Tag Archives: political

Trump’s environmental rollbacks are deeply unpopular with swing voters

It may be hard to tell, but in between jabs at climate science, federal science agencies, and stalwart environmental regulations, President Trump has been trying to position himself as an environmentalist. The president’s efforts to green his image go back as far as 2017, when he told business leaders, and I quote, “I’m a very big person when it comes to the environment.” Do voters agree? New research shows they most certainly do not.

Swing voters in four key states — Florida, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Michigan — are squarely opposed to Trump’s environmental rollbacks. That’s the takeaway from a set of focus groups of dozens of swing voters — defined as those who switched their presidential vote from Democratic to Republican, or vice versa, between 2012 and 2016 — run by a non-partisan research groups Engagious and Focus Pointe Global.

Unlike polls, the focus groups don’t reflect the opinions of a representative sample of likely voters. Instead, they give us a glimpse into the minds of voters whose preferences could determine who will sit in the Oval Office come January. The participants were asked to rate their support for Trump’s environmental rollbacks on a scale of 1 to 10 twice: before seeing a list of 17 policies he’s gutted and after. (Those 17 policies were pulled from a comprehensive list of rollbacks compiled by the New York Times.) The groups’ ratings averaged 4.5 before seeing the rollbacks and 3.2 after.

In Florida, a state that’s particularly aware of the consequences of rising temperatures and seas, the average dropped to 2.6 after seeing the rollbacks enumerated. “Before seeing that list of rollbacks, my hand would have been up 100 percent for Trump,” one Florida focus group participant and 2016 Trump supporter said. “After seeing it, my hand was not up. I’m not 100 percent sold on him.” Another participant asked why she supported Trump less after seeing the list of rollbacks, said she didn’t know about half of those rollbacks before seeing them. “To me, it made a difference to actually see them and process it,” she said. Another participant said she didn’t expect or want Trump to roll back those regulations, despite voting for him in 2016. “He’s supposed to be protecting our country and our world,” she said. “He’s supposed to be a world leader.”

Trump’s environmental rollbacks might not be enough to prompt these swing-state voters to choose a Democrat in the voting booth — that first Florida participant who said he’s not 100 percent sold on Trump said he’s still “80 percent sold on Trump just because of a lot of the other things he stands for.” But the focus group results do show that Trump’s rollbacks are supremely unpopular with the people whose presidential votes count the most.

Other research supports the idea that climate change is an important consideration for bipartisan voters. In South Carolina, a state that votes for the Democratic nominee this Saturday, addressing climate change is a top issue. A January poll conducted by Conservation Voters of South Carolina and Audubon Action Fund found that 64 percent of all South Carolinians think climate change is a serious problem. Only 13 percent of folks surveyed for that poll self-identified as liberal, and only 31 percent said they were Democrats. It’s clear that rising temperatures aren’t just an issue for diehard Democrats anymore — other slices of the political spectrum are starting to get in on the climate action.

Continue reading here: 

Trump’s environmental rollbacks are deeply unpopular with swing voters

Posted in Accent, alo, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Trump’s environmental rollbacks are deeply unpopular with swing voters

How did the fate of the planet fare at the third Democratic debate?

Another month, another Democratic debate (Round 3, if you’re keeping count).

After the seven-hour marathon that was CNN ‘s Climate Town Hall last week, ABC’s return to the traditional debate format, in which candidates get one minute and 15 seconds to respond to questions, felt like the political equivalent of speed dating. The moderators didn’t exactly prioritize climate change (failing to ask about Houston’s chronic flooding when the debate was in, of all places, Houston), but candidates stepped up, in part, by segueing early and often to the greatest threat to the planet without getting asked.

Although Thursday night’s debate felt comparatively short on time and climate talk, it wasn’t short on drama. Julián Castro seemingly took a jab at Joe Biden’s age and memory, Pete Buttigieg called debate infighting “unwatchable,” and Andrew Yang announced he would give away $120,000 over the next year as part of a pilot program for his universal basic income plan. This debate also brought some fresh pairings: Biden and Elizabeth Warren were on the same stage for the first time, as were Warren and Kamala Harris, the two top-polling women in the field.

In terms of time spent discussing climate change, the third Democratic debate felt like a step back, if only because the candidates didn’t have the same 40 minutes CNN had given them last week to hash out the issue of our times. The longest stretch of conversation about the climate crisis came when one of the moderators, Univision’s Jorge Ramos, bounced a few global warming questions off the candidates in the second half of the debate. That resulted in a lot of reheated leftovers from CNN’s Climate Town Hall: Amy Klobuchar once again emphasized that she had a good vantage point as a Midwesterner to deal with climate change; when asked if American foreign policy should be based around climate change, Warren simply answered “yes.” Harris said that, as California’s attorney general, she’s already taken on Big Oil.

