Before I start this article, I must say one thing. You need to vote in this election. Whether or not you believe your vote matters or not shouldn't come into consideration. While your vote may not determine who the president will be, your vote has significant impacts on Senate, House and local elections. It is these elections that are very important and will have an impact on whether or not the policies that these two candidates put forth will be passed. So go out and vote, you can make a difference.
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Over the past six months, Americans have been plagued by the onslaught of commercials, political smash-talking, frustration and are now counting down the days until all of this is over. Well my friends, October offers hope; we are only a month away from election day. In addition, it is debate season and in many cases, these events are the deciding factors by the target demographic in this years election: the Independent and Undecided Voters.
We have seen four (3 presidential and 1 vice-presidential) very different debates this month that some would argue was a sweeping victory for one campaign, or a tie between the two. The usual talking points were the focus in all of these debates; whether it was foreign or domestic policy, education, the Middle-East, the economy, taxes, Big Bird, Battleship or Romnesia, it didn't matter - it was all the same information that we have heard from both candidates during this entire campaigning season. Very little of what I heard was new to me; I feel that the only benefits, and therefore purpose, of these debates was to allow the candidates to be in the same room so the audience could size up their policies while looking at the same screen. Like I said earlier, the chances of these debates making a Democrat or Republican reconsider their vote is slim to none. Instead these debates were an opportunity for President Obama and Mitt Romney to move their policies towards the center and try and pull as many undecideds to their side.
In the first debate, Mitt Romney came out swinging; I think that based solely off of intensity and what seemed like catching the president off-guard, Romney was the clear winner. But basing it solely off of material, neither candidate "schooled" the other - it was all the same talking points from their stump speeches.
In the Vice-Presidential debate, many thought that it was this debate that could win it for one side or lose it for the other. Vice-President Biden, some thought, felt that it was imperative that he win this debate to keep the chances of winning on November 6th alive. My take from this event was this: it was a close tie, a few zingers, the same topics as in the first debate, and the vice-presidential candidates were simply reiterating what their campaigning partners said just a few days prior. Both men did a great job and both brought up good points that seemed to catch the other off guard.
In the third debate, we saw something starkly different from the first debate: It seemed as if President Obama came to play. In the town hall format, which was my favorite of them all, it gave the candidates a chance to interact with citizens who confronted them with what they felt were the biggest issues: Education, Taxes, the Economy, Middle-East Relations, etc...the same old topics. In this debate, though, I think President Obama pushed back on Mitt Romney and took this debate based off of intensity, winning over the public, but also by bringing in fact-checking in the national spotlight and by strongly refuting many of Romney's claims; this is something that we did not see out of Mitt Romney in the first debate.
At this point we are at a close tie in debate wins and loses, and a close tie in national polls.
On October 22nd, the final debate took place in Florida; it was a debate that many saw as clearly the most important due to the closeness in polls, and probably the last chance that the candidates would have to convince the public that they are the person for the job. The topics that everyone expected were discussed: Libya, Iran, Russia, Israel, wars, and somehow education was thrown in there. Based off of the material each candidate brought forth, I gave this win to President Obama, as did much of the nation. He strongly refuted Governor Romney's claims on the president's record, exposed his "flip-flopping", and it seemed as if Mitt Romney agreed with the president more than he disagreed with him. To give credit to Romney there were a few points that he made that I thought were strong, but he didn't have much of a choice but to agree with the president on issues that he had no knowledge of or experience in. It is hard to tell the President that intelligence is wrong, or that actions he is taking are wrong when: 1) he has little to no foreign policy experience, 2) he agrees with the president and says that he would take similar actions, and 3) the public realizes that he has been largely inconsistent with his own views on certain issues.
All were great interesting debates; by my count, Obama won by one debate, but the topics were the ones that everyone was expecting and the same ones that have been the focus of their campaigns stump speeches over the last year.
Here is where many people were confused, there seemed to be one issue that was completely overlooked by all 4 debates: Climate Change. This years debate season is the first time in almost 30 years that neither candidate spoke of climate change, environmental issues, nor did the moderators bring up a question including climate change. Why? Because in today's world, it is Political Suicide. The phrase "climate change" is one that politicians dare not speak of anymore; it is not included in speeches, it is not mentioned in debates and God help them if any of them propose a bill that addresses this issue.
