the atmosphere from cars, trucks, power plants and farms. A more aspirational goal of halting temperatures at a 1.5C rise was also included although, just five years on, the planet is already creeping perilously <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-global-warming-edges-closer-to-paris-agreement-1-5c-limit" target="_blank">close</a> to this mark.</p><p>The Paris deal brought major, growing emitters like China and India on board with the quest to shift towards cleaner sources of energy, in part due to the urgings of Barack Obama, who <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2016/09/03/president-obama-united-states-formally-enters-paris-agreement" target="_blank">claimed</a> the agreement showed the U.S. was now a "global leader in the fight against climate change."</p><p>Trump, who once famously called climate science a "hoax," has never looked kindly on the deal, which he framed as an international effort to damage the U.S. while letting China off too lightly. In <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/01/donald-trump-confirms-us-will-quit-paris-climate-deal" target="_blank">his </a><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/01/donald-trump-confirms-us-will-quit-paris-climate-deal" target="_blank">Rose </a><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/01/donald-trump-confirms-us-will-quit-paris-climate-deal" target="_blank">Garden speech</a>, Trump remarked that he was elected to "represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris." In reality, each country is free to choose its own emissions cuts without any sort of enforcement. "Paris is like a vessel, such as a glass – you can pour water or wine into it," said Sue Biniaz, a former U.S. state department lawyer who drafted parts of the Paris deal. "It's not the design of Paris that's the problem, it's that there's not the political will to do enough."</p>
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Abandoned Climate Efforts
<p>The U.S. government in practice abandoned any concern over the climate crisis some time ago, with the Trump administration so far <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2020/07/trump-is-rushing-to-slash-every-last-obama-era-environmental-rule/" target="_blank">rolling back</a> more than 100 environmental protections, including an Obama-era plan to curb emissions from coal-fired power plants, limits on pollution emitted from cars and trucks and even energy efficiency standards for lightbulbs. In an often chaotic presidency, Trump's position on climate change has been unusually consistent – American fossil fuel production must be bolstered, restrictive climate regulations must be scrapped.</p><p>Unswayed by <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/308876/environmental-ratings-global-warming-concern-flat-2020.aspx" target="_blank">growing alarm</a> among Americans over the climate crisis, Trump is taking this same message to the election. "Biden wants to massively re-regulate the energy economy, rejoin the Paris climate accord, which would kill our energy totally, you would have to close 25% of your businesses and kill oil and gas development," the president said this month, without citing evidence, as he announced <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/15/donald-trump-environmental-reviews-pipelines-highways" target="_blank">another rollback</a>, this time of environmental assessments of pipelines, highways and other infrastructure.</p><p><span></span>Despite all this, U.S. emissions have continued to fall, due in large part to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/29/america-coal-mining-enery-climate-crisis" target="_blank">downfall</a> of a coal industry that Trump has attempted to prop up. The international ramifications have been telling, however – in the absence of any sort of positive cajoling from the U.S., global emissions have remained stubbornly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/25/climate-heating-greenhouse-gases-hit-new-high-un-reports" target="_blank">high</a> and most countries are lagging behind their own promised actions.</p><p>According to the <a href="https://climateactiontracker.org/" target="_blank">Climate Action Tracker</a>, only Morocco is acting consistently with the Paris agreement's goals, with the global temperature rise set to exceed 3C by the end of the century even if the current pledges are met. Paris was meant to be only the beginning – countries are supposed to continually ratchet up their ambition levels until the more extreme ravages of climate change, such as dire flooding, heatwaves, crop failures and the loss of coral reefs, are avoided.</p><p>"There's been less political will from other countries to take action to a certain extent because the U.S. isn't pushing for it," said Biniaz. "During the first four years of Trump it's easier to say it's likely to be an aberration, a short-term deviation, but if it's eight years it's harder to keep together the coalition of countries that care about this."</p>‘Another Meteorite Is Coming’
