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How did the fate of the planet fare at the third Democratic debate?

Another month, another Democratic debate (Round 3, if you’re keeping count).

After the seven-hour marathon that was CNN ‘s Climate Town Hall last week, ABC’s return to the traditional debate format, in which candidates get one minute and 15 seconds to respond to questions, felt like the political equivalent of speed dating. The moderators didn’t exactly prioritize climate change (failing to ask about Houston’s chronic flooding when the debate was in, of all places, Houston), but candidates stepped up, in part, by segueing early and often to the greatest threat to the planet without getting asked.

Although Thursday night’s debate felt comparatively short on time and climate talk, it wasn’t short on drama. Julián Castro seemingly took a jab at Joe Biden’s age and memory, Pete Buttigieg called debate infighting “unwatchable,” and Andrew Yang announced he would give away $120,000 over the next year as part of a pilot program for his universal basic income plan. This debate also brought some fresh pairings: Biden and Elizabeth Warren were on the same stage for the first time, as were Warren and Kamala Harris, the two top-polling women in the field.

In terms of time spent discussing climate change, the third Democratic debate felt like a step back, if only because the candidates didn’t have the same 40 minutes CNN had given them last week to hash out the issue of our times. The longest stretch of conversation about the climate crisis came when one of the moderators, Univision’s Jorge Ramos, bounced a few global warming questions off the candidates in the second half of the debate. That resulted in a lot of reheated leftovers from CNN’s Climate Town Hall: Amy Klobuchar once again emphasized that she had a good vantage point as a Midwesterner to deal with climate change; when asked if American foreign policy should be based around climate change, Warren simply answered “yes.” Harris said that, as California’s attorney general, she’s already taken on Big Oil.

But it did seem as if, fresh off of CNN’s climate master class, the candidates had found their footing on how to integrate the topic into a myriad of issues.

A few candidates brought up the subject right off the bat. Castro, the first candidate up, mentioned the “clean energy economy” in his opening statement. Bernie Sanders was the first contender to actually utter the words “climate change” when he promised — in front of a Texas audience, no less — to end fossil fuels. He also said he would pass climate legislation “to save the planet.” Biden, the frontrunner, also brought up climate change in his opening statement: “I refuse to postpone any longer taking on climate change and leading the world in taking on climate change.”

Cory Booker touted his own $3 trillion climate plan by mentioning environmental injustice during a response to a question about racism. He also talked about the effects of factory farming on the environment. On trade, Warren said she wants ”environmentalists on the table” at future talks.

Sure, it wasn’t the jam-packed seven-hour marathon we had last week, but the candidates often seemed keen to bring it up. Could this be a sign that Democrats are recognizing how our overheating planet touches pretty much every political issue? Tune in for the next round.

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How did the fate of the planet fare at the third Democratic debate?

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Climate change enjoyed its 2 seconds of fame in the final debate

Five minutes and twenty-seven seconds were spent on climate change and other environmental issues in the three presidential debates, 2 percent of the total time — and that was pretty much all Hillary Clinton talking. (Surprise, surprise.)

There wasn’t a single question on climate policy, and only one that directly related to energy — thank you, Ken Bone.

How does that compare to debates in past years? We ran the numbers on the past five election cycles to find out.

The high point for attention to green issues came in 2000, when Al Gore and George W. Bush spent just over 14 minutes talking about the environment over the course of three debates. The low point came in 2012, when climate change and other environmental issues got no time at all during the presidential debates. Some years, climate change came up during the vice presidential debates as well.

2016 total: 1 minute, 22 seconds in the first presidential debate, and 4 minutes, 3 seconds in the second. Climate got just a split-second in the vice presidential debate. Clinton only name-dropped climate change once in the final debate, adding a whole two seconds to the grand total.

2012: 0 minutes.

2008: 5 minutes, 18 seconds in two presidential debates. An additional 5 minutes, 48 seconds in a vice presidential debate.

2004: 5 minutes, 14 seconds in a single presidential debate.

2000: 14 minutes, 3 seconds in three presidential debates. 5 minutes, 21 seconds in a vice presidential debate.

In total, over the five election seasons we looked at, climate change and the environment got 37 minutes and 6 seconds on the prime-time stage during the presidential and vice presidential debates. That’s out of more than 1,500 minutes of debate. Not an impressive showing.

A note about how we arrived at these times:

We parsed questions asked of candidates and searched the transcripts for keywords like “climate,” “environment,” “energy,” and “warming.” We cross-referenced the transcripts with video of the debates. Only the mentions that pertained to fighting climate change, cleaning up the environment, and reducing emissions counted. President Obama’s passing reference to clean energy jobs in 2012 didn’t count, nor did discussions of energy security, because they were in the context of the economy and not fighting climate change.

