The Energy 202: We asked every 2020 Democrat about climate change. Here are the most interesting answers.
Washington Post
Here’s a change: Climate change is finally a major issue in the race for the White House.
With eight months still to go until Democrats begin picking their next presidential nominee, 96 percent of the party’s voters say it is very important the next president takes aggressive action to slow the effects of climate change, according to in a CNN poll from April.
And that means that Democratic candidates are talking a lot more about what they will do to curb global warming. To find out exactly where the candidates stand on climate-related issues, The Post’s John Muyskens and Kevin Uhrmacher waded through 23 candidates’ public statements and voting records, as well as sending climate-change questionnaires to every campaign.
The result is this comprehensive overview.
Climate change experts urge May to challenge Trump over environmental policies
The Independent
Hundreds of climate change experts have urged Theresa May to confront Donald Trump over his approach to the emergency during his state visit.
As the US president arrived in the UK, the letter signed by 250 scientists and other academics states his “refusal” to tackle global warming is “increasing risks for lives and livelihoods” worldwide.
The experts from UK universities and research bodies praise the UK’s international role in tackling climate change but say Mr Trump’s visit is incompatible with it while he is undermining US and international efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
You can’t save the climate by going vegan. Corporate polluters must be held accountable
USA Today
“People start pollution. People can stop it.” That was the tag line of the famous “Crying Indian” ad campaign that first aired on Earth Day in 1971. It was, as it turns out, a charade. Not only was “Iron Eyes Cody” actually an Italian-American actor, the campaign itself successfully shifted the burden of litter from corporations that produced packaging to consumers.
The problem, we were told, wasn’t pollution-generating corporate practices. It was you and me. And efforts to pass bottle bills, which would have shifted responsibility to producers for packaging waste, failed. Today, decades later, plastic pollution has so permeated our planet that it can now be found in the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench 36,000 feet below.
Here is another Crying Indian campaign going on today — with climate change. Personal actions, from going vegan to avoiding flying, are being touted as the primary solution to the crisis. Perhaps this is an act of desperation in an era of political division, but it could prove suicidal.
If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?
The New York Times
The glaciers are melting, the coral reefs are dying, Miami Beach is slowly going under.
Quick, says a voice in your head, go see them before they disappear! You are evil, says another voice. For you are hastening their destruction.
To a lot of people who like to travel, these are morally bewildering times. Something that seemed like pure escape and adventure has become double-edged, harmful, the epitome of selfish consumption. Going someplace far away, we now know, is the biggest single action a private citizen can take to worsen climate change. One seat on a flight from New York to Los Angeles effectively adds months worth of human-generated carbon emissions to the atmosphere.
And yet we fly more and more.
“The Invading Sea” is a collaboration of four South Florida media organizations — the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Miami Herald, Palm Beach Post and WLRN Public Media.