<p>Another four years of a Trump administration uninterested in the climate crisis could set back global emissions cuts by a decade, according to <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/four-more-years-of-donald-trump-could-delay-global-emissions-cuts-by-10-years" target="_blank">one published analysis</a>, making the chances of meeting the goals of Paris near to impossible.</p><p>Hakon Saelen, an environmental economist at the University of Oslo who led the study, said the U.S. withdrawal is a "significant major blow" to the mitigation of the climate crisis. "The world cannot afford any delay if the 2C target is to be reached," he said. "Our model indicates that the chance of reaching it is very low already, but near zero with another Trump term."</p><p>But even with an engaged Biden administration that is somehow able to get Congress to agree <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/14/joe-biden-climate-jobs-plan" target="_blank">to a $2t</a><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/14/joe-biden-climate-jobs-plan" target="_blank">n plan</a> to shift the U.S. on to renewable energy, the challenge is immense. The world has dithered on cutting emissions for so long that only an unprecedented, rapid overhaul of the way we travel, generate energy and eat will keep humanity within the bounds of safety outlined in Paris.</p>The world will have to slash emissions by more than 7% a year this decade to have any hope of meeting the 1.5C target, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/26/united-nations-global-effort-cut-emissions-stop-climate-chaos-2030" target="_blank">according to the United Nations</a>. This annual cut will be achievable this year only through the devastation of the coronavirus pandemic, which shuttered much of the global economy. A more sustainable path to decarbonization will need to be immediately identified and implemented.<p><br>"The warmer it gets the worse it gets and the [Paris] targets are broadly at a level where things will get really bad," said Zeke Hausfather, director of climate and energy at the <a href="https://thebreakthrough.org/" target="_blank">Breakthrough Institute</a>. "We don't want people to give up hope, the human race won't become extinct at 2C but that's an unnecessarily high bar. There are still large threats and a lot of good reasons to keep warming below that.</p><p>Stern said American voters will naturally be "supersonic focused" on coronavirus and the economic fallout. "But climate change can't be forgotten this election," he said. "The Covid crisis has shown us countries can do remarkable things in short order when they believe they have to. It shows us we need leaders who also understand what we need to do on climate change, because that is another meteorite heading our way."</p>From Your Site Articles
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President Donald Trump holds up a "Trump Digs Coal" sign at a Make America Great Again Rally in Huntington, West Virginia on August 3, 2017. SAUL LOEB / AFP / Getty Images
By Varshini Prakash and John Podesta
At the 2019 Republican Retreat, Donald Trump promised his allies that he would make this election about climate change: "I want to bring them way down the pike," he said, "before we start criticizing the Green New Deal."
<p><br/></p>
<p>At his Tulsa rally in June, and in many of the campaign "speeches" he's given since then, the president's long riff on the climate proved he hasn't forgotten the promise he made to Republicans. Trump's obsession with the Green New Deal—from his fixation on the completely debunked notion that windmills cause cancer, to his nonsense about cows and hamburgers, to his racist and misogynistic ramblings about Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who introduced the Green New Deal Resolution—is much more central to his reelection effort than it appears at first glance.</p><p>For whatever reason, Trump has decided that the Green New Deal—a proposal to save our country from environmental and economic disaster—is going to be his main electoral punching bag in the 2020 campaign.</p><p>If that's the fight he wants to pick, we say: Bring it on. And new polling shows the Democratic Party should welcome the fight, too.</p><p>Trump and the GOP appear poised to spend the election attacking Joe Biden's plan to create millions of high-paying jobs by falsely arguing that it will cost $100 trillion, and destroy all the cows, cars, and airplanes. The goal of these absurd lies is to distract us from the truth: He and his party have no plan to address the climate crisis aside from further lining the pockets of oil and gas executives. But the American people want climate action.</p>
<p>New polling from Climate Power 2020 finds 71 percent favor bold government action on climate change, while only 18 percent oppose it. And talking about climate moves votes for Democrats. When presented as a choice between a Democratic congressional candidate in favor of bold climate action and an anti-action Republican, the vote moves 14 points in the Democrat's favor. This jump is even bigger—21 points—for centrist Republican and Democratic voters. These numbers are astronomical, and they make clear that running aggressively on climate is the Democratic Party's biggest political opportunity this election.</p><p>Trump's record on climate is damning. He put oil and coal lobbyists in charge of protecting our environment—and they immediately went to work rolling back over 100 environmental safeguards, allowing corporate polluters to pump more toxic pollution and chemicals into our air and water. So that companies like Chevron can keep making billions in profits and pay zero in federal taxes, he's waged a war on our clean energy industry that's cost our economy over 1.1 million jobs. Future generations will face devastating health impacts and extreme weather disasters, all because Trump spent four years allowing fossil fuel lobbyists to dictate his every move on the climate, clean energy, and the environment.</p>
