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Tony Ferrara of Brooksville is a retired associate professor at the City University of New York and was co-coordinator of New York City Technical College’s Peace Studies Seminar for a decade. He is coordinator of Climate Action Net.
Many of us are searching for the most significant action one can take to address our twin climate and political crises. My answer is to encourage the media to provide adequate warning of the dangers of implementing policies that would increase fossil fuel emissions. This criterion could offer a decisive difference between our presidential candidates. To reduce environmental protections and increase fossil fuel infrastructure appears to be one candidate’s direction (“Drill, baby, drill”), while investing resources to reduce emissions and, simultaneously, stimulating the economy appears to be the other candidate’s direction.
In the many polls we see reported, as to reasons for voting one way or another, the climate crisis is either at the bottom of the list or not present at all. Does this reflect the reality of the situation for the “open-minded” and youth segments of the electorate, or is it simply “politically incorrect” for the media to speak of such matters as the “end of civilization” by way of climate chaos?
During the presidential debate, in response to the question about the climate crisis (“ … you’ve vowed to end your opponent’s climate initiatives, but will you take any action as president to slow the climate crisis?”), former President Donald Trump avoided the query: “Well, let me just go back to what he said about the police, how close the police are to him…” After a lengthy statement about police relations, the interviewer again prompted: “38 seconds left, President Trump. Will you take any action as president to slow the climate crisis?” Again he demurred, “So, I want absolutely immaculate clean water and I want absolutely clean air, and we had it. We had H2O. We had the best numbers ever.” The Washington Post’s fact-check on this assertion is unequivocally “false.” During his presidency, Trump rolled back some provisions of the Clean Water Act, eased regulations on coal, oil and gas companies; in truth, ranking of U.S. air and water qualities declined under Trump.
It’s hard to believe that the U.S. electorate would vote for someone who, using the terminology of the secretary general of the United Nations, is steering us “on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.” It’s even harder to believe that the Republican Party is a contender in the November election in that their governing platform is devoid of any mention of addressing the climate crisis, which is beginning to devastate our planet. The platform’s goal most closely related to climate is to become the world’s dominant energy (aka oil and gas) producer, which is only adding (fossil) fuel to the fire.
The absence of the inclusion of the climate crisis in the Republican platform is newsworthy to the extent that it presents an imminent danger to our country and planet. Let’s make sure our young and uncommitted voters know this!
