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Green New Deal has overwhelming bipartisan support, poll finds. At least, for now.

by mike67i60013455 Posted on December 19, 2018

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This story was originally published by the HuffPost and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The Green New Deal is the most popular policy hardly anyone has heard of yet.

Eighty-two percent of Americans say they have heard “nothing at all” about the sweeping proposal to generate 100 percent of the nation’s electricity from clean sources within the next 10 years, upgrade the United States’ power grid, invest in energy efficiency and renewable technology, and provide training for jobs in the new, green economy.

But when asked “how much do you support or oppose” the aforementioned suite of policies, 81 percent of registered voters say they either “somewhat support” or “strongly support” the plan, according to new survey results shared exclusively with HuffPost from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University.

Ninety-two percent of Democrats supported the idea, including 93 percent of liberal Democrats and 90 percent of moderate-to-conservative Democrats. But 64 percent of Republicans ― including 75 percent of moderate-to-liberal Republicans and 57 percent of conservative Republicans ― also backed the policy goals outlined in the Green New Deal. 88 percent of independents endorsed the policies as well.

“Given that most Americans have strong support for the components and ideas of the Green New Deal, it becomes a communication strategy problem,” Abel Gustafson, a postdoctoral associate at Yale who co-authored a report on the findings, said by phone Sunday. “From here, it’s about how you can pitch it so you can maintain that bipartisan support throughout the rest of the process.”

The survey’s description of the Green New Deal’s tenets did not mention that more than 40 progressive members of Congress are championing the policy. The group includes Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (a Democrat from New York), Representative John Lewis (a Democrat from Georgia) and Senator Jeff Merkley (a Democrat from Oregon).

Study after study shows Americans evaluate policies more negatively when they are told politicians from an opposing party back the ideas, and more positively when they are told politicians from their own party are in support. The findings therefore indicate that although most Republicans favor the Green New Deal in principle, they are not yet aware that the plan is proposed by the political left.

The survey ― administered online to 966 registered voters, with a margin of error of +/- three percentage points ― was performed from November 28 to December 11.

Support could erode if debate over the policy becomes more partisan, which seems likely. No Republican lawmakers have backed the Green New Deal. Most moderate and conservative Democrats have not said they support the idea, either.

“It matters how the Green New Deal is communicated in the future,” Gustafson said. “If it becomes more partisan and right-versus-left, we could see support drop from Americans on the right.”

The findings mirror survey results released Monday that found major support for a green jobs program across political ideologies, including party loyalists and those who move between parties. Those who say they support a green jobs program include:

98 percent of loyal Democrats
66 percent of loyal Republicans
96 percent of voters who cast ballots for President Barack Obama in 2012, President Donald Trump in 2016, and Democrats in the 2018 midterms
93 percent of voters who cast ballots for Obama, then Trump, then Republicans in 2018

The polling, published in The New York Times, came from Data for Progress, the left-leaning think tank behind the most comprehensive blueprint for a Green New Deal to date.

Polling also finds that Americans consider global warming a real issue and support policy changes to address it. Yale survey data from August found:

70 percent of Americans recognize global warming is happening
57 percent understand humans are causing the temperature rise
85 percent support funding research into renewable energy
77 percent support regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant
63 percent support requiring utilities to generate one-fifth of their electricity from renewables

That made the latest findings on the Green New Deal ― one of the first major national surveys to use that term specifically ― “exciting but not necessarily surprising,” Gustafson said.

“The way we described the Green New Deal in our survey was by emphasizing the qualities that resonate with both sides, that it creates jobs and strengthens America’s economy and also accelerates the transition from fossil fuels,” he said. “We’re not surprised that conservatives support those things.”

Other polls show strong support for guaranteeing green jobs to unemployed Americans, a policy increasingly discussed as a vehicle for a Green New Deal but one that the Yale survey did not explicitly cite. In September, Data for Progress released polling that found 55 percent of eligible U.S. voters supported a jobs guarantee, while 23 percent opposed. When the jobs are green, that support remained the same, but the share of those outright opposed fell to 18 percent.

“Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike understand that they live on the same planet, the same country,” Corbin Trent, a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez, said when read the Yale survey results over the phone. “We need highways, jobs, and improved infrastructure, and we need a 100 percent renewable-energy economy.”

The Green New Deal barreled into mainstream political discourse a little over a month ago after languishing for more than a decade on the fringes of policy debates. A new wave of progressive Democrats reclaimed the term ahead of November’s midterm election to describe the type of large-scale economic mobilization scientists say is required to keep global warming within 2.3 degrees F, beyond which sea-level rise and extreme weather are forecast to be catastrophic.

In November, protesters with the left-wing groups Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats occupied top Democrats’ offices to demand party leadership make climate change a top priority in the next Congress. Ocasio-Cortez, who campaigned on a democratic socialist vision of climate action, proposed establishing a select committee in Congress to shape a Green New Deal. Thirty-seven incoming or sitting House members pledged to support the plan.

On Friday, more than 300 state and local elected officials voiced their support for a Green New Deal in an open letter.

The legislative path forward remains unclear, but the Green New Deal is shaping up to be a major 2020 issue. Richard Ojeda, the failed West Virginia congressional candidate now running for president, said he supports the policy. Two likely contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination ― Senators Bernie Sanders (an Independent fom Vermont) and Cory Booker (a Democrat from New Jersey) ― came out in support of a Green New Deal. Merkley, another potential 2020 hopeful, was among the first to back the plan.

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Green New Deal has overwhelming bipartisan support, poll finds. At least, for now.

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3 things to know ahead of this year’s U.N. climate talks in Poland.

by MarianaTrujillo Posted on December 2, 2018

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Thousands of the world’s top officials have gathered in Katowice, Poland to negotiate over the nuts and bolts of global climate solutions. The 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (otherwise known for its jazzier name, COP24) kicks off on December 3, and will continue over the following two weeks.

A lot is riding on the summit. This year marks the deadline set by the Paris climate agreement during COP21 to hammer out a rulebook for critical commitments made by nearly every country in the world to slow down climate change and avoid hugely damaging natural, economic, and human costs.

According to the Nature Conservancy, “This COP is just as important as the one in Paris, but without the fanfare.”

We’ll always have Paris … but a lot has changed since that climate accord was signed in April 2016. The United States has turned away from its Paris agreement pledge. The United Kingdom is preoccupied by Brexit, making it less likely to be able to focus on environmental goals. And Brazil, which recently backtracked on its offer to host next year’s U.N. climate talks, is about to inaugurate a leader who wants to open up the Amazon rainforest to deforestation, and could eff up the planet for all of us.

So what are we to make of COP24 against all this ruckus? Here are three signs that already hint to what we might expect from this year’s global climate talks.

Most U.S. politicians are sitting this one out.