<p>Trump is picking this fight because he thinks he can convince voters that bold climate action is a threat, not a necessity. But hyperbolic attacks don't work. Polling shows the American people see it for what it is: another distraction from the same guy who's called both climate change and the novel coronavirus a hoax, who had the audacity to claim that thousands of Americans did not die under his watch in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, and who never listens to scientists, experts—or even his own military leaders at the Pentagon, which have recognized climate change as a national security threat for years.</p><p>But here's the deal: Running boldly on tackling the climate crisis, running on a Green New Deal, these are policies that can be popular in all 50 states. Democrats should run toward, not away from these fights. The evidence is clear: If we loudly make the case for bold climate action, we will win.</p><p><span></span>John's gray hair is a testament to our 44-year difference in age. Those familiar with each of us may not think we have a lot in common. One of us chaired Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, and one of us was Bernie Sanders's leading climate surrogate in 2020. But we're both clear: We've never seen our country so eager to elect leaders who will take bold action to stop the climate crisis.</p>
<p>Neither have we ever known a country in such dire need of such bold action. In a moment of historic unemployment, Democrats want to put millions of people back to work now by investing in bold climate action that would create millions of clean energy jobs and begin to repair decades of environmental injustice. That's what the American people want too. By 23 points, voters support investing trillions of dollars in clean energy infrastructure.</p><p>We have paid an inconceivable price for Trump's refusal to heed experts and science in a crisis. But as Americans claw out of unemployment, as folks scrape together the money to properly honor the lives they have lost, we have become unified by our acute fear of living through another crisis of this scale.</p><p>The climate crisis is the crisis we fear. Trump wants to fight about it. That's good. So do we.</p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in</em> <em><a href="https://www.thenation.com/" target="_blank">The Nation </a></em><em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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For the millions of Americans who live in an internet dead zone, fully participating in society in the age of social distancing has become difficult if not impossible. Karl Tapales / Getty Images
By Maddie Stone
One of the starkest inequalities exposed by the coronavirus pandemic is the difference between the digital haves and have-nots. Those with a fast internet connection are more able to work and learn remotely, stay in touch with loved ones, and access critical services like telemedicine. For the millions of Americans who live in an internet dead zone, fully participating in society in the age of social distancing has become difficult if not impossible.
<p>But if the pandemic has laid bare America's so-called "digital divide," climate change will only worsen the inequality that stems from it. As the weather grows more extreme and unpredictable, wealthy urban communities with faster, more reliable internet access will have an easier time responding to and recovering from disasters, while rural and low-income Americans — already especially vulnerable to the impacts of a warming climate — could be left in the dark.</p><p>Unless, that is, we can bring everyone's internet up to speed, which is what Democratic lawmakers on the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis are now hoping to do.</p><p>Buried in a sweeping, 538-page <a href="https://climatecrisis.house.gov/sites/climatecrisis.house.gov/files/Climate%20Crisis%20Action%20Plan.pdf" target="_blank">climate change plan</a> the committee released <a href="https://grist.org/politics/house-democrats-finally-have-a-goddamn-climate-plan/" target="_blank">last month</a> is a call to expand and modernize the nation's telecommunications infrastructure in order to prepare it, and vulnerable communities around the country, for future extreme weather events and climate disruptions. The plan calls for increasing broadband internet access nationwide with the goal of getting everyone connected, updating the country's 911 emergency call systems, and ensuring cellular communications providers are able to keep their networks up and running amid hurricane force winds and raging wildfires. This plan isn't the first to point out that America's internet infrastructure is in <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/100-billion-universal-fiber-plan-proposed-by-democrats-in-congress/" target="_blank">dire need of an upgrade</a>, but it is unusual to see lawmakers frame better internet access as an important step toward building climate resilience.</p><p><span></span>To <a href="https://www.thirdway.org/about/staff/jim-kessler" target="_blank">Jim Kessler</a>, executive vice president for policy at the moderate public policy think tank Third Way, this framing makes perfect sense. "You've got to build resilience into communities but also people," Kessler said. "And you can't do this without people having broadband and being connected digitally."</p>
