Jan. 17--Getting a straightforward answer from a politician is not without challenge. But on the issue of climate change, the presidential candidates at least are pretty clear, and views fall clearly along party lines.
Globally, there's no disputing the legitimacy of climate change, according to James W. Jordan, a faculty member at Antioch University New England in Keene and director of its field studies program. The legitimacy of the notion that it exists "is not a matter that we should be spending our time and energy debating," he said.
But the issue comes into play during election cycles -- despite the fact that 71 percent of Americans believe the Earth is indeed warming, according to the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.
Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley all feature the environment and climate change on their campaign websites.
With pictures of wind farms and solar panels, bold headings and subheads, and phrases such as "grave threat," "moral obligation" and "urgent challenge," the websites detail the candidates' positions on climate change and actions they'd take as president.
On Republican candidates' websites, one is hard-pressed to find the words "climate" and "change" in the same sentence.
"Clean energy represents the biggest business and job creation opportunity we've seen in a hundred years," O'Malley wrote in a June op-ed. "And reliance on local, renewable energy sources means a more secure nation and a more stable world. Given the grave threat that climate change poses to human life on our planet, we have not only a business imperative but a moral obligation to future generations to act immediately and aggressively."
O'Malley wants to end the use of fossil fuels and transition the United States to being powered 100 percent by clean energy by 2050.
Sanders also endorses a fully clean energy system. The Vermont senator says he'd cut carbon pollution by 40 percent by 2030 and by more than 80 percent by 2050 by taxing carbon pollution, ending fossil fuel subsidies and making investments in sustainable energy sources.
"Climate change is the single greatest threat facing our planet," Sanders' campaign website says. "The debate is over, and the scientific jury is in: global climate change is real, it is caused mainly by emissions released from burning fossil fuels and it poses a catastrophic threat to the long-term longevity of our planet."
Clinton proposes increasing solar energy production by installing more than half a billion panels by the end of her first term. She also wants to generate enough clean energy to power every home in the country within 10 years.
"The United States is already taking steps to invest in our clean energy future, but we need to do more," it says on her site. "We need to take bold action to combat climate change, create jobs, protect the health of American families and communities."
By contrast, the websites for Republican candidates Donald Trump, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson don't include policy positions on the issues, let alone plans to fight it.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich's campaign website doesn't specifically list a page for his viewpoint or plans on the environment. Instead, it mentions his energy plans as part of what's called the "Kasich Action Plan."
"John Kasich believes that Americans need an energy policy that encourages more energy production from a broad base of sources," it says on his site. "Only by responsibly increasing all energy supplies will we have certainty and affordability. At the same time we need environmental regulations that strike the right balance between needed protection and the need for jobs."
Although former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Rubio each have a webpage devoted to energy policy, they don't directly address or mention climate change.
Bush, Christie, Paul and Rubio's sites touch on preparing the country for the future energy industry and pursuing many forms of power. They also mention protecting the environment and pursuing renewable energy.
Rubio says he'd lift the ban on crude exports, expedite approval of natural gas exports, rewrite Obama's offshore drilling plan and reform the country's education system to support energy jobs of the future and facilitate private development of new technology.
Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina doesn't have a page dedicated to the environment, but users can search her website for videos of her thoughts on various political issues.
She has a webpage on energy, which says she would ensure the United States becomes the "global energy powerhouse" of the 21st century. In a video on her website titled "Do you believe that climate change is real and man-made?," Fiorina offers no straightforward answer.
In it, she tells Glenn Beck that scientists say a 30-year global effort to combat climate change would cost trillions of dollars and make only a small difference. The chances of that happening are zero, she said.
At September's Republican debate, Rubio said he's not skeptical of climate change, but is skeptical of the Obama administration's approach.
On Jan. 21, 2015, Rubio was one of 98 senators who voted "To express the sense of the Senate that climate change is real and not a hoax," according to Senate voting records.
Paul and Cruz also voted in agreement. But in a June interview with Katie Couric, Cruz called climate change "pseudo scientific theory."
Later in October, Cruz told Beck, "Climate change is not science, it's religion."
Trump also expressed his doubt during an interview with radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt in September.
"But the problem we have, and if you look at our energy costs, and all of the things that we're doing to solve a problem that I don't think in any major fashion exists," he said. "I mean, Obama thinks it's the number one problem of the world today. And I think it's very low on the list. So I am not a believer, and I will, unless somebody can prove something to me, I believe there's weather."
Carson too shared his skepticism during an interview in Des Moines, Iowa, in November 2014.
"There's always going to be either cooling or warming going on," he said. "As far as I'm concerned, that's irrelevant. What is relevant is that we have an obligation and a responsibility to protect our environment."