Look, given his recent comments on his administration’s own climate report, no one expected President “I don’t believe it” Trump to high-tail it to COP24. But few if any top Democrats, who recently said they plan to use their House majority to prioritize the issue of climate change, seem to be schlepping it to Poland this year. According to Axios, no Democratic senators will be attending COP24. Even the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, will be sending staff in his place.

Last year, several big-name politicians, including California Governor Jerry Brown and Oregon Governor Katie Brown, attended COP23 in Bonn, Germany — but they won’t be attending this year. What gives? According to congressional aids, it’s about timing: COP24 is a being held nearly a month later in the year compared to 2017’s talks, and Congress is still in session.

Coal is going to be creeping on the conference.

COP24 will be held in Katowice, a coal mining city that is among the most polluted in Europe. Poland’s coal habit is becoming more expensive and damaging to the environment, but the country is still struggling to part ways with it. Poland currently uses coal to meet a whopping 80 percent of its energy needs. One of Poland’s leading coal companies, Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa (JSW), was the first official sponsor of the climate talks. Several other coal companies have followed suit.

The Trump administration has not been shy about its own love affair with coal. This year, it’s planning to have its own coal convention as a side event to COP24 touting the “long-term potential” for so-called “clean coal.” Pffft.

The recent flurry of climate reports might add real urgency to negotiations.

There has been a spate of major scientific reports in the run-up to COP24, including this one and this one and this one. The most comprehensive of these is arguably the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which underscores just how far governments still have to go if they’re to reach the goal agreed upon in Paris — namely to try to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But the IPCC report found that even in a 1.5-degree scenario, there will likely be an increase in extreme weather conditions, resulting in a major uptick in hunger, poverty, mass migration, and resource-driven conflicts.

The reports just might be the scary kick-in-the-ass world leaders need to up their commitments to reduce carbon emissions.

Stay tuned for Grist’s on the ground coverage of the goings-on at COP24.

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3 things to know ahead of this year’s U.N. climate talks in Poland.

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What were Ocasio-Cortez and 150 young activists doing in Nancy Pelosi’s office?

by payoneerreview91 Posted on November 13, 2018

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Democrats successfully flipped the House last week, and they’ve set their priorities for January: reforming voting, government ethics, and campaign finance laws. Surprise! Climate change isn’t on the list. Not exactly a shocker considering that Democrats don’t even have an economy-wide plan to tackle climate change yet.

Guess who does? Young people and newly elected Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A group of 150 youth activists held an hour-long sit-in in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office in D.C. on Tuesday. Their goal was to get Democrats to embrace a sweeping plan called the Green New Deal, and they came prepared with a draft resolution.

The protestors are members of a climate group called the Sunrise Movement and a progressive organization called the Justice Democrats. Two of Sunrise Movement’s leaders, Evan Weber and Varshini Prakash, have been on the Grist 50 — our annual list of up-and-coming changemakers. The activists were joined by Ocasio-Cortez, who voiced support for the Green New Deal — a plank of her campaign platform. But what is this “Green New Deal,” anyway? This video tells all:

It’s unlikely such legislation would fare well in the Republican-controlled Senate. Even some Democrats might hesitate to back it: After all, many of them are still taking oil money to try and win elections, as representative-elect Lizzie Fletcher did in Texas’ 7th District.

Nancy Pelosi was quick to respond to the protestors, saying that her office was “inspired” by their advocacy. Pelosi has indicated she intends to revive a committee on climate change that was established back in 2007 and disbanded in 2011. Unimpressed, the Sunrise Movement tweeted that Pelosi’s plan is akin to “bringing a squirt gun to a wildfire.”

There is new evidence that a Green New Deal would be embraced by voters, according to a new nationwide poll from survey group YouGov. As Alexander Kaufman of HuffPost reports, around half of folks who cast ballots in the midterms either “strongly” or “somewhat” support charging companies pollution fees and giving unemployed Americans green jobs.

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What were Ocasio-Cortez and 150 young activists doing in Nancy Pelosi’s office?

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It takes more than a hurricane to sway some voters in this Texas election

by FranzisVangundy Posted on October 30, 2018

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John Culberson, a United State congressman who represents west Houston, has long questioned “the data” on climate change, which scientists say contributes to more intense and frequent storms. When Hurricane Harvey drenched coastal Texas in the summer of 2017, Culberson’s denials didn’t protect him. Harvey flooded many of his constituents’ homes, as well as, according to one of his staffers, parts of the building that houses his district office.

A few months after the storm, Daniel Cohan, an environmental engineering professor at Rice University, penned a Houston Chronicle op-ed asking whether candidates for Congress were “ready to face climate change.” The piece was largely directed at Culberson, who has represented the Texas 7th congressional district, where Cohan lives, since 2001.

Read about other midterm races where voters are concerned about climate.

Cohan’s op-ed was intended to “debunk the misperceptions of voter apathy on climate.” Sure enough, based on data from The Cook Political Report and Yale’s 2018 Climate Opinion Maps, a lot of people in frequently flooded Houston are worried about global warming. But while the issue played a big role in the Texas 7th’s Democratic primary — the candidate who finished second, Laura Moser, warned that climate change could threaten “the very existence of our city” — it’s unclear how much these concerns will translate into political pressure on Culberson during this year’s midterm elections.

To date, Culberson is still not talking about climate change — even as his lead in the polls dwindles as election day nears. His opponent Lizzie Fletcher isn’t doing much to highlight the topic, either, at least in the general election. In its endorsement of Culberson’s opponent, the Houston Chronicle described Fletcher as a centrist who “backs offshore drilling.”

Nevertheless, environmentalists like Cohan have been working for months to bring the issue of climate change front and center. When he wrote his Chronicle piece, in January, Cohan had just moderated an event in west Houston called the “Houston Climate Forum.” The goal was to get politicians and voters talking about policies to slow global warming. Eight candidates attended, including Fletcher and Beto O’Rourke, the fawned-over Democratic Senate candidate trying to unseat Ted Cruz. More than 10,000 people tuned in online to watch, according to the event’s organizers.

U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, is recognized during a visit by Vice President Mike Pence to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.David J. Phillip / AP

“Candidates [were] trying to one-up each other, showing how strong they would be on climate change,” Cohan recalls.

Alas, no Republican candidates showed up to the forum.

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A year after Harvey, climate concerns remain stubbornly on the left side of the political spectrum, at least in Houston. They haven’t become a bipartisan rallying cry like, say, health-care reform. Cohan is still hopeful, but he acknowledges climate change might not play an outsized role in November’s midterm elections — in Houston or beyond. “There have been so many other hot-button issues, from the treatment of immigrants to Trump scandals,” he says.

If warming can’t crash the conversation in a seemingly climate-changed place like Houston, it suggests the issue has much headway to make up nationwide. And if the Texas 7th is a barometer for conservative political will on climate, the fact that Culberson still won’t talk about it means much of the right probably isn’t ready to take action.

