Mongabay - Nary A Mention Of Climate Change During U.S. Presidential Debate

[hatrack]

The hour-and-a-half long debate between President Barack Obama and ex-governor Mitt Romney last night ended without a single reference to climate change. Frustrated with the lack of discussion on the issue from both candidates, environmental activists sent a petition with over 160,000 signatures to debate moderator, Jim Lehr, urging him to ask a question about climate change. The petition fell on deaf ears.

"Although Barack Obama and Mitt Romney sprinkle their speeches with mentions of energy and climate, they have remained stubbornly silent on the immediate and profound task of phasing out a carbon-based economy," reads the website at Climate Science, which hosted the petition. "Their failure to connect the dots and do the math imperils our nation and prevents the development of a national and global plan to respond to the most urgent challenge of our era."

The U.S. has suffered from a record drought as well as several record heatwaves and fires this year. In fact, July 2012 was the warmest month ever recorded in the U.S., including beating summer records from the Dust Bowl. In addition, just last month saw a new record low for Arctic sea ice extent, an