<p>While the internet is often described as a <a href="https://www.wnyc.org/story/rethinking-our-relationship-internet/" target="_blank">great equalizer</a>, access to the web has never been equal. High-income people have <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/07/digital-divide-persists-even-as-lower-income-americans-make-gains-in-tech-adoption/" target="_blank">faster internet access</a> than low-income people, urban residents are <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/31/digital-gap-between-rural-and-nonrural-america-persists/" target="_blank">more connected</a> than rural ones, and whiter counties are <a href="https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-racial-equality-and-economic-opportunity-case-for-expanding-broadband" target="_blank">more likely to have broadband</a> than counties with more Black and brown residents. And we're not just talking about a few digital stragglers being left behind: The <a href="https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-20-50A1.pdf" target="_blank">Federal Communications Commission (FCC) estimates</a> that more than 18 <em>million</em> Americans lack access to fast broadband, which the agency defines as a 25 megabits per second download speed and 3 megabits per second upload speed. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/monica-anderson/" target="_blank">Monica Anderson</a>, who studies the digital divide at Pew Research Center, says that many more Americans do have broadband access in their area but don't subscribe because it's too expensive. "What we see time and again is the cost is prohibitive," Anderson said.</p><p>A lack of broadband reduces opportunities for people in the best of times, but it can be crippling in wake of a disaster, making it difficult or impossible to apply for aid or access recovery resources. Puerto Ricans experienced this in the aftermath of 2017's Hurricane Maria, which battered the island's telecommunications infrastructure and left many residents with <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-internet/" target="_blank">terminally slow broadband</a> more than a year after the storm had passed. Three years later, with a global pandemic moving vast swaths of the economy online for the foreseeable future, internet-impoverished communities around the country are <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-digital-divide-telecommuting-c43a7b9c-7433-45ad-8fc6-457cf2c7a1ad.html" target="_blank">feeling</a> <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2020/03/17/what-the-coronavirus-reveals-about-the-digital-divide-between-schools-and-communities/" target="_blank">a similar strain</a>.</p><p>To some extent, mobile networks have helped bridge the broadband gap in recent years. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/06/13/mobile-technology-and-home-broadband-2019/" target="_blank">More than 80 percent</a> of Americans now own a smartphone, with <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/20/smartphones-help-blacks-hispanics-bridge-some-but-not-all-digital-gaps-with-whites/" target="_blank">similar rates of ownership</a> among Black, white, and Hispanic Americans. Nearly 40 percent of Americans access the internet <em>primarily</em> from a phone. As far as disaster resilience goes, this surge in mobile adoption is good news: Our phones allow us to receive emergency alerts and evacuation orders quickly, and first responders rely on them to coordinate on the fly. Of the 240 million 911 calls made every year, more than 80 percent come from a wireless device, <a href="https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-356299A1.pdf" target="_blank">per the FCC</a>.</p><p>But in the age of climate change, mobile networks are becoming more vulnerable. The cell towers, cables, and antennas underpinning them weren't always built to withstand worsening fires and storms, a vulnerability that Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T have all acknowledged in recent climate change disclosures filed with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_Disclosure_Project" target="_blank">the CDP</a> (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project). And when these networks go down — as nearly 500 cell towers did during California's Camp and Woolsey fires in 2018, according to the new House climate change plan — it can create huge challenges for emergency response.</p>
<p>"Everything from search-and-rescue efforts to sending out warnings to getting people directions to shelters is facilitated through various telecommunications and internet," said <a href="http://www.disaster-ology.com/" target="_blank">Samantha Montano</a>, an assistant professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy. "We're pretty reliant on them."</p><p>Democrats' new climate plan seeks to address many of the problems created by unequal and unreliable internet access in order to build a more climate-hardy web and society.</p><p>To help bring about universal broadband access, the plan recommends boosting investment in FCC programs like the <a href="https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-362190A1.pdf" target="_blank">Rural Digital Opportunity Fund</a>, a $20 billion fund earmarked for broadband infrastructure deployments across rural America. It also calls for increased investment in programs like the FCC's <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/lifeline-support-affordable-communications" target="_blank">Lifeline</a>, which offers government-subsidized broadband to low-income Americans, and it recommends mandating that internet service providers suspend service shutoffs for 60 days in wake of declared emergencies. Broadband improvements should be prioritized in underserved communities that are "experiencing or are likely to experience disproportionate environmental and climate change impacts," per the plan.</p><p>As far as mobile networks go, House Democrats recommend that Congress authorize states to set disaster resilience requirements for wireless providers as part of their terms of service. They also recommend boosting federal investments in <a href="https://www.911.gov/issue_nextgeneration911.html" target="_blank">Next Generation 911</a>, a <a href="https://www.911.gov/pdf/NG911_Roadmap_Final.pdf" target="_blank">long-running effort</a> to modernize America's 911 emergency call systems and connect thousands of individually operating systems. Finally, the plan calls for the FCC to work with wireless providers to ensure their networks don't go offline during disasters for reasons unrelated to equipment failure, citing Verizon's <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2018/08/22/verizon-throttled-unlimited-data-calif-fire-department-during-wildfire/1059486002/" target="_blank">infamous throttling</a> of data to California firefighters as they were fighting the Mendocino Complex Fire in 2018.</p>