According to Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, Culberson doesn’t have to talk about climate change because there aren’t enough swing voters in the Texas 7th who care about the issue. Those that do care already know how they’re voting.

“For the people for whom that’s important, they know Lizzie Fletcher is a Democrat and that John Culberson is a Republican,” Jones points out.

The Texas 7th is affluent, well-educated, and largely residential. While the east side of Houston has become infamous for its toxic oil and gas infrastructure, the west side serves as a comparatively clean bedroom community for the countless white-collar energy industry employees who work in the region. It is also generally spared from the worst of the health effects associated with Texas’ petrochemical economy.

“It’s two completely different worlds,” says Rosanne Barone of the two sides of the 7th. She’s a program director at Texas Campaign for the Environment and assessed the impact of pollution across Houston. “The worst offenders are on the east side.”

Still, signs abound that west Houston is becoming increasingly vulnerable to climate change, in the form of freak storms and floods. It has suffered extensive flooding from Harvey and at least two other storms in the past five years. In fact, Rep. Culberson has used last year’s hurricane as a major talking point during his campaign, name-dropping the storm in more than half of his emails to voters this year.

Lizzie Fletcher (far left) poses with Daniel Cohan (center) and others at January’s Houston Climate Forum.Courtesy Daniel Cohan

Despite those invocations, Culberson hasn’t budged on the issue of global warming, which many scientists believe will fuel the continual flooding of his district. On his official website, one of the few references to climate change is a 2009 press release questioning the “scientific integrity” of climate data. Culberson’s office didn’t respond to an interview request for this story. (Neither did Fletcher’s campaign.)

“He hasn’t been one of the snowball throwers calling climate change a hoax,” Daniel Cohan says of Culberson. “But he takes a wait-and-see attitude, falsely indicating that the science isn’t clear.”

That’s a problem, according to the Rice professor. The science is clear, he says, and “not something theoretical.” Houstonians regularly witness the effects of climate change, he explains, as they patiently wait for waters to recede from their flooded homes, cars, and roadways.

While Culberson’s unwillingness to discuss climate might be problematic for his specific district, it’s not strange for Republican congressional candidates in 2018. Few GOP members appear to take climate change seriously.

Nationwide polling helps explain why. Self-identified “liberal” voters rank global warming as one of the issues that are most important to them. But its ranking drops off precipitously as you move to the right along the political spectrum, according to a poll conducted by Yale and George Mason University. For the next-most liberal group — “moderate/conservative Democrats” — the issue drops to 16th. It keeps falling among increasingly conservative groups.

The exception may be voters who are still grappling with Harvey, whom Jones notes are “not an insignificant number” and could be swung by talk of climate policy. In a University of Houston survey this summer on the storm’s impact on four south Texas counties, eight percent of respondents said that they were still living in temporary housing. Twenty-two percent of survey respondents said they had to abandon their homes during Harvey, and almost half said their residence had flooded at some point since 2001. People whose homes flooded during Harvey were indeed more likely to say they believed the scientific consensus on climate change — but that was a view shared by more than 60 percent of the overall respondents.

Even then, the polling broke down along “generational and partisan divides,” the study researchers wrote. Just 35 percent of Houston Republicans accepted the science on climate change, compared to 80 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of non-affiliated voters.

“People are so rigid in their partisanship,” says Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston who has studied these trends. “Even in the wake of the most profound storm that the city and region has ever faced, it’s difficult to move people’s perceptions.”

If anything, intense partisanship in the era of Trump might cause Republicans to dig their heels even further on climate policy. In one study, published in April, researchers asked participants about proposals to mitigate warming. Republicans were less likely to support ideas once they learned Democrats also supported them. (Democrats were also less likely to support Republican proposals, but the effect was less dramatic.)

Former Democratic congressional candidate Laura Moser speaks at January’s Houston Climate Forum.Courtesy Daniel Cohan

Still, environmentalists say the increasing frequency and severity of floods, storms, and wildfires — not to mention the alarming U.N. climate report released earlier this month — will continue pushing global warming to the center of United States politics. “We’re seeing more and more that people generally do care about climate change and climate policy, and more people associate it with extreme weather,” says Jack Pratt, a senior political director at the Environmental Defense Fund.

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Oil and gas is a major industry in Houston, accounting for one-quarter of drilling jobs in the United States, according to recent figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s a factor that some experts point to as a reason why climate-change activism hasn’t gained much traction in the region. But while it can be, as Upton Sinclair famously pointed out, “difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it,” those blinders could eventually fall.

“When you see water coming into your home, the evidence suggests that the storm was more severe,” Cohan says, about the link between climate change and more extreme weather events.

As the effects of warming worsen, it will get harder for Republican politicians to avoid discussing it. And with the U.N. now warning that climate change could destabilize the planet as early as 2030, the real question is whether this shift will happen in time.

Daniel Cohan thinks there’s a growing interest in climate policy on the right. He points to support for the Paris climate accord among GOP voters and the formation of the recent bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives. (Though Cohan readily concedes the caucus hasn’t put forth any concrete policies since forming in 2016).

For him, even the fact that Culberson isn’t outright denying climate change is a sign of progress. “He’s not running on a platform of standing up for the oil-and-gas industry against climate policy,” Cohan says, “which a Republican could do.”

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It takes more than a hurricane to sway some voters in this Texas election

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5 House races where climate could tip the election

by RolandLohman Posted on October 30, 2018

Earlier this fall, the world’s top climate scientists gave humanity about 10 years to avoid a future that really sucks. With the midterm elections right around the corner, that warning means voters are effectively deciding which candidates to trust with the keys to the climate. If voters are sufficiently worried about warming, that anxiety might help determine who is put in office.

According to Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, worry is a stronger predictor of policy support than other emotions. “We found that it’s not fear, it’s not anger, and it’s not disgust or guilt,” he explained. “Worry doesn’t hijack, doesn’t overwhelm, rationality. It can really spur it.”

So just how worried about the planet’s future are voters in the nation’s tightest congressional races? Grist created a map overlaying competitive elections, as identified by The Cook Political Report, with climate concern data from Yale’s 2018 Climate Opinion Maps.

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These toss-up elections are spread throughout the country. Some are sprawling rural districts, others are comprised primarily of dense cities or metro areas. (Keep in mind that congressional districts vary in size, but each holds roughly the same number of people.) Each district varies in what percentage of its constituents report being worried about climate change — represented from yellow (not that worried) to red (pretty worried).

Interestingly, even in those districts where folks seem less concerned about climate change, a majority of people worry about it. Most of the seats in play are currently held by Republicans. And while several Democrats have doubled down on environmental policies, like renewable energy, climate change is a bipartisan issue in many of these communities.

Look closely at the map, and you’ll see a handful of neck-and-neck races in places chock full of climate-worriers. These communities range from the beaches of Miami and Southern California to the suburbs of Houston. Grist examined five of these highly climate-concerned toss-up districts to see what local factors may shift the balance of power in Congress.

