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Sunday, August 27th, 2023

Republican hopefuls shrug when asked about climate crisis during debate

Author:     Maanvi Singh
Source:     The Guardian (U.K.)
Publication Date:     Thu 24 Aug 2023 | 07.00 EDT
 Link: Republican hopefuls shrug when asked about climate crisis during debate
Stephan:  

My big take away from the Republican debate the other night, other than that six of the candidates are prepared to support Trump even if he is a convicted felon, as he almost certainly will be by the time of the election, was their uninterest in climate change. The world faces what in some ways may be the largest existential crisis in recorded history, and one American political party either doesn’t believe it exists, or doesn’t see it as much of an issue. It is a Republican trend, and you can see it playing out at the state level in Red states. What that tells me is that the United States, in the Red states particularly, is going to experience misery and death at a level we have never seen since the Civil War.

‘Let’s have this debate,’ Ron DeSantis said about the climate crisis, before ignoring the issue. Credit: Brendan Smialowski / AFP. / Getty 

Unlike in recent election cycles, most Republican presidential hopefuls this time around didn’t flat out deny that the climate crisis is real. But on the Fox News debate stage, they made clear that they’re not interested in dwelling on the issues – or doing much about it.

On Tuesday night, the eight candidates were asked to raise their hands if they believed in the reality of human-caused global heating. They all punted.

The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, immediately derailed efforts to elicit a clear yes or no response. “Let’s have this debate,” he said, before proceeding not to have it at all, instead criticising Joe Biden’s response to the fires in Maui.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur, was notably the only candidate to full-throatedly deny climate science, making the unsubstantiated claim that “more people are dying due to bad climate change policies than they are due to actual climate change”.

There’s no discernible trend of deaths linked to policies […]

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1 Comment

  1. John Heal on Sunday, August 27, 2023 at 10:05 am

    There’s no discernible trend of deaths linked to climate change policies. In fact, thousands of Americans die each year due to air pollution, according to the EPA. Most of this is from excessive particulates and ozone, which are typically sourced from the burning of fossil fuels, including diesel fuel and coal.