<p>Kessler of Third Way said that Democrats' climate plan lays out "the right ideas" for bridging the digital divide. "You want to be able to get the technology out there, the infrastructure out there, and you need to make sure people can pay for it," he said.</p><p>The call for hardening our internet infrastructure is especially salient to <a href="http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~pb/" target="_blank">Paul Barford</a>, a computer scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 2018, Barford and two colleagues <a href="https://ix.cs.uoregon.edu/~ram/papers/ANRW-2018.pdf" target="_blank">published a study</a> highlighting the vulnerability of America's fiber cables to sea level rise, and he's currently investigating how wildfires threaten mobile networks. In both cases, he says, it's clear that the telecommunications infrastructure deployed today was designed with historical extreme conditions in mind — and that has to change.</p><p>"We're living in a world of climate change," he said. "And if the intention is to make this new infrastructure that will serve the population for many years to come, then it is simply not feasible to deploy it without considering the potential effects of climate change, which include, of course, rising seas, severe weather, floods, and wildfires."</p><p>Whether the House climate plan's recommendations become law remains to be seen. Many of the specific ideas in the plan have already been introduced to Congress in various bills, including the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/2741?s=1&r=89" target="_blank">LIFT America Act</a>, which would infuse Next Generation 911 with an extra $12 billion in funding, and the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/3836/all-info?r=8&s=1" target="_blank">WIRED Act</a>, which would authorize states to regulate wireless companies' infrastructure.</p>
<p>Perhaps most significantly, House Democrats <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/01/house-infrastructure-bill-347355" target="_blank">recently passed</a> an <a href="https://transportation.house.gov/news/press-releases/house-democrats-release-text-of-hr-2-a-transformational-infrastructure-bill-to-create-jobs-and-rebuild-america" target="_blank">infrastructure bill</a> that would invest $80 billion in broadband deployment around the country overseen by a new Office of Internet Connectivity and Growth. The bill would mandate a minimum speed standard of 100/100 megabits per second for federally funded internet projects, a speed stipulation that can only be met with high-speed fiber optics, says <a href="https://www.eff.org/about/staff/ernesto-omar-falcon" target="_blank">Ernesto Omar Falcon</a>, a senior legal counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil liberties nonprofit. Currently, Falcon estimates that about a third of Americans have access to this advanced internet infrastructure, with a larger swath of the country accessing the web via older, slower, DSL copper or cable lines. "It would connect anyone who doesn't have internet to a 21st century line," Falcon said. "That's a huge deal."</p><p>The infrastructure bill seems <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/01/house-infrastructure-bill-347355" target="_blank">unlikely to move forward</a> in a Republican-controlled Senate. But the urgency of getting everyone a fast, resilient internet connection isn't going anywhere. In fact, the idea that internet access is a basic right seems to be gaining traction every day, even making an appearance last week in presumed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's new <a href="https://joebiden.com/clean-energy/" target="_blank">infrastructure plan</a>. With the pandemic continuing to transform how we work, live, and interact with one another, and with climate change necessitating even larger transformations in the future, our need to be connected digitally is only becoming greater.</p><p>"I think every day the pressure mounts, because the problem is not going away," Falcon said. "It's really going to come down to what we want the recovery to look like. And which of the problems COVID-19 has presented us with do we want to solve."</p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in<a href="https://grist.org/" target="_blank"> Grist</a></em> <em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em><br/></p>From Your Site Articles
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Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate are demanding that the Trump administration immediately reverse an order requiring hospitals to send COVID-19 patient information directly to a Health and Human Services database instead of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Win McNamee / Getty Images
By Jake Johnson
Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate are demanding that the Trump administration immediately reverse an order requiring hospitals to send Covid-19 patient information directly to a Health and Human Services database instead of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a change that threw the data-collection process into chaos as states struggle to cope with soaring infections.