Editor’s note: This map is based on up-to-date data at the time of publish. Also, Grist’s analysis excludes districts from Pennsylvania, since they recently redrew their congressional maps — and Yale’s data was collected before the redistricting effort. Sorry, Keystone State!

California 48th district (67 percent of residents are worried)

Members of various political and environmental groups pose for a group picture after press conference against offshore drilling along the California coast in Huntington Beach, CA, on Wednesday, July 25, 2018.Jeff Gritchen / Digital First Media / Orange County Register / Getty Images

California’s 48th congressional district includes much of coastal Orange County, and the local midterms are about as melodramatic as an episode of The O.C.

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Republican Dana Rohrabacher has represented this affluent, conservative bastion in a deep-blue state since 1989, but his seat is in play due in part to a few recent scandals: He had more than one clandestine meeting with Marina Butina, the former NRA darling arrested on suspicion of Russian espionage and election interference. That’s landed him on the radar of the Mueller investigation — and in hot water with voters. “They call me Putin’s best friend,” he told ABC last year. “I’m not Putin’s best friend.”

But even Republicans who deny Russian entanglements can’t get away with denying climate change in this sea-level community. The district’s stunning coastlines — from Huntington Beach to Laguna Beach — could see chronic flooding by 2030. That science isn’t lost on homeowners in the area, says Ray Hiemstra, co-chair of the Sierra Club’s Angeles Chapter Political Committee. “They’re actually starting to think, ‘Maybe I should start thinking of selling my place.’”

Rohrabacher says he supports solar and nuclear energy, as well as expanding oil and gas production. The staunch Trump supporter has stated in the past that offshore drilling is safer than importing oil on tankers, pointing to incidents such as the 1984 American Trader spill. In contrast, his opponent, Democratic candidate Harley Rouda, says he’ll promote clean energy while pushing back on offshore drilling efforts.

Florida 26th district (67 percent are worried)

REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

The tides are already lapping at the door in the low-lying Florida Keys. Within the century, scientists predict that much of South Florida could be underwater.

It’s no wonder that residents in Florida’s 26th congressional district — the state’s southernmost region which includes all three of its national parks, as well as part of Miami-Dade County — are some of the Americans who are most concerned about climate change in the nation. Almost 70 percent of its constituents are Latino, most of them Cuban-American. Polls show that Latinos consistently want climate action more than the population at large.

So what are people most concerned about? In addition to king tides, Elizabeth Bonnell, chair of the Sierra Club’s Miami Group, points to “climate gentrification” — when developers buy up future beachfront properties in low-income neighborhoods, pushing out current residents. Then, there’s the stifling heat, toxic algae, and dangerous hurricanes that have been brewing in the Atlantic recently.

The seat is one of the top 10 House races to watch in 2018, according to Politico. But District 26 is a special place where both candidates running for the House seat — yes, including the Republican — have explicitly backed climate action.

Incumbent Carlos Curbelo is one of only a handful of Republicans to openly address climate change. In February 2016 he co-founded the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, which earned him a spot on the 2017 Grist 50 list. But this year, in the wake of Hurricane Michael, Curbelo called people who linked the historic storm, which intensified rapidly thanks to the Gulf of Mexico’s warmer-than-normal waters, climate change “alarmists.” The stance earned him some criticism.

“Those of us who truly care about #climatechange must be sober when discussing its connection to #HurricaneMichael or any other storm,” Curbelo tweeted. “Florida has had hurricanes for centuries. There’s no time to waste, but alarmists hurt the cause & move our fight for #climatesolutions backward.”

One week out from the election, the race is narrowing. And Democratic challenger Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former associate dean at Florida International University, has made the environment a key component of her political ads.

Texas 7th district (65 percent are worried)

Residents of the Houston neighborhood of Meyerland wait on an I-610 overpass for help during the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey on August 27, 2017.Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty Images

The Texas 7th is affluent, well-educated, largely residential — and as a result of Hurricane Harvey, still recovering from being underwater for a chunk of 2017.

While the east side of Houston has long been infamous for its oil and gas infrastructure, the more affluent west side is becoming increasingly vulnerable to climate change in the form of freak storms. It has suffered extensive flooding from Harvey and at least two other storms in the past five years.

Republican John Culberson has represented Texas 7th since 2001. As he faces a tough reelection this year against Democratic challenger Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, he’s largely avoided talking about climate change, including declining an invitation in January to a community climate forum held in his district. While he has eschewed those exact words during his re-election bid, Rep. Culberson has used last year’s hurricane as a major talking point, name-dropping the storm in more than half of his emails to voters this year.

“He hasn’t been one of the snowball throwers calling climate change a hoax,” said Daniel Cohan, an environmental engineering professor at Rice University. “But he takes a wait-and-see attitude, falsely indicating that the science isn’t clear.”

For a district that’s borne the brunt of so many environmental disasters, it’s unclear how much sway climate change will have over the results of this race. According to Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, there may not be enough swing voters in the Texas 7th who care about the issue. Those that do care already know how they’re voting. But Jones adds, there are “not an insignificant number” of voters who are still grappling with Harvey and could be potentially influenced by talk of climate policy.

Read more coverage on how climate politics are playing out in west Houston.

Texas 32nd district (65 percent are worried)

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Texas has a lot of skin the game when it comes to climate change. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientist once dubbed the state “the disaster capital of the United States” for its unique meteorological conditions.

Texas’ 32nd congressional district, which includes the suburbs northeast of Dallas, saw unprecedented rains and flooding in September and October. The storms led to multiple deaths in the Dallas area. An extreme drought and heat wave this past summer resulted in a remarkable uptick in heat-related hospital visits.

Like Texas overall, the 32nd is a “majority-minority” district: 49 percent white, 25 percent Latino, 15 percent black, and eight percent Asian. Environmental polls have shown that people of color are more likely to care about climate change compared to white people. And the district’s demographics are now colliding with extreme weather to drive climate concern.

At least for now, climate politics in the 32nd — which is more affluent than much of the state — are traditionally partisan. Pete Sessions, the incumbent Republican who’s represented the district (and its previous incarnation, District 5) since 1997, has a lifetime score of two percent from the League of Conservation Voters, indicating a strong anti-environment record. Sessions’ campaign platform includes “reining in the EPA” and opening public lands for drilling. When Sessions was questioned early last year about his support for controversial EPA head Scott Pruitt, he hanged the subject, putting the blame on New York and the Northeast for polluting America.

Sessions’ main opponent, Democrat Colin Allred, is an ex-football player and current civil rights attorney whose main focus is on reducing voter disenfranchisement. His environmental platform states he believes in promoting investment in renewable energy, “rejoining” the Paris climate accord, and defending the independence of the EPA and NOAA.