Election Guide ★ 2016Making America Green AgainOur experts weigh in on the real issues at stake in this election

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Climate change enjoyed its 2 seconds of fame in the final debate

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The Republicans Just Declared Mike Pence the Winner—Over an Hour Before the Debate

Mother Jones

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Well, this is funny. The Republican National Committee published a blog post Tuesday night declaring that their very own Gov. Mike Pence had won the vice presidential debate.

The only problem? The debate hadn’t started yet.

“The consensus was clear after the dust settled, Mike Pence was the clear winner of the debate,” the post read.

The post—obviously—was taken down pretty quickly, but not before being spotted, and mocked mercilessly, on Twitter:

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The Republicans Just Declared Mike Pence the Winner—Over an Hour Before the Debate

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Where the veep candidates stand on climate and energy

The Tuesday vice presidential debate may not get as much attention as the main show, but the rivals are nearly as polarized on the issues — especially when it comes to climate and energy.

On the left, we’ve got former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine — whose pitch to voters on the campaign trail includes, “Do you believe in climate science or don’t you?”

On Team Trump, it’s more complicated. Veep candidate Mike Pence is an Indiana governor and former member of Congress who has previously said that creationism should be taught in schools, smoking won’t kill you, and global warming is a myth. Pence has also, however, recently reversed himself on global warming, splitting from Trump’s position: “Well, look,” he told CNN after the first presidential debate, “there’s no question that the activities that take place in this country and in countries around the world have some impact on the environment and some impact on climate.”

Here’s where the two stand:

Mike Pence

In his 2012 gubernatorial campaign, Pence received at least $850,000 from the energy sector, including $95,000 from coal magnate Robert Murray and $300,00 from David Koch. The friend of fossil fuels has also said that Trump will “end the war on coal,” and opposes President Obama’s signature environmental legislation, the Clean Power Plan. Indiana, the nation’s eighth largest coal producer, is one of 29 states currently fighting the legislation in court.

In 2014, Pence overturned an energy efficiency program enacted by his Republican predecessor, despite that fact that the Indiana Public Utility Commission estimated the program would create more than 18,600 jobs. That same year, Indiana ranked second among all states for industrial greenhouse gas emissions.

While in Congress, Pence also voted to bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases, and voted in favor of opening the Atlantic to offshore oil drilling. In fact, he voted against nearly every piece of environmental legislation during his 12 years in Congress, earning a lifetime score of 4 percent by the League of Conservation Voters (LCV).

Tim Kaine

Kaine supports the Clean Power Plan and introduced a budget amendment to help the Department of Defense prepare for climate change. The avid outdoorsman and conservationist has a lifetime score for 91 percent by the LCV.

He was an early opponent of the Keystone XL Pipeline, coming out against it in 2013.

During his tenure as governor, however, Kaine’s administration approved plans for a 668-megawatt coal plant in southwest Virginia. He’s also been in favor of offshore drilling in the Atlantic (although that changed after he joined the Clinton ticket).

Kaine says he views natural gas a “bridge fuel,” and — despite his opposition to Keystone — penned an an op-ed referring to himself as a “pro-pipeline senator.” According to ClimateWire’s Emily Holden, he supported fracking in national forests as governor, and he voted to fast-track natural gas export terminals.

Yet he’s endorsed the goal of transitioning the U.S. to 25 percent renewable energy by 2025, and Kaine protected 400,000 acres of land from development and worked to help coastal communities prepare for climate change.

If history is any indication, climate change won’t get much attention in Tuesday’s debate — in all presidential and vice presidential debates in the past five election seasons, climate change had a grand total of 37 minutes and 6 seconds.

If it were up to us, we’d want to hear a lot more about Pence’s recent comments on human-made climate change. Hearing from Pence and Kaine for a few minutes on climate would hardly be the most shocking turn of this election. After all, we’ve been surprised before.

Election Guide ★ 2016Making America Green AgainOur experts weigh in on the real issues at stake in this election

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Where the veep candidates stand on climate and energy

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What’s that German word for waiting for a debate question on your issue, only to be crushed every time?

This week, cities mark World Car-Free Day, an annual event to promote biking, walking, mass transit, and other ways to get around sans motor vehicles (Solowheel, anyone?).

Technically, World Car-Free Day was Thursday, September 22, but participating cities are taking the “eh, close enough” approach to get their car-free kicks in on the weekend. Said cities include Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Brussels, Bogotá, Jakarta, Copenhagen, and Paris, where nearly half the city center will be closed to vehicle traffic on Sunday.

