Climate politics in the US

The worse things get the worse they get....what could be less surprising?

As climate change crisis looms, presidential campaigns stay quiet

Desdemona Despair,

18 September, 2012

It was just six words, but when President Barack Obama gave a shout-out to global warming in his acceptance speech this month, he reintroduced an issue that had all but disappeared from the political debate.

"Climate change is not a hoax," Obama said, an assertion that brought Democratic National Convention delegates to their feet, as he pledged to continue approaching energy policy in a way he said would "continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet."

In a year when the political debate has lacked nearly any discussion of climate change, some environmentalists have struggled to summon enthusiasm for the Democratic president they helped elect in 2008 in part because of his views on global warming. So they rejoiced when the president rebutted a taunt tossed out by Republican candidate Mitt Romney the week before. Romney had quipped in his own acceptance speech in Tampa, Fla., that Obama “promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet.”

"My promise is to help you and your family," Romney added.

It was a rhetorical flourish, an attack line offered to make the point that Romney understands the kitchen table issues that, he says, the president doesn’t. But environmentalists heard it as heresy.

"Twenty years from now, history is going to judge the next generation on how they responded to the destabilization of our climate," said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. "With a couple of short sentences, Romney made clear what’s at stake in this election."

Yet the nation’s disappointing economic picture, as well as the complexities of each candidate’s record on global warming, make climate change a tough sell for the independent voters who will decide the presidential race.

Although climate change typically ranks below such issues as the economy, polling done in March 2012 by Yale University and George Mason University found that 72 percent of Americans think that global warming should be a priority for the president and Congress. Among registered voters, 84 percent of Democrats, 68 percent of independents and 52 percent of Republicans think global warming should be a priority.

Regardless of the candidates’ relative silence about global warming on the campaign trail, the next president will face tough choices on controversial energy and environmental issues such as whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline and how to handle natural gas development and the environmentally fraught “fracking” that goes with it.

The silence on the campaign trail belies the reality – and the gravity – for many coastal communities. Planners in south Florida and New York City already are looking at the multibillion-dollar expense of upgrading infrastructure to address rising sea levels.

Until recently, though, climate change has been so low a priority in the year’s political discourse that some major political contributors with a strong interest in environmental issues have been reserved in their giving. […]

"I would hazard to guess that those people who got flooded out by Hurricane Isaac are super worried about climate change," said Heather Taylor-Miesle, director of the NRDC Action Fund. "The seas rose in New Orleans. To imply that those families don’t care about sea rise is both insensitive and completely oblivious. This is an issue that has real consequences for American families." […]

"(Romney) acknowledged that science has shown there is a human role in global warming,” said Jim DiPeso of ConservAmerica, who represents a national grassroots organization of conservation-minded Republicans who would like to see a fiscally conservative approach to capping carbon emissions.

DiPeso said he hopes Romney’s acknowledgement will give Republicans lower down on the ticket the freedom to talk about climate change, an issue that once had Republican support. Policymakers may differ on how to address emissions, but carbon dioxide molecules are apolitical, he said.

“Because we’ve gotten to the point where a good Republican can’t acknowledge the real science that backs up climate change without being cast as some sort of infidel, or somebody who’s not a real conservative,” he said. […]