<p><em>NPR</em> <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/07/17/892357733/with-cdc-pulled-off-data-collection-some-states-lose-access-to-covid-hospital-da" target="_blank">reported</a> Friday that "hospital data in Kansas and Missouri is suddenly incomplete or missing" following the Trump administration's directive, which <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/15/warnings-possible-cover-progress-trump-orders-hospitals-stop-sending-coronavirus" target="_blank">took effect</a> on July 15 to the dismay of experts and local officials who previously relied on the CDC system to track the coronavirus and allocate resources.</p><p>"The Missouri Hospital Association reports that it no longer has access to the data it uses to guide statewide coronavirus planning, and the Kansas Hospital Association says its hospital data reports may be delayed," according to <em>NPR</em>. "The absence of the data will make it harder for health and public officials, as well as the general public, to understand how the virus is spreading."</p><p>Led by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), 46 members of the Senate Democratic caucus sent a <a href="https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/071720%20NHSN%20TeleTracking%20caucus%20letter_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">letter</a> to Vice President Mike Pence and Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Deborah Birx demanding that the White House reverse its decision to divert Covid-19 data from the CDC to an HHS database run by TeleTracking Technologies, a private contractor.</p>
<p>"In the midst of a global pandemic, these changes pose serious challenges to the nation's response by increasing the data management burden for hospitals, potentially delaying critical supply shipments, compromising access to key data for many states, and reducing transparency for the public," the senators wrote. "The Trump administration's mismanagement of the Covid-19 response and refusal to heed public health expertise continue to put the country in a dangerous position."</p><p>Nearly 70 House Democrats on Friday sent a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar urging the agency to reverse the new directive, which the Trump administration portrayed as an attempt to streamline the data-reporting process.</p><p>"This is another unethical and irresponsible effort to hinder public access to data and remove transparency and accountability from the administration's poor management of this pandemic," the lawmakers wrote.</p>
<div id="0f796" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="41cb9aadf10669bb35a474e7b89ae543"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1284174201457434626" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">At a time when we already have more than 3.5 million cases and more than 138,300 deaths, we should not allow health… https://t.co/7gH0WvlTkr</div> — Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@Rep. Pramila Jayapal)<a href="https://twitter.com/RepJayapal/statuses/1284174201457434626">1595005963.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The White House directive, first made public in a <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/covid-19-faqs-hospitals-hospital-laboratory-acute-care-facility-data-reporting.pdf" target="_blank">document</a> posted on the HHS website last week, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/trump-cdc-coronavirus.html" target="_blank">reportedly</a> "came as a shock at the CDC," which previously received the data and made it available to the public.</p><p>Critics <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/15/warnings-possible-cover-progress-trump-orders-hospitals-stop-sending-coronavirus" target="_blank">immediately warned</a> that submitting crucial coronavirus patient data to a system managed by HHS would leave the information vulnerable to political spin.</p><p>"It's hugely problematic," <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/07/17/892357733/with-cdc-pulled-off-data-collection-some-states-lose-access-to-covid-hospital-da" target="_blank">said</a> Dr. Karen Maddox, public health researcher at Washington University in St. Louis. "The only way that we know where things are going up and where things are going down and where we need to be putting resources and where we need to be planning is because of those data."</p><p>Shortly after the administration's new directive took effect Wednesday, observers noticed that hospital data was <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/16/us-coronavirus-data-has-already-disappeared-after-trump-administration-shifted-control-from-cdc-to-hhs.html" target="_blank">removed</a> from the CDC <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/covid19/report-patient-impact.html" target="_blank">website</a>. HHS had the information restored on Thursday but said the data would not be updated on the CDC site beyond July 14.</p>
<div id="940ab" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="fb2269328c04bdfb18d2c52baf066a30"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1283848421225316353" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">New HHS apology memo is worthless... HHS directs COVID hospital data “Re-establish the dashboard” to CDC website ..… https://t.co/zv29VX5Ijg</div> — Eric Feigl-Ding (@Eric Feigl-Ding)<a href="https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/statuses/1283848421225316353">1594928291.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The Missouri Hospital Association <a href="https://web.mhanet.com/coronavirus-disease.aspx" target="_blank">said</a> in a notice on its website that it "will be unable to access critical hospitalization data during the transition" to the Trump administration's new data-collection system.</p><p>Dave Dillon, spokesperson for the Missouri Hospital Association, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/07/17/892357733/with-cdc-pulled-off-data-collection-some-states-lose-access-to-covid-hospital-da" target="_blank">told</a> <em>NPR</em> that the organization hopes to have access to the data it needs "within a few days or weeks."</p><p>"However, in the short term," Dillon said, "we'll be very much in the dark."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/19/democrats-demand-trump-reverse-irresponsible-order-states-lose-access-crucial-covid?cd-origin=rss" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>
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