The questions in all four debates were either chosen or formulated by the moderators team and the moderators team only; neither the campaigns, nor the Commission on Presidential Debates, knew of the questions prior to the debates. This would mean that it was the moderators that did not include climate change as an issue in the debates. Why? Does it not carry as much of an importance as other issues? Do people not care about it that much? Do the moderators realize that by discussing climate change, it could destroy their political careers? No one really knows the real reasoning behind this choice by the moderators, but it was a missed opportunity for the candidates to get out of their comfort zone and discuss a very real issue and to get their exact opinions on it.
Now, I am not arguing this simply because I am an environmentalist and this is what I study, almost every news outlet - including CNN, the New York Time, the Guardian, and almost every city based newspaper - expressed their concern about this. Even the Third Party Presidential Debate talked about it!
This is nothing new, from what I can remember about this campaign season, there has only been one mention of climate change in either of the candidates' speeches, and that came during their speeches at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Mitt Romney seemed to have doubted and mocked the science behind climate change and the idea of climate change itself. President Obama came back condemning these comments by Governor Romney and made the point that climate change was a serious and real threat by mentioning rising sea levels. The only topic that is remotely close to climate change is energy, which is something that has had a heavy emphasis by both candidates in this election.
Other than those few sentences by each candidate, these campaigns have barely mentioned the term "climate change", let alone a concern for it. We have to do our own research and take a close look at where each candidate stands on climate change to get a better understanding of the policies that they might approve or disapprove in their presidency.
President Obama has been the candidate between the two that has at times recognized climate change as a big issue that we face. From sea-level rise to carbon emissions, the president has understood the severity of the issues at hand. Unfortunately, possibly due to the restrictions of being a first-term president, he has yet to put forth any significant policies addressing climate change. Many first-term presidents tend to be more conservative with their policies to try and ensure a second term. In the second term, the presidents that have won a reelection tend to have the flexibility to act on the issues in a more aggressive manner. So it is possible that if President Obama is reelected, he will finally act on climate change, which is a rumor that has been circulating over the past few months. The president has proposed many environmentally related policies so far, such as a carbon emissions cap-and-trade system, fuel efficiency standards, vehicle emissions standards, methods to make energy extraction cleaner and more efficient, etc; but there has yet to be any proposed policy directly aimed at climate change. Examples of these would be carbon sequestration procedures, acting - in an international effort - to reduce carbon emissions in the nations that emit the most, boost alternative energy capabilities and start to draw back on fossil fuel usage, limit logging and clear cutting forests, deforestation, etc. Perhaps the biggest environmental issue that the president has faced so far is the Keystone XL pipeline. This, as many accredited scientists all around the world have said, could be the tipping point of climate change. With the immense burning of Canadian tar sands, which are some of the dirtiest types of crude oil, atmospheric carbon levels, which are already close to 400ppm (some of the highest levels ever), would skyrocket. Some rumors have come about that President Obama will sign the proposal of the Keystone XL pipeline into effect in his second term. I, along with many others, hope that this is not the case.
Mitt Romney has a very different view on energy and the environment than the President. From the beginning of his campaigning (some 6 years ago), Romney has been one of the only GOP presidential candidates that had believed in climate change and global warming, and to an extent attributed it to humans. But recently, he has changed his opinion. Some say that it is due to him trying to conform to far-right conservative ideologies, others argue that it is his attempt to please political donors. All that we can take from it is that at this point, he is against climate change action and his policies are proof of that. When he released his energy policy for his presidency just a few months ago, it was very simple: Drill for oil, mine for coal, frack for natural gas and use it all. Not once did he mention renewables, cutting emissions, etc. In fact, he did the opposite by stating that he hopes to remove certain regulations that "kill jobs" in the fossil fuels industry.
These two candidates clearly have different views on the environment and on energy policies. Whoever wins this election will have no choice but to face this issue head on. This next term, in my opinion, will determine the future of our environment domestically and globally.
Climate change is arguably one of the most important issues that the global community faces. With carbon emissions being one of the leading factors in climate change, there are only a few nations that have significantly contributed to this, and these are the same nations that have failed to act to clean up their mess. At the top of the list is the United States; we are the leading emitter of carbon dioxide, we are the leading consumer of oil, we are fourth in oil production, number one in natural gas production, number one in natural gas consumption, second in coal production and second in coal consumption. In the mix with the United States is China, Russia and India. We are the dirties nations in the world, we have created this mess and we refuse to clean it up. Instead, developing nations and under-developed nations are starting to cut their consumption of fossil fuels; these nations are in many cases the nations that are being directly, and most severely, affected by climate change. In some cases, small island nations in the Pacific can do nothing but sit back and watch as the waters flood their land and will eventually have to relocate an entire nation to another part of the world.