New Jersey 7th district (64 percent are worried)

The lower level of Lambertville Inn is covered in water as the Delaware River crests August 29, 2011, in Lambertville, New Jersey.William Thomas Cain / Getty Images

New Jersey’s 7th congressional district stretches from New York City’s western suburbs all the way to the banks of the Delaware River. Not only does the river serve as the water supply for more than 15 million Americans, but it’s also a source of considerable climate worry for constituents.

Polluted runoff finds its way into waterways which add to the district’s rising rivers, damaging families, homes, and businesses. Climate change-related flooding threatens the quality of life across the district according to Ed Potosnak, executive director of the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters. “That’s where lack of action by Congress has left families vulnerable,” he told Grist.

New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the U.S., and the district runs the socioeconomic gamut, with a mix of suburban, exurban, and rural communities.

Republican Congressman Leonard Lance has represented the district since 2009. He’s also a member of the Climate Solutions Caucus. Though Lance has been a rare voice espousing the reality of climate change within the GOP, he also has a track record of siding with big business and the fossil fuel industry on legislation. Lance has a lifetime score of 23 percent on the League of Conservation Voters’ scorecard, hardly the marks of an environmentalist.

Lance’s opponent, Democrat Tom Malinowski, is new to New Jersey, but not to politics. He served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor under President Obama. According to the League of Conservation Voters, he has dedicated his career to people’s rights to breathe clean air and drink clean water. Like his opponent, Malinowski has stated he believes that humans are exacerbating climate change. He has promised to oppose pipelines that will run across the state and has spoken out against offshore drilling,

Additional Reporting Credit:

Map development: Lo Benichou (Mapbox)

Map data: The Cook Political Report and Yale’s 2018 Climate Opinion Maps (as of 10/30/2018)

Community profiles: Justine Calma, Kate Yoder, Stephen Paulsen, Eve Andrews, Paola Rosa-Aquino

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5 House races where climate could tip the election

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This map shows the 5 hottest midterm races for climate

by well Posted on October 30, 2018

Earlier this fall, the world’s top climate scientists gave humanity about 10 years to avoid a future that really sucks. With the midterm elections right around the corner, that warning means voters are effectively deciding which candidates to trust with the keys to the climate. If voters are sufficiently worried about warming, that anxiety might help determine who is put in office.

According to Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, worry is a stronger predictor of policy support than other emotions. “We found that it’s not fear, it’s not anger, and it’s not disgust or guilt,” he explained. “Worry doesn’t hijack, doesn’t overwhelm, rationality. It can really spur it.”

So just how worried about the planet’s future are voters in the nation’s tightest congressional races? Grist created a map overlaying competitive elections, as identified by The Cook Political Report, with climate concern data from Yale’s 2018 Climate Opinion Maps.

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These toss-up elections are spread throughout the country. Some are sprawling rural districts, others are comprised primarily of dense cities or metro areas. (Keep in mind that congressional districts vary in size, but each holds roughly the same number of people.) Each district varies in what percentage of its constituents report being worried about climate change — represented from yellow (not that worried) to red (pretty worried).

Interestingly, even in those districts where folks seem less concerned about climate change, a majority of people worry about it. Most of the seats in play are currently held by Republicans. And while several Democrats have doubled down on environmental policies, like renewable energy, climate change is a bipartisan issue in many of these communities.

Look closely at the map, and you’ll see a handful of neck-and-neck races in places chock full of climate-worriers. These communities range from the beaches of Miami and Southern California to the suburbs of Houston. Grist examined five of these highly climate-concerned toss-up districts to see what local factors may shift the balance of power in Congress.

Editor’s note: This map is based on up-to-date data at the time of publishing. Also, Grist’s analysis excludes districts from Pennsylvania, because it recently redrew its congressional maps — and Yale’s data was collected before the redistricting effort. Sorry, Keystone State!

California 48th district (67 percent of residents are worried)

Members of various political and environmental groups pose for a group picture after press conference against offshore drilling along the California coast in Huntington Beach, CA, on Wednesday, July 25, 2018.Jeff Gritchen / Digital First Media / Orange County Register / Getty Images

California’s 48th congressional district includes much of coastal Orange County, and the local midterms are about as melodramatic as an episode of The O.C.

Story continues below

Republican Dana Rohrabacher has represented this affluent, conservative bastion in a deep-blue state since 1989, but his seat is in play due in part to a few recent scandals: He had more than one clandestine meeting with Marina Butina, the former NRA darling arrested on suspicion of Russian espionage and election interference. That’s landed him on the radar of the Mueller investigation — and in hot water with voters. “They call me Putin’s best friend,” he told ABC last year. “I’m not Putin’s best friend.”

But even Republicans who deny Russian entanglements can’t get away with denying climate change in this sea-level community. The district’s stunning coastlines — from Huntington Beach to Laguna Beach — could see chronic flooding by 2030. That science isn’t lost on homeowners in the area, says Ray Hiemstra, co-chair of the Sierra Club’s Angeles Chapter Political Committee. “They’re actually starting to think, ‘Maybe I should start thinking of selling my place.’”

Rohrabacher says he supports solar and nuclear energy, as well as expanding oil and gas production. The staunch Trump supporter has stated in the past that offshore drilling is safer than importing oil on tankers, pointing to incidents such as the 1984 American Trader spill. In contrast, his opponent, Democratic candidate Harley Rouda, says he’ll promote clean energy while pushing back on offshore drilling efforts.

Florida 26th district (67 percent are worried)

REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

The tides are already lapping at the door in the low-lying Florida Keys. Within the century, scientists predict that much of South Florida could be underwater.

It’s no wonder that residents in Florida’s 26th congressional district — the state’s southernmost region which includes all three of its national parks, as well as part of Miami-Dade County — are some of the Americans who are most concerned about climate change in the nation. Almost 70 percent of its constituents are Latino, most of them Cuban-American. Polls show that Latinos consistently want climate action more than the population at large.

So what are people most concerned about? In addition to king tides, Elizabeth Bonnell, chair of the Sierra Club’s Miami Group, points to “climate gentrification” — when developers buy up future beachfront properties in low-income neighborhoods, pushing out current residents. Then, there’s the stifling heat, toxic algae, and dangerous hurricanes that have been brewing in the Atlantic recently.

The seat is one of the top 10 House races to watch in 2018, according to Politico. But District 26 is a special place where both candidates running for the House seat — yes, including the Republican — have explicitly backed climate action.

Incumbent Carlos Curbelo is one of only a handful of Republicans to openly address climate change. In February 2016 he co-founded the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, which earned him a spot on the 2017 Grist 50 list. But this year, in the wake of Hurricane Michael, Curbelo called people who linked the historic storm, which intensified rapidly thanks to the Gulf of Mexico’s warmer-than-normal waters, climate change “alarmists.” The stance earned him some criticism.

“Those of us who truly care about #climatechange must be sober when discussing its connection to #HurricaneMichael or any other storm,” Curbelo tweeted. “Florida has had hurricanes for centuries. There’s no time to waste, but alarmists hurt the cause & move our fight for #climatesolutions backward.”