Origins of a divide
Christopher Galdieri, an assistant professor of politics at St. Anselm College in Manchester, attributes the partisan divide on global warming to another climate shift -- in the political environment of the United States.
"I think a lot of it comes down to the state of polarization we have between our parties today," he said.
It wasn't always this way.
Memos released by the National Security Archive last month show White House officials pushing for action on climate change during the George H.W. Bush administration.
Lawrence Hamilton, a sociology professor at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, said the movement by Republicans toward skepticism or denial of climate change goes back years, to when conservative think-tanks with energy interests released arguments against the issue.
Now it's more of a bottom-up issue driven by the Republican base, according to Hamilton.
"If you're running a national primary campaign as a Republican nowadays, you pretty much have to argue that the science is wrong," he said.
Al Gore is seen as a leader in the fight against climate change, but because he's a Democrat, Republicans may look to discount his claims, Galdieri said.
Because the Democratic candidates are more aligned with the science, talking about climate change benefits them in the primary and the general election because it's almost universally accepted by their base as an issue, Hamilton said.
Still, when the public is surveyed about climate change's importance, their responses show why Republican candidates can ignore the subject. Of 23 topics the public thinks should be the top priority for President Barack Obama and Congress, global warming rated second to last, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center from a year ago.
In that same survey, the environment was listed 13th, well below higher-priority issues such as terrorism, the economy, jobs, education and Social Security.
Climate change doesn't rank high on people's priorities because there are more pressing issues in their lives that are easier to see and feel the effect of, according to Hamilton.
"If a flood damages your house, that's a real problem, but the connection between that and atmospheric greenhouse gas loads is a very complicated one that's not visible to the naked eye," he said.
The media also doesn't treat climate change as a big problem -- it doesn't garner the same same headlines as violence and conflict -- which affects how people view it, Hamilton said.
Antioch professors said people may not be aware of the environmental impact and the costs associated with climate change.
"It's probably not particularly well known, but the fact is that right now, the planet is at a concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere that we haven't seen for at least the last 400,000 years, and some would put that at the last three million years," Jordan said.
Yet while perhaps not high on many people's priority list, climate change is a hot-button political topic.
"Climate change is one of the most divisive questions we can ask on a survey," according to Hamilton, who called it more polarizing than gun control or abortion.
People who don't know anything about the science of climate change, he said, can have an opinion because they know where it fits into their political identity.
A community-level issue in many ways
Local scholars see climate change as a top-of-mind issue.
The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris points to the urgency of the issue, according to Abigail E. Abrash Walton, an environmental studies professor at Antioch University New England. At the December conference, leaders from nearly 200 countries agreed to reel in greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the rise of global temperatures by 2 degrees Celsius by 2100.
Michael H. Simpson, chairman of Antioch's environmental studies department, called the Paris agreement a watershed moment. But he said a massive global effort is required to prevent the Earth's temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius. Scientists say an increase of 4 or 5 degrees Celsius would be "hell on Earth," Simpson said.
Communities are already feeling the effects of climate change with more extreme and frequent weather events, including drought, wildfires and rising temperatures, according to Abrash Walton.
"All of those things are felt and experienced by ordinary people in any given year," she said. "When I look at that spectrum of political candidates and where they stand on this issue, to me, there are many of them who are just making themselves irrelevant to the reality and very much out of step with what the business community, what the insurance community, what the banking community all understand is an opportunity and a necessity."
The public is already paying considerable costs due to extreme weather linked to climate change, according to Simpson.
"My research has shown, if you just look at the northeast, 88 percent of the population and two-thirds of the GDP are in coastal counties in the northeast," he said. "So, in the most optimistic future about sea-level rise, we're talking approximately $100 billion of assets being underwater by the mid-century, and by the end of the century, $700 billion in assets being underwater -- literally, and another $700 billion being impacted by storm surge impacts."
Additionally, fighting wildfires in the United States has cost $1.5 billion this year, which caused $287 billion in property damage with just $6 billion of it insured, Simpson said.
Climate change is also a matter of national security, which is why the Department of Defense and the CIA have treated it as such for years, Abrash Walton said.
A July report from the Department of Defense states climate change will exacerbate poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership and weak political institutions and threaten stability in a number of countries.
Despite how climate change is discussed in the political arena, Jordan said he believes the public is coming around to recognizing the importance of climate change as an issue.
"I just think that a lot of the political discourse has derailed a lot of the conversations that need to be happening," he said.
Matt Nanci can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1439, or mnanci@keenesentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter @MNanciKS.
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