Two of the biggest polluters in the world, China and the US have struck a landmark deal on Wednesday November 12th 2014 to fast track the cutting down of emission of green house gases. The green house gasses like CO2 and methane have been blamed for the rising global temperatures. Rising global temperatures have started affecting the world climate patterns. Rising ocean levels are threatening many low lying areas as well as small islands which risk getting submerged.
Climate change is increasingly being discussed in the same breath as gender gaps and gun laws and by the time the presidential race hots up in 2016, it will become the most talked about topic.
Politicians have been repeatedly warned about taking global warming seriously or else face the consequences at the ballot booth times. .
Most voters across a wide spectrum of age group think that global warming is as serious issue as terrorism and have a profound effect on the lives of people in present times.
Voters are also sharply polarized on party lines on the question of Global Warming. For persons who see global warming as a serious issue support Democrats, 70 to 29 percent while those who do not think it as a serious issue support Republicans, 84 to 14 percent.
The burning question is why the democrats are not pushing the issue of global warming, taking advantage of their electoral victory. In the same way, why are more republicans not trying to return to a pro green agenda? This ambiguity comes due to three factors-
Democrats breathed easily when environmental issues were settled with relaxed bipartisan support, under the Clean Air Act in 1990 under President George H. W. Bush. Democrats and Republicans were able to work with relative ease like Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford nationally and Governors like Nelson Rockefeller and George Pataki in New York.
When the Republicans started veering away from bipartisanship on environmental issues like under Vice President Dick Cheney who granted extraordinary exemptions to the Clean Water and Drinking Act benefiting oil and gas companies, Democrats went on a back foot instead of fighting the environmental agenda and measures to combat the repercussions of climate change.
Lastly both Democrats and the Republicans misread the polling data when they scoffed at climate change. It could have become a key base retention issue for Democrats if they read the data correctly. Events left voters with little choice but to connect superstorms with global warming and climate change. Political parties will have to pay a steep price for their inaction.
James Wyss says
You know what else might be happening? People are reading about the climate change movement’s inconvenient truths like Climaregate, heat being absorbed by oceans, and ice levele that aren’t as low as everyone thought.
Michelle Teller says
Global Warming Scientology is State Sponsored Religion.
ABrightRN says
Why haven’t our political leaders been ready to lead in the area of climate change? Because our politicians are now bought and sold by big polluters with economic agendas that have nothing to do with “job creation”. Follow the money. And please, follow the science, not the uneducated, anti-science propaganda.
ABrightRN says
Glad you are reading. Please keep reading and find the truth about “Climategate” (trumped-up, out of context, paid for by Big Oil), heat being absorbed by oceans (actually, the ocean is now in trouble, too, because of that heat) and glacial retreat (Really! They’re shrinking in a big way! Look at the pictures if you are tired of reading by then!) Don’t fall for corporate propaganda.
Charles J Jernigan says
The discussion about “climate change” (actually AGW) does need to happen and the conversation should center on the fraud that has been perpetrated on the developed world by the IPCC and various national luminaries for the past two decades.
When the temperature/carbon relationship is tested for statistical validity against a properly stated null hypothesis. i.e. that temperature variability is a natural phenomenon, the theory of AGW fails the scientific test. No computer model has correctly predicted future temperature increases. There is no warming in the upper atmosphere as the proponents of global warming predicted. The ocean is not getting warmer as predicted. And, the relationship between rising carbon dioxide levels and temperature are the opposite of the IPCC’s stated relationship, e.g. increasing levels of CO2 follow, they do not precede rising temperatures.
Global temperatures have not risen in going on 19 years and studies y astrophysicist indicate that the sun–you know, the big red ball in the sky that is actually the primary reasons we get either colder or warmer–is going into a minimalist cycle which will result in a cooling trend, not global warming. Wake up, we are being manipulated for political reasons.
Mike O'Brien says
“heat being absorbed by oceans”
Really? They claim a 0.02 degree increase and the error in their measurments is more than 0.5 degrees. That means they really don’t know. Plus why would the heat stop warming the atmosphere and start just warming the oceans? Especially when the oceans and atmosphere are coupled to each other.
“and glacial retreat”
You mean like they have been for over 10,000 years? And some of them have recently started growing again.
Don’t fall for unscientific balderdash.
Charles J Jernigan says
halfBrightRN isn’t just falling for the unscientific balderdash he/she is spreading it.
marque2 says
Seems like all the polls in the US and most in the world show, the phony climate change is the least priority. If democrats want to get folks to want something done about their fraudulent AGW program to distribute funds to Democrat factory owners, they better fix up the economy. People can afford to worry about wisps when they are feeling well off.
Mike O'Brien says
Or maybe it is because, despite what this article claims, people put worries about climate change very low on their lists of concerns.
There is a recent UN sponsored world wide poll about what issues matter the most. And overall climate change came in at the bottom of the list. And even when you look at different subsets, based on age or education or country, climate change stays at or near the bottom.
https://data.myworld2015.org/
The media, the UN and cliamte ‘scientists’ like to tell us that everyone is worried about climate change. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) it is just another lie. Maybe they believe that repeating the lie often enough will somehow make it come true.
James Wyss says
If Climategate is meaningless, as you say, then why did they try to avoid FOIA requests? As for corporate propaganda, are you trying to say that because some anti-climate change research is being funded by business then it’s unreliable? Is working for profit somehow bad? What do you think climate scientists are working for? Don’t be naive. You’re being sold a bill of goods. Don’t buy it.
JonSaidWhat says
“that means they don’t really know”
EXACTLY. No one REALLY knows, and both sides are FOS with their own agenda one way or another. The only thing that is a fact is it all boils down to MONEY.
David says
“Lastly both Democrats and the Republicans misread the polling data when they scoffed at climate change.”
Science is not an opinion poll.
David says
“why would the heat stop warming the atmosphere and start just warming the oceans? ”
It is a conspiracy by the James Bond like evil villains of the big oil companies
LOL
David says
Yeah — nothing to do with science.
David says
“The discussion about “climate change” (actually AGW) does need to happen and the conversation should center on the fraud that has been perpetrated on the developed world by the IPCC and various national luminaries for the past two decades.”
The real fraud has perpetrated against the poorest of the poor in the Third world. For example that so many parts of Africa have no access to electricity because of Europeans claiming they should not have it because of Global Warming is a crime against humanity.
JonSaidWhat says
Some “scientific” evidence has been proven to be fudged and misrepresented, so how can you REALLY trust that?
David says
What is generally being touted as Climate “Science” is politics not science. .
David says
You can trust that it is not science and therefore simply politics of agenda.
Tim B says
Climate change will not be a determining factor in the outcome of the 2016 election.
People have more important worries and some believe climate change does not exist.
Gene says
WOW, what scares me the most is how many people DO NOT BELIEVE that global warming has the potential to cause catastrophic changes in our climate. We humans like to fix things after they are broke. BUT, there is no second chance here. Once climate changes for the worst (reaches the point of no return) it will be far too late to apply our combined know-how and technological fixes. We humans, along with all of earths beautiful innocent creatures will become extinct. And this mass extinction will happen at a much faster pace than we can presently comprehend.