One week out from the election, the race is narrowing. And Democratic challenger Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former associate dean at Florida International University, has made the environment a key component of her political ads.

Texas 7th district (65 percent are worried)

Residents of the Houston neighborhood of Meyerland wait on an I-610 overpass for help during the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey on August 27, 2017.Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty Images

The Texas 7th is affluent, well-educated, largely residential — and as a result of Hurricane Harvey, still recovering from being underwater for a chunk of 2017.

While the east side of Houston has long been infamous for its oil and gas infrastructure, the more affluent west side is becoming increasingly vulnerable to climate change in the form of freak storms. It has suffered extensive flooding from Harvey and at least two other storms in the past five years.

Republican John Culberson has represented Texas 7th since 2001. As he faces a tough reelection this year against Democratic challenger Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, he’s largely avoided talking about climate change, including declining an invitation in January to a community climate forum held in his district. While he has eschewed those exact words during his re-election bid, Rep. Culberson has used last year’s hurricane as a major talking point, name-dropping the storm in more than half of his emails to voters this year.

“He hasn’t been one of the snowball throwers calling climate change a hoax,” said Daniel Cohan, an environmental engineering professor at Rice University. “But he takes a wait-and-see attitude, falsely indicating that the science isn’t clear.”

For a district that’s borne the brunt of so many environmental disasters, it’s unclear how much sway climate change will have over the results of this race. According to Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, there may not be enough swing voters in the Texas 7th who care about the issue. Those that do care already know how they’re voting. But Jones adds, there are “not an insignificant number” of voters who are still grappling with Harvey and could be potentially influenced by talk of climate policy.

Read more coverage on how climate politics are playing out in west Houston.

Texas 32nd district (65 percent are worried)

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Texas has a lot of skin the game when it comes to climate change. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientist once dubbed the state “the disaster capital of the United States” for its unique meteorological conditions.

Texas’ 32nd congressional district, which includes the suburbs northeast of Dallas, saw unprecedented rains and flooding in September and October. The storms led to multiple deaths in the Dallas area. An extreme drought and heat wave this past summer resulted in a remarkable uptick in heat-related hospital visits.

Like Texas overall, the 32nd is a “majority-minority” district: 49 percent white, 25 percent Latino, 15 percent black, and eight percent Asian. Environmental polls have shown that people of color are more likely to care about climate change compared to white people. And the district’s demographics are now colliding with extreme weather to drive climate concern.

At least for now, climate politics in the 32nd — which is more affluent than much of the state — are traditionally partisan. Pete Sessions, the incumbent Republican who’s represented the district (and its previous incarnation, District 5) since 1997, has a lifetime score of two percent from the League of Conservation Voters, indicating a strong anti-environment record. Sessions’ campaign platform includes “reining in the EPA” and opening public lands for drilling. When Sessions was questioned early last year about his support for controversial EPA head Scott Pruitt, he hanged the subject, putting the blame on New York and the Northeast for polluting America.

Sessions’ main opponent, Democrat Colin Allred, is an ex-football player and current civil rights attorney whose main focus is on reducing voter disenfranchisement. His environmental platform states he believes in promoting investment in renewable energy, “rejoining” the Paris climate accord, and defending the independence of the EPA and NOAA.

New Jersey 7th district (64 percent are worried)

The lower level of Lambertville Inn is covered in water as the Delaware River crests August 29, 2011, in Lambertville, New Jersey.William Thomas Cain / Getty Images

New Jersey’s 7th congressional district stretches from New York City’s western suburbs all the way to the banks of the Delaware River. Not only does the river serve as the water supply for more than 15 million Americans, but it’s also a source of considerable climate worry for constituents.

Polluted runoff finds its way into waterways which add to the district’s rising rivers, damaging families, homes, and businesses. Climate change-related flooding threatens the quality of life across the district according to Ed Potosnak, executive director of the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters. “That’s where lack of action by Congress has left families vulnerable,” he told Grist.

New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the U.S., and the district runs the socioeconomic gamut, with a mix of suburban, exurban, and rural communities.

Republican Congressman Leonard Lance has represented the district since 2009. He’s also a member of the Climate Solutions Caucus. Though Lance has been a rare voice espousing the reality of climate change within the GOP, he also has a track record of siding with big business and the fossil fuel industry on legislation. Lance has a lifetime score of 23 percent on the League of Conservation Voters’ scorecard, hardly the marks of an environmentalist.

Lance’s opponent, Democrat Tom Malinowski, is new to New Jersey, but not to politics. He served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor under President Obama. According to the League of Conservation Voters, he has dedicated his career to people’s rights to breathe clean air and drink clean water. Like his opponent, Malinowski has stated he believes that humans are exacerbating climate change. He has promised to oppose pipelines that will run across the state and has spoken out against offshore drilling,

Additional Reporting Credit

Map development: Lo Bénichou  from Mapbox

Map data: The Cook Political Report and Yale’s 2018 Climate Opinion Maps (as of 10/30/2018)

Community profiles: Justine Calma, Kate Yoder, Stephen Paulsen, Eve Andrews, Paola Rosa-Aquino

Originally posted here:  

This map shows the 5 hottest midterm races for climate

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5 things I learned from watching political ads that actually mention climate

by WilfredAla Posted on October 27, 2018

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Politicians usually like to play it safe with their campaign ads: American flags, factories, Labrador retrievers, and kids in suspenders. The environment doesn’t typically (if ever) make an appearance minus a pretty backdrop for an American flag.

But this year is different. A burst of political advertisements about the changing climate has hit television screens across the country. Could it be a sign that some politicians might soon stop avoiding climate change like the plague (and starting talking about it like… well, an actual plague)?

The New York Times tracked down those ads — there are more than a dozen out there. And I spent the day watching them all so you don’t have to. The following takeaways are NOT endorsements. Nothin’ like tearing apart some political ads on a Friday afternoon.

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Say “jobs,” not “climate change”

Renewables. Are. Big. Clean energy seems like the safest way for politicians to talk about climate change without coming on too strong or like too much of an environmentalist, heaven forbid. Take Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo’s ad, titled “The Ocean State.” In the 30ish-second ad, the Democrat touts her state’s clean energy credentials. “We’re now the only state with an offshore wind farm,” she says, standing on a boat (with — you guessed it — an American flag flying in the background). She never mentions the words “climate change,” instead taking the tried-and-true approach of linking the project to potential economic growth.

Green is the new extreme sport

Democratic Congressperson Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico’s 1st District took a less traditional approach in her ad for governor. She climbed 265 feet to the top of a wind turbine to prove she’ll go the extra mile (or foot) for renewable energy. Did she impress viewers, or just give them vertigo? We’ll find out on November 6.