But it did seem as if, fresh off of CNN’s climate master class, the candidates had found their footing on how to integrate the topic into a myriad of issues.

A few candidates brought up the subject right off the bat. Castro, the first candidate up, mentioned the “clean energy economy” in his opening statement. Bernie Sanders was the first contender to actually utter the words “climate change” when he promised — in front of a Texas audience, no less — to end fossil fuels. He also said he would pass climate legislation “to save the planet.” Biden, the frontrunner, also brought up climate change in his opening statement: “I refuse to postpone any longer taking on climate change and leading the world in taking on climate change.”

Cory Booker touted his own $3 trillion climate plan by mentioning environmental injustice during a response to a question about racism. He also talked about the effects of factory farming on the environment. On trade, Warren said she wants ”environmentalists on the table” at future talks.

Sure, it wasn’t the jam-packed seven-hour marathon we had last week, but the candidates often seemed keen to bring it up. Could this be a sign that Democrats are recognizing how our overheating planet touches pretty much every political issue? Tune in for the next round.

Continued: 

How did the fate of the planet fare at the third Democratic debate?

Posted in Accent, alo, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How did the fate of the planet fare at the third Democratic debate?

The Workshop and the World: What Ten Thinkers Can Teach Us About Science and Authority – Robert P. Crease

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

The Workshop and the World: What Ten Thinkers Can Teach Us About Science and Authority

Robert P. Crease

Genre: History

Price: $12.99

Publish Date: March 26, 2019

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Seller: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.


A fascinating look at key thinkers throughout history who have shaped public perception of science and the role of authority. When does a scientific discovery become accepted fact? Why have scientific facts become easy to deny? And what can we do about it? In The Workshop and the World, philosopher and science historian Robert P. Crease answers these questions by describing the origins of our scientific infrastructure—the “workshop”—and the role of ten of the world’s greatest thinkers in shaping it. At a time when the Catholic Church assumed total authority, Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, and René Descartes were the first to articulate the worldly authority of science, while writers such as Mary Shelley and Auguste Comte told cautionary tales of divorcing science from the humanities. The provocative leaders and thinkers Kemal Atatürk and Hannah Arendt addressed the relationship between the scientific community and the public in in times of deep distrust. As today’s politicians and government officials increasingly accuse scientists of dishonesty, conspiracy, and even hoaxes, engaged citizens can’t help but wonder how we got to this level of distrust and how we can emerge from it. This book tells dramatic stories of individuals who confronted fierce opposition—and sometimes risked their lives—in describing the proper authority of science, and it examines how ignorance and misuse of science constitute the preeminent threat to human life and culture. An essential, timely exploration of what it means to practice science for the common good as well as the danger of political action divorced from science, The Workshop and the World helps us understand both the origins of our current moment of great anti-science rhetoric and what we can do to help keep the modern world from falling apart.

From: 

The Workshop and the World: What Ten Thinkers Can Teach Us About Science and Authority – Robert P. Crease

Posted in alo, Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized, W. W. Norton & Company | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Workshop and the World: What Ten Thinkers Can Teach Us About Science and Authority – Robert P. Crease

Kirsten Gillibrand doesn’t just support the ‘idea’ of a Green New Deal, she’s wholly behind it

Subscribe to The Beacon

In a testament to the power of political pressure and grassroots activism, a number of 2020 candidates have recently supported the concept of a Green New Deal — an economy-wide climate fix being championed by the Sunrise Movement and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Why push the plan so hard now, when there’s little chance of legislation passing the Senate? Sunrise co-founder (and Grist 50 member) Evan Weber told Vox part of the logic is “to have a platform for candidates to run on in 2020.” In that sense, the initiative has been wildly successful: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Beto O’Rourke have all signed on to the idea of a Green New Deal. But what exactly does that mean?

Kirsten Gillibrand, the most recent Democrat to make a 2020 announcement, just raised the stakes. On Thursday, she tweeted out what amounts to the strongest endorsement of a Green New Deal from a 2020 candidate thus far.

The junior senator from New York also sent a letter to Republican John Barrasso, chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works — a committee on which she serves as a minority member — outlining her vision for actually building out a Green New Deal.

Always free, always fresh.

Ask your climate scientist if Grist is right for you. See our privacy policy

“Given the stakes, we do not have time to waste,” she wrote, citing the 4th National Climate Assessment that came out in November and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report published in October.

