Will climate change win Obama the US election?

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As an editor for the CABI internet resource Environmental Impact, I often read articles, books and reports that suggest the USA is by far the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG), second only to China in total tons of GHG emitted, and that the US has one of the worst record among developed countries in making commitments to a global climate change solution. Yet, climate change seemed to have been deliberately forgotten during the elections campaign.

I came across a video today, from an organisation called Ethics & Climate, which discusses five important climate change points that the US media has failed to communicate to the general public in the past 25 years.

These failures / points are listed as:

1.The strength of the scientific consensus.

2.The nature of the magnitude of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions that are needed to prevent dangerous climate change.

3.The barrier that the US has been in international climate negotiations, that started in 1990, to achieve a global solution to climate change.

4.The essential ethical and moral nature of the climate change problem, a fact that has profound significance for policy formation.

5.The nature of the climate change disinformation campaign.

In the video, Donald Brown, a Scholar in the Sustainability Ethics and Law, at Widener University School of Law, Pennsylvania, USA, explains how the US media has not only ignored the scientific consensus and the magnitude of GHG emissions reduction necessary to prevent climate change, but that most people in the USA are completely unaware that their country has consistently been a barrier to achieving a global solution to climate change, despite the fact that it is an indispensable party to a global climate change solution.

The video also explains the importance of the fourth point, the ethical dimension of climate change, and how it should be made known and understood by the US people. This point is often mentioned in discussions about climate change because often people in the poorest parts of the world, that have done little or nothing to contribute to global warming, are suffering the most the effects of a changing climate.

On climate change disinformation, the video points out how mostly American fossil fuel giant companies and right-wing organisations have been funding the climate change dis-information campaigns. It is stressed that this disinformation campaign has been largely to blame for the US failure to enact comprehensive climate change policies.

One question must be asked, will mega-storm Sandy, which devastated parts of the US East Coast last week make the media and the people of the USA think more seriously about the possible effects of global warming?

It certainly made the New York Mayor voice his allegiance in the imminent presidential elections. On Thursday, 1^st November 2012, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was reported to be a political independent, gave a last-minute endorsement to President Barack Obama for re-election, after withholding his support from both candidates four years ago, as reported in an article in The Guardian online. This change of heart to back President Obama was due to Obama’s stand on climate change issues. According to the report, Bloomberg said he was backing the president because Obama was best placed to lead the fight against global warming. "Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it may be – given the devastation it is wreaking – should be enough to compel all elected leaders to take immediate action," he said.

In a statement thanking Bloomberg, Obama called climate change one of "the most important issues of our time," saying it is "a threat to our children's future”.

In my opinion, when the opinion poll reports cannot predict a winner in the US elections, climate change, via Sandy, may indeed be the wake up call that will play a role in the elections and swing it in favour of Obama, owing to his climate change stand. 

The media failure points listed above are also discussed in more detail in five separate papers linked below:

• The nature of the strong scientific consensus on climate change
• The magnitude and urgency of greenhouse gas emissions necessary to prevent dangerous climate change
• The practical significance for policy of seeing climate change as a civilization challenging ethical problem
• The consistent barrier that the United States has been in international attempts to find a global solution to climate change
• The nature of the climate change disinformation campaign in the US that may not be classified as responsible skepticism.
  
  

Link to the 13-minute video. 

Link to Ethics & Climate.

Link to Guardian article.

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