The environment = anti-Trump ammo

Other politicians used climate change as fodder to slam President Trump in their ads, doubling down on partisan politics. Sean Casten, a scientist running in Illinois’ 6th Congressional District, tore into the president’s history of climate skepticism. “This facility is on the leading edge of clean energy,” Casten says, standing in front of some expensive-looking monitors. “Donald Trump doesn’t think we need it because he thinks climate change is a hoax.”

It makes for pretty, pretty policy

Steve Sisolak, Nevada’s Democratic candidate for governor, has a “bold environmental vision” for his state. His ad starts in front of a sad-looking lagoon, but quickly transitions to Instagram-worthy drone footage of solar farms. He says he wants to protect Nevada’s national monuments, like Golden Butte, and ends with a pledge to uphold the Paris agreement and the Clean Power Plan.

Climate is at least bipartisan-curious

OK, so there weren’t a horde of Republicans releasing ads in favor of reducing emissions. But at least one Republican representative, Carlos Curbelo of Florida’s 26th District, was down to bring climate change up in his ads — maybe not too surprising for a guy whose district is at sea-level. Curbelo is one of the founding members of the Climate Solutions Caucus, a bipartisan effort to get politicians in Congress to act on climate change. He also appears on our Grist 50 list, though he somehow neglected to mention that in his campaign video.

“I just call ‘em like I see him,” Curbelo says in his T.V. spot, which seems to take place entirely on a basketball court for some reason. “The right didn’t do enough for our environment.” The ad also features a 2018 quote from the National Wildlife Federation, which calls him a leader on climate change. Watch Curbelo make an astounding number of basketball metaphors here:

Are politicians ready to stop swerving climate change in their campaigns? A dozen or so ads isn’t a seismic shift in the way politicians approach this issue. But it’s a start!

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5 things I learned from watching political ads that actually mention climate

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No vote, no problem. Young people think outside the ballot box.

by JulianePink Posted on September 26, 2018

Zi Chua spent much of her summer vacation knocking on doors and asking New Yorkers to vote for candidates she believed would take the strongest action on climate change. When she wasn’t trying to get out the vote, she was busy holding elected officials accountable — as in early August, when she helped plan a morning sit-in at Andrew Cuomo’s New York City office.

Chua and other youth organizers hoped to pressure the New York State governor to disavow contributions to his gubernatorial re-election campaign from oil, gas, and coal interests. Cuomo had opted out of taking a pledge to refuse donations from the fossil fuel industry and its lobbyists.

When police arrested eight demonstrators under the age of 25 at Cuomo’s Manhattan office, some wore T-shirts with the words “Who says youth don’t vote?” emblazoned on the back. It was a warning to politicians that the country’s youth are raising their voices.

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In past elections, however, the youth turnout has been lackluster. In 2016, fewer than 40 percent of 18 and 19 year olds nationwide voted (according to data from from the youth civic engagement initiative, YVote). For comparison, 55 percent of all eligible voters cast ballots. In the 2014, midterms, just 14 percent of these young people made it to the polls — versus slightly more than 35 percent of the entire electorate, the lowest overall turnout since World War II.

Today, young people have the potential to wield increasingly significant electoral power. When the next presidential election comes around in 2020, millennials and members of following generation, Generation Z, are expected to make up 40 percent of the U.S. population. In just the next two years, 22 million potential voters will become eligible to cast a ballot.

Members of Sunrise Movement, a youth-led group dedicated to getting fossil fuel money out of politics, hold a sit-in at New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Manhattan office.

  

Justine Calma

Chua, who is 20, most likely won’t be one of those voters. The college sophomore grew up in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur and moved to Boston to attend Wellesley College. But she’s among a growing youth movement that cares so much about the climate that it’s working to influence elections. And even if individual members can’t vote themselves, they want those who can to know how their actions will impact the world that youth will inherit.

Take 19-year-old Christian Acevedo, who was born and raised in Miami. He credits his increased passion to take on climate change this election season to Hurricane Maria, which ravaged his father’s native Puerto Rico almost exactly one year ago this month. He recently pledged to become a climate voter through an initiative led by Generation Progress, the youth-engagement effort of the progressive think tank Center for American Progress, and the climate-focused multimedia campaign The Years Project.

“It was like someone lit a fire under me, and I just really wanted to get out there and be engaged,” Acevedo said.

While a handful of young activists occupied the lobby of the skyscraper where Andrew Cuomo’s office is located, Zi Chua rallied dozens of others gathered outside. The youthful crowd carried signs that bore slogans like, “Lose our trust, lose our vote.”

The protesters had begun gathering at 10:30 that morning at the Midtown building. After an hour of chanting slogans like, “Whose side are you on?” Chua began to worry about the group’s ability to keep its energy up — especially with its peers risking being arrested inside.

A young activist is arrested and removed from Governor Cuomo’s New York City office during an August sit-in.  Justine Calma

“I think everyone is getting tired,” she told me. “They need to keep it up because they’re still sitting in, and we need to support them.”

Fewer than 10 minutes later, police began arresting the activists inside as Chua and others encouraged the crowd outside to raise their voices. As the demonstration came to an end, those who organized the event invited participants to join them the following day to phone bank for Cuomo’s rival in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, Cynthia Nixon. (Six weeks later, Cuomo would fend off Nixon’s challenge.)

Chua and the demonstrators that August morning are members of the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led effort to organize against politicians backed by big oil in the hopes of electing leaders it believes will stand up for the planet and the people most impacted by climate change. Throughout the summer and fall, Sunrise placed 70 fellows from across the country in key voting districts in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, New York, and Minnesota. During its “Sunrise Semester,” fellows have been charged with waging what the group calls a “massive youth intervention in the 2018 midterm elections.”

Sunrise isn’t the only youth-led group pushing for a green wave this election season. Rachel Lee is a 15-year-old high school sophomore from the New York City suburb of Closter, New Jersey. She heads up the New York chapter of Zero Hour. The group organized youth climate marches across the United States this summer, and Lee has been tasked with keeping the movement going through this upcoming school year.

Ahead of Jerry Brown’s Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco earlier this month, Lee schlepped into the city on a school night to help lead a march on climate intervention, green jobs, and bringing awareness to environmental injustice.

“With homework, project assignments, and stuff like that, it’s hard to find time,” Lee said, adding she had a history essay due at midnight. But she was more concerned about the future of the planet.

“Priorities,” she said jokingly. “If you’re passionate enough about climate change then you’ll do anything to come here.”

Nationwide, Zero Hour chapters are calling for the divestment of public and private funds from fossil fuels and big agriculture, a transition to 100 percent renewable energy 2040 (that doesn’t leave vulnerable communities behind), and a complete halt to the development of all new pipeline projects and oil and gas infrastructure. Lee and New York Zero Hour members are also hoping to pass the Climate and Community Protection Act, which would accelerate the state’s commitment to ditching dirty energy.

