“We can’t help but wonder where our president and would-be president are in all this. Everywhere President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney campaign across this drought-stricken land, there is evidence of the coming devastation of global warming, yet they seldom utter a word about it,” begins a Chicago Sun-Times editorial today….
The Sun-Times editorial includes this:
A poll set to come out this week, conducted by the University of Texas, shows that a strong majority of Americans — 70 percent — now believe we are going through a period of climate change. That’s 87 percent of Democrats, but also a majority, 53 percent, of Republicans.
Both Obama and Romney appear to accept the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community that global warming is not only real but manmade — they just don’t want to talk about it. Obama has little interest in sounding anti-business by promoting restrictions on factory emissions, while Romney has no wish to offend his party’s many global-warming skeptics….
Truth is, the American people really don’t know how, or how aggressively, either candidate would tackle global warming after the Nov. 6 election.
Sure would be nice to find out before then.
As for us, we’d say don’t assume that either candidate is just waiting until after the election to take more aggressive action or even articulate a coherent position, given the ultra-caution — even cynicism — with which they are playing this during the campaign. Perhaps Romney is too beholden to the ‘skeptics’ and denialists in his party to support doing anything at all. But Obama has yet to talk to the American people about climate change mitigation, adaptive preparedness, and international responsibilities in a way that is remotely commensurate with the scope of the problem. That leaves his supporters among the ‘climate hawks’, rational science-based thinkers though they may be, with having to fall back on something of a faith-based initiative at this point.
Earlier posts:
US Agriculture Secretary Vilsack’s evasiveness on climate change and drought
Key science and environmental questions to ask Obama, Romney
Washington Post connects wildfires, climate disruption; Obama doesn’t