But going car-free, municipally speaking, is becoming more of a regular trend than an annual affair: Mexico City closes 35 miles of city streets to cars every Sunday; the Oslo city government proposed a ban on private vehicles in the city center after 2019; and in Paris, the government is allowed to limit vehicles if air pollution rises above health-threatening levels.

But even if your city isn’t officially participating in World Car-Free Day, you can be the change you want to see in your own metropolis. And by that, we mean: Just leave your keys at home. Horrible, no good things happen in cars.

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What’s that German word for waiting for a debate question on your issue, only to be crushed every time?

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My One Wish For the First Debate

Mother Jones

Don’t worry, Lester, this is nothing partisan. Feel free to grill Hillary Clinton about her emails and the Clinton Foundation and so forth. And by all means, grill Trump about the Trump Foundation and his lie about opposing the Iraq War and when he decided Obama was born in the US and all the other Trumpisms America wants to hear about.

But here’s my wish: do it in the second half-hour. Debate hosts have a habit of wanting to come out of the gate with a “tough” question that demonstrates what hard-hitting journalists they are, and that usually means some kind of edgily worded question about either a scandal or a “scandal.” Instead, let’s show that policy is what’s most important. You can still ask tough questions, probing around in the details the candidates would rather not address, but make the first half hour all about the actual, concrete plans they have for their presidency. There’s plenty of time for the zinger-fest later.

That’s it. That’s my wish list.

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My One Wish For the First Debate

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Here’s What People Were Googling During the Democratic Debate

Mother Jones

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Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders had their first debate since the race narrowed down to just the two of them, and also the last one before voters head to the polls in the New Hampshire primaries next Tuesday. The debate got testy at times, with Clinton and Sanders going after each other on issues such as Wall Street reform and national security. Once again, the folks at the Google News Lab put together some interesting charts that examine the debate reaction. Here are some of the best.

Here’s real-time Google search traffic for each candidate during the debate:

Seen another way:

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Here’s an interactive map that shows the highest search numbers per candidate by county, but also the top issues searched in New Hampshire:

It’s also interesting to see what questions about each of the two candidates people in New Hampshire are searching. Here are the questions for Clinton:

trends.embed.renderWidget(“US_cu_lh4OpVIBAADKOM_en”, “fe_list_7994d632-66a7-4c08-80d2-83a0fe755d8f”, {});

Sanders:

trends.embed.renderWidget(“US_cu_lh4OpVIBAADKOM_en”, “fe_list_e2736eda-c212-40bf-b532-d42c984b0877”, {});

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Here’s What People Were Googling During the Democratic Debate

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Was Ted Cruz a Big Winner or a Big Loser From the GOP Debate?

Mother Jones

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We now have a second poll showing who gained and who lost from the first GOP debate. It’s from CNN/ORC, and its results are similar to yesterday’s Fox News poll with two significant exceptions.

First, Donald Trump gained significantly in the CNN poll instead holding steady. However, this may be just an artifact of the date of the comparison poll: July 30 for Fox and July 22 for CNN. They both have Trump at about the same absolute level currently.

The other big difference is Ted Cruz. Fox had him up four points after the debate; CNN has him down two points. Since they both had him starting at 6 percent, that’s a pretty substantial difference. Aside from the normal statistical vagaries of polls like this, I can’t think of a reason for it.

Anyway, it’s still early days. This stuff is entertaining, but probably doesn’t mean a whole lot.

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Was Ted Cruz a Big Winner or a Big Loser From the GOP Debate?

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Carson, Cruz, Fiorina Are the Big Winners After the Debate

Mother Jones

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It’s taken a while, but we finally have a national poll taken following the Republican debate. Fox News conducted a poll starting on the Tuesday after the debate, so the results capture not just reaction to the debate, but reaction to the big Trump-Kelly feud over the weekend. The results, it turns out, aren’t that different from some of the insta-polls: Ben Carson (!) is the big winner and Jeb Bush is the big loser. And Trump? He pretty much stayed where he was.

Carson and Carly Fiorina “won” the debate; Trump and Rand Paul lost it. But these numbers are for all registered voters. Among Republicans, about equal numbers thought Trump did the best or the worst, for a net score (best minus worst) of -1 percent. Surprisingly, independents were the most enthusiastic about his debate performance, giving him a net score of +4 percent.

Overall, nearly half of Republicans now support either Trump, Carson, or Cruz for president. Those are the three of the most extreme candidates running. For the moment, anyway, it appears that Republican voters are in no mood to support anyone even remotely in the mainstream.

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Carson, Cruz, Fiorina Are the Big Winners After the Debate

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Vermont to Pass GMO Labeling!

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Vermont to Pass GMO Labeling!

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