Sylvana Widman is another high schooler hoping young people can push that legislation through the New York State Assembly this winter. The 16-year-old is the chair of another student organization, the Youth Progressive Policy Group, which lobbies the state’s legislative body. Its primary focus is supporting a bill to lower the legal voting age to 17, and the group is already working on a voter registration drive and setting up booths in high schools to get young voters engaged.

Thanks largely to Widman’s leadership, the group also decided to take on environmental issues. It’s gearing up to fight for the Climate and Community Protection Act this winter. When it comes to balancing high school and changing the world one election at a time, Widman told Grist, “It’s kind of overwhelming but, you know, climate justice doesn’t stop for anyone.”

That sense of working towards something bigger than themselves is what weaves each young leader’s actions into a movement that legislators will have to reckon with this fall. It’s what motivated Chua with Sunrise Semester to spend three hours each day attempting to reach up to 100 voters in roughly 70 homes within her assigned “turf.”

Zi Chua (center) and other members of Sunrise Movement rally protesters outside Andrew Cuomo’s office in August.

  

Justine Calma

It’s not glamorous work. Sometimes she had doors slammed in her face. “You woke me up for this?” she recalls one resident telling her.

But she was determined to get voters thinking about the impact they can have on the planet where we all live.

That’s why she feels she has a stake in this election, too. As the the second-biggest carbon emitter, the U.S. is currently behind only China in contributing toward our warming climate. And the rising global temperatures that Americans are helping to fuel are threatening access to food and clean water in Chua’s home country of Malaysia.

“Their individual decisions as voters affect the rest of the world,” Chua said. “I’m part of the rest of the world.”

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No vote, no problem. Young people think outside the ballot box.

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Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke didn’t debate climate change. Will it come up next time?

by RondaWRMzhd Posted on September 25, 2018

Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke faced off on Friday, September 21, in the most high-profile Senate debate of the election season so far. As you might expect, it did not include a single mention of climate change.

Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas, and O’Rourke, the Democratic congressman who’s challenging him, have starkly different views on the issue, but voters are not hearing enough about those views. Climate change poses huge threats in Texas, including extreme heat, drought, wildfires, and coastal flooding. The Houston area is still recovering from last year’s record-breaking Hurricane Harvey, which multiple scientific studies found was made worse by climate change. Long known as an oil and gas powerhouse, Texas now has a big stake in the clean energy economy, leading the nation in wind power and coming in fifth in solar power.

But the debate’s moderators — NBC 5 political reporter Julie Fine and Dallas Morning News political writer Gromer Jeffers — didn’t ask any questions about climate change or related energy issues. That was a squandered opportunity.

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“I’m disappointed,” Texas resident Sarah Beasley told ThinkProgress, explaining that she had wanted to hear from the candidates on global warming. Nearly 4 in 10 registered voters surveyed earlier this year said a candidate’s position on global warming would be very important when they decide who to vote for in 2018 congressional elections.

Unfortunately, the Cruz-O’Rourke debate was not an outlier. Of 12 debates in competitive Senate and gubernatorial races that Media Matters has analyzed so far this election season, only one included a question about climate change. That’s actually worse than what we saw in the 2016 election season, when Media Matters found that less than a quarter of the debates we analyzed in competitive Senate and governor races featured a climate question.

The Minnesota governor’s race provided the sole debate we’ve analyzed so far this year that did address climate change. The moderator, Minnesota Public Radio political editor Mike Mulcahy, asked both candidates — Republican Jeff Johnson and Democrat Tim Walz — for their views on climate change.

The resulting exchange, which went on for more than five minutes, was both substantive and informative. Johnson said that “there is quite a disparate opinion on how much” humans contribute to climate change. (If he was talking about the opinion of climate scientists, that’s not true.) He also argued that policies to fight climate change could “cost people a lot of money and hurt people” and might not “make any difference.”

In contrast, Walz said, “We can make a difference. We have to make a difference.” He pointed out that shifting to clean energy can lead to a stronger economy and job growth. The debate made the candidates’ differing views on climate change crystal clear.

Attention, debate moderators: We need more exchanges like that. Ask candidates to make clear whether they consider climate change to be a serious problem, and what they propose to do about it. Better yet: Ask how they will respond to climate change’s local, state, and regional impacts, which differ around the country.

Dozens more debates will happen over the next six weeks in the lead-up to Election Day, giving the journalists and others who will act as moderators plenty of opportunities to ask candidates about climate change — arguably the most pressing issue of our time. Media Matters will be updating a scorecard with details about upcoming debates and contact info for moderators, and after debates happen, we’ll report on whether moderators brought climate change up.

Voters deserve to hear candidates publicly state their views, and the rest of the electorate does too. If there’s a debate coming up in your state, let the moderators know that you expect climate change to be on the agenda. In Texas, there are two more chances to get it right: Cruz and O’Rourke will meet again at debates on September 30 and October 16. Houston’s ABC13 is asking citizens to submit questions for the next debate. Have any suggestions?

Lisa Hymas is director of the climate and energy program at Media Matters for America. She was previously a senior editor at Grist.

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Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke didn’t debate climate change. Will it come up next time?

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While Trump rejects science, Obama and Clinton warn of climate change’s urgent danger

by FlynnBnthuuis Posted on September 7, 2018

The Democratic Party VIPs offered sobering remarks on the immediacy of climate change on Friday. Former President Obama and former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton warned separately that climate change is not an intangible, future threat, but one that is at this moment devastating the planet and its inhabitants.

During a “State of Democracy” speech at the University of Illinois, Obama offered a science-backed reminder: “We know that climate change isn’t just coming. It is here.”

Clinton issued a similar sentiment on Twitter. “We’re not fighting for the planet in some abstract sense here,” she said. “We’re fighting for our continued ability to live on it.” She pointed to record-high temperatures across the world, the biggest wildfire in California history, and an unprecedented red tide in Florida — all visible signs that climate change is something to be contending with right now.

Both of their remarks stood in contrast to the tide of climate denial under the current administration, from President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement to the EPA’s ongoing censorship of climate science.

Obama noted how the current Congress has “rejected science, rejected facts on things like climate change.”

Clinton focused her tweet thread on Brett Kavanaugh’s lengthy record of undermining environmental policies, which Grist has examined. Kavanaugh, now in his fourth day of Supreme Court confirmation hearings, struck down a federal program to curb cross-state pollution from power plants in 2012 and just last year ruled that the EPA’s attempt to phase out hydrofluorocarbons was outside its authority, as Clinton tweeted.

Clinton came to a sober assessment of what’s at stake: “Replacing Kennedy with Kavanaugh would swing the Court to a new, hard-right majority that would rule against curbing greenhouse gases for years — maybe decades — that we can’t afford to waste on inaction.”

Both Obama and Clinton saw political engagement as part of the way out of this quagmire. “The antidote to a government controlled by a powerful few, a government that divides, is a government by the organized, energized, inclusive many,” said Obama.

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While Trump rejects science, Obama and Clinton warn of climate change’s urgent danger

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