In order to achieve a green America, Gillibrand asks the committee to hold hearings and consider legislation that would help decarbonize the economy and “get us to net-zero emissions by as close to 2050 as possible.”

She also calls for investment in green jobs, upgraded public transit, and other measures that would support a green economy. Most notably, she calls for legislation that will build “resiliency across a range of infrastructure in low-income and frontline communities that will bear the worst of climate impacts.”

All these steps and more align with what Sunrise activists and AOC have outlined in previous calls for a Green New Deal. And while it’s unlikely that Barrasso will take any of her suggestions seriously, Gillibrand’s letter might set an example for other candidates who have yet to express anything other than mild support for the plan’s goals.

Gillibrand doesn’t appear to be putting all her eggs in the same green basket, either. In an earlier interview with Pod Save America, she voiced support for a carbon tax, calling it an effective way to “attack global climate change.” The Sunrise Movement does not currently include a carbon tax as part of its approach, but in a previous interview with Grist, Weber said the group isn’t ruling the option out entirely.

Jump to original – 

Kirsten Gillibrand doesn’t just support the ‘idea’ of a Green New Deal, she’s wholly behind it

Posted in Accent, alo, Anchor, Casio, FF, G & F, GE, global climate change, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Kirsten Gillibrand doesn’t just support the ‘idea’ of a Green New Deal, she’s wholly behind it

Merchants of Immortality – Stephen S. Hall

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Merchants of Immortality

Chasing the Dream of Human Life Extension

Stephen S. Hall

Genre: Life Sciences

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: June 18, 2003

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC


A Discover Best Science Book of the Year: “A fascinating, accurate and accessible account of some of [the] contemporary efforts to combat aging” ( The New York Times ).   Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist   Named a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times , San Jose Mercury News , and Library Journal   An award-winning writer explores science’s boldest frontier—extension of the human life span—interviewing dozens of people involved in the quest to allow us to live longer, better lives.   Delving into topics from cancer to stem cells to cloning, Merchants of Immortality looks at humankind’s quest for longevity and tackles profound questions about our hopes for defeating health problems like heart attacks, Parkinson’s disease, and diabetes. The story follows a close-knit but fractious band of scientists as well as entrepreneurs who work in the shadowy area between profit and the public good. The author tracks the science of aging back to the iconoclastic Leonard Hayflick—who was the first to show that cells age, and whose epic legal battles with the federal government cleared the path for today’s biotech visionaries.   Among those is the charismatic Michael West, a former creationist who founded the first biotech company devoted to aging research. West has won both ardent admirers and committed foes in his relentless quest to promote stem cells, therapeutic cloning, and other technologies of “practical immortality.” Merchants of Immortality breathes scintillating life into the most momentous science of our day, assesses the political and bioethical controversies it has spawned, and explores its potentially dramatic effect on the length and quality of our lives.   “Timely and engrossing . . . This is top-drawer journalism.” — Publishers Weekly , starred review   “A carefully documented examination of how society deals with life-and-death matters.” — Kirkus Reviews , starred review   “An important survey of the entire landscape of the science aimed at extending human life.” — Newsday   “[This] highly readable and important book . . . provide[s] new insights into the intersection of science and politics.” — The Washington Post

Continue reading here – 

Merchants of Immortality – Stephen S. Hall

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, LIFE EXTENSION, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Merchants of Immortality – Stephen S. Hall

5 House races where climate could tip the election

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.

Always free, always fresh.

 
Ask your climate scientist if Grist is right for you. See our privacy policy

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.

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)

Shutterstock

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

Continue reading: 

5 House races where climate could tip the election

Posted in alo, Anchor, Anker, Citizen, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Safer, solar, The Atlantic, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 5 House races where climate could tip the election

This map shows the 5 hottest midterm races for climate

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.

Always free, always fresh.

 
Ask your climate scientist if Grist is right for you. See our privacy policy

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)

Shutterstock

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

Posted in alo, Anchor, Anker, Citizen, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Safer, solar, The Atlantic, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on This map shows the 5 hottest midterm races for climate

Carbon tax debate: Nobels and IPCC vs. Trump and Doug Ford

Apologies, future generations: The world has been totally slacking on carbon taxes. And the Nobel prize committee may be trying to give us a hint.

The panel awarded its latest economic prize this week to William Nordhaus, a professor at Yale and the father of climate change economics. He’s best known for creating a model that simulates how the climate and the economy coevolve. It’s now widely used to project the outcomes of climate policies like carbon taxes.

The Nobel committee lauded him for showing that “the most efficient remedy for the problems caused by greenhouse gas emissions would be a global scheme of carbon taxes that are uniformly imposed on all countries.” Nordhaus received the prize on Monday along with New York University economist Paul Romer.

“I wouldn’t say that it’s a coincidence that Nordhaus and Romer won this year,” says Christopher Knittel, a professor of applied economics at MIT. “They both work on sustainable growth. I think the committee probably understands we’re on a path toward unsustainable growth. Their choice underscores the need for policymakers to act.”

A day earlier, the world’s top scientists sent a similar message in a gigantic, comprehensive report outlining the various way we can try to keep the planet habitable. A carbon price “is central to prompt mitigation,” the report says, though “a complementary mix of stringent policies is required.”

It’s a timely reminder. Although there are some regional cap-and-trade programs up and running in California and the Northeast, there’s nothing resembling a carbon tax in the U.S. So here’s another coincidence: The closest thing yet, a “carbon fee,” has a chance of passing next month in Washington state — assuming the multi-million-dollar campaign by oil companies doesn’t convince voters it’s a bad idea.

Washington state’s Initiative 1631 would charge $15 per ton of carbon dioxide, ramping up by $2 per year until the state hits its climate goals. Researchers say an effective carbon price would need to be quite a bit steeper — something in the $40 to $50 range, according to Knittel.

And any effective carbon price would need to rise really fast. Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels would take a carbon price of at least $135 per ton by 2030 — and possibly as high as $5,500 per ton, according to the U.N. report. If that sounds astronomical, it’s just a fraction of the kind of carbon price we’d need by the end of this century: somewhere between $690 to $27,000 a ton (yes, that’s 27 with three whole zeroes!).

So … better late than never? Knittel says the real power of a state-level carbon tax policy is that it could serve as a demonstration for a nationwide policy. That could come in handy if, say, an administration that actually wanted to act on climate change ever came into office.

Carbon taxes may sound like the most boring, straightforward thing in the world, but they remain controversial (and not just in Trump Nation). Just look to Canada, where Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, has launched a crusade against carbon taxes. “The carbon tax is the absolute worst tax for Canadian families, Canadian businesses, and the Canadian economy,” he tweeted last week. Ford launched a legal challenge against Canada’s federal carbon tax plan in September. People on the other side of the political spectrum have it out for carbon taxes, too.

“If I had the time and heart to comment on Nordhaus’ Nobel, it would be to simply say that Nordhaus was wrong, in ways that may have done as much damage as it’s possible for an economist to do,” wrote climate advocate Alex Steffen in a Twitter thread. “[P]utting the weight of economic authority behind carbon pricing as the only effective strategy for action, helped exclude bolder, and — it turns out — more realistic strategies for regulation, public planning and technological disruption.”

The U.N. scientists acknowledge the many barriers to getting effective carbon taxes passed. The report says carbon prices are a “necessary ‘lubricant’” (their words, not mine!) for climate action, though not enough on their own. That’s because of “a persistent ‘implementation gap’ between the aspirational carbon prices and those that can practically be enforced.”

“The policies are lagging very, very far — miles, miles, miles behind the science and what needs to be done,” Nordhaus said shortly after winning the Nobel. “It’s hard to be optimistic. And we’re actually going backward in the United States with the disastrous policies of the Trump administration.”

Knittel says carbon taxes still make sense, despite the high cost. “By delaying it, it means the right carbon tax was harder than it would have been,” he says. “It’s more costly to act now, but that doesn’t reduce the necessity to act.”

View the original here: 

Carbon tax debate: Nobels and IPCC vs. Trump and Doug Ford

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, ONA, Radius, Thermos, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Carbon tax debate: Nobels and IPCC vs. Trump and Doug Ford

Carbon prices could save us … if we actually start using them

Ahh, carbon prices. Those pesky, politically fraught penalties governments slap on pollution and the polluters who emit it. Carbon taxes and pricing schemes could be our golden ticket out of climate change, but a new report shows just how far we have to go to put an effective price on carbon.

Welcome to the carbon price gap, the distance between a country’s current CO2 price and the low-end benchmark of an effective carbon tax (around $35). Earth is on track to warm more than 2 degrees C, a threshold at which ice sheets collapse at breakneck speeds, small island nations drown, and natural disasters pummel coastal regions.

At their current rate, carbon prices won’t overlap with the actual cost of carbon pollution until 2095. We simply don’t have that kind of time. The report, titled Effective Carbon Rates 2018, shows that the carbon price gap is closing at a “snail’s pace.” The carbon pricing gap for a group of 42 countries surveyed in the study dropped from 83 percent in 2012 to an estimated 76.5 percent this year. We’re talkin’ 6.5 percentage points in six years.