Some projections show that by the end of the century, we may have 100 million to 1 billion environmental refugees due to climate change. With global population expected to boom within the next 20-30 years, if nothing happens now, it will only become worse.
Over the last 2 or 3 years, serious climate change talks have virtually vanished at the national and international levels. The Rio+20 summit in June 2012 in some ways confirms that. This summit was 20 years after the original Rio Earth Summit for the United Nations. This gathering addressed the main issues attributed with climate change: carbon emissions, oil, gas and coal combustion, alternative energy and health problems. After that meeting, many nations and their peoples had a goal to meet certain goals that would put us on the right path, the United States was one of them. Twenty years later, that goal has become a reality in some nations, but for many, it was lost in a pile of papers.
Going into Rio+20, the world was hoping for intense international climate change talks, detailed policies to address climate change, treaties to be signed and to come out of this summit with a goal for a healthier, cleaner and sustainable future. Instead, we had a conference where the leaders of the top carbon emitting nations were absent, where there was no international treaties and the hopes of many were diminished. Was this summit the last chance for international action? I don't know, but I do not see an emergency gathering at the UN to address climate change any time soon.
Perhaps this notion that we saw at Rio+20 - not making climate change a priority, not putting forth policies that will combat climate change, and worrying about how certain decisions, as they relate to the environment, will affect the way your constituents view you politically - has rubbed off on the two candidates.
I can not believe, nor do I think, that climate change was not a potential question that the moderators were going to ask in the debates. The odds of the moderators, their teams and the town hall-er's, not bringing up climate change is slim to none. The only explanations that I can think of for this decision by the moderators is that 1) they believed that it was not an important topic, 2) that it was too risky of a question to ask the candidates, and 3) that climate change really was not brought up in the question-making discussions, not one person at the town hall event mentioned it and not one person that sent in questions for the other debates mentioned climate change. The last one can be eliminated in my opinion. As for the first option, I do not think that climate change not being an important topic is a credible excuse; polls show, both nationally and internationally, that a majority of people believe that climate change it occurring, that it is influenced by human activities and that it is a threat to our society. But just as climate change was neglected, gay rights, immigration, drug policy, gun control and abortion were neglected as well; this is supporting evidence that climate change, as well as the others, may have been too risky of questions to ask the candidates. But isn't this what we want to see out of debates?
We have already heard the president and Mitt Romney's stances on foreign policy, domestic policy and the economy hundreds of times. When will moderators and the presidential debate committee create debates focused on social issues and eco issues. Don't we want to see the candidates back's up against the ropes to see what their opinions are on tough, politically risky questions? Those, to me, are the questions that will sway voters. Democrats have certain policies for the economy, tax codes, and foreign and domestic policy that almost never change; this goes for the Republicans, too. People who associate themselves with one of these parties know that, and so does everyone else. So by simply reiterating these standard policies or stump speeches in a debate does nothing for the voters...in fact it frustrates us. If a candidate were to answer a question on abortion or gay rights in a certain way, we may very well see that democratic vote suddenly turn into a republican vote - something that is said to be virtually impossible. It is questions related to social and eco issues that people really want to see.
These controversial topics expose what type of person the candidates really are, these are the important issues that constantly are neglected and undermined in political campaigns. Neglecting or writing off these important issues that we face as a nation and as a world do not take away from the importance that each of them carries. Nor will ignoring them make them go away, they will only get worse. Sooner or later, one candidate will have to step-up and and take that risk by answering these questions. I know that if I were running for president I would. I know that these issues are what people want to hear in debates and that people want to see incorporated into stump speeches. Whether or not we face economic disasters or war, social issues and environmental issues will always be around. When that candidate comes around, he or she will create a new era in politics. An era where politicians address the real issues at hand, issues that will shape a nation and shape the world. Issues that will create policies to ensure our safety and the stability of the environment. Issues that create equality and opportunity. The politician that addresses these issues, well...they will be rewarded.