This is how much more each country needs to tax emissions to meet their Paris goals and keep warming under 2 degrees C (the numbers are based off data from 2015, but the authors point out that, unfortunately, nothing has changed too much in the years since):

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

See? Pretty dismal. The countries that have the most work to do — Russia, Indonesia, Brazil — pollute a lot and have made virtually zero effort to price carbon. The countries with the smallest carbon gap — Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Norway — are nearly there. As you can see, most countries assessed in this report have a long way to go.

Here’s the good news: There are ways to close the gaps faster. China’s new emissions plan could reduce the country’s gap from 90 to 63 percent in the next few years. A handful of countries including the U.K., India, and South Korea implemented a variety of tactics to make some real headway on pricing emissions between 2012 and 2015.

And let’s not get bogged down with the percentages, says Jesse Jenkins, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School with a decade of experience in the energy sector. “How do we make the most impact in the least costly way within the political constraints that we face in each country?” Jenkins says. In other words, closing the gap requires a custom-built approach.

And there are even more reasons to be optimistic that carbon pricing, in addition to other sustainability initiatives, could help us stave off the worst effects of global warming. California has one of the only economy-wide carbon pricing policies in the U.S. The Golden State appears to have a paltry carbon price — about $20 per ton — but its other green initiatives actually make it pretty competitive compared to other global winners in sustainability.

“The magnitude of the carbon price itself is not a sufficient proxy for how effective climate policy is across the whole context,” Jenkins says. “It’s one piece of the overall effort.”

Visit source:  

Carbon prices could save us … if we actually start using them

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Carbon prices could save us … if we actually start using them

Toxic algae has oozed out of lakes and into Florida’s Senate race

Slimeballs could determine who wins a race for the U.S. Senate. And in this case, slimeballs isn’t another word for disgraced politicians or dirty-money lobbyists.

Slime is flowing off Florida’s Lake Okeechobee in balls, clots, and sheets into coastal waters. It’s made of algae that blooms in massive numbers when fertilizer-laden agricultural runoff sits in warm water. Rain raised the level of this fetid brew until officials had no choice but to send it downstream to the sea.

The environmental disaster is choking dolphins and strangling the tourism economy. It’s stinky, ugly, sad, and impossible for Floridians to ignore, and so it’s become a central element in the race for Senate between the incumbent, Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, and the challenger, Governor Rick Scott. Both blame the other for the crisis.

What’s surprising here is that environmental issues are taking a starring role in a an election campaign. We complain all the time at Grist about the lack of attention to climate change in presidential debates and the like. This lack of focus has allowed politicians — mostly of the Republican persuasion — to ignore and deny the many environmental disasters unfolding in slow motion. But as those problems begin to erode voters’ quality of life, they’re bound to become more of a political issue, which means politicians of all stripes will have to address them to get elected.

In this case, it was Scott — the Republican! — who started the skirmish, releasing this ad saying that Nelson has not managed to clean-up Okeechobee in his 30 years of political service.

Nelson fired back back with his own TV spot, quoting newspapers that blame Scott for the crisis.

Who’s right? Well, Sen. Nelson hasn’t fixed the environmental mess that is Lake Okeechobee, the slimy source of the scum, but it’s an enormous challenge that has bogged down many attempts, said Michael Grunwald, senior writer for Politico Magazine, who laid out that history in his book, The Swamp. The proposed solution was a deal to turn 100,000 acres of sugar-cane farms into reservoirs for storage. “If you build a shit ton of storage you don’t have to dump water on the estuaries and Everglades,” Grunwald said.

But Scott passed a law to block the reservoirs. He also oversaw budget reductions for state environmental agencies, according to the Washington Post, cutting “scientists and engineers whose jobs were to monitor pollution levels and algal blooms.” Thanks to those budget cuts, scientists don’t have the data to show the root causes of the crisis.

Scott and Nelson are now neck and neck in the polls. If there’s a bright spot here it’s that this race is proving that some Republicans are willing to campaign on environmental issues, provided voters care enough to raise a stink. “The old saying here is that election years are good for the Everglades,” Grunwald said.

Taking action once in office, as opposed to using the environment to score campaign points, is another story.

Original source:

Toxic algae has oozed out of lakes and into Florida’s Senate race

Posted in alo, Anchor, Dolphin, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Toxic algae has oozed out of lakes and into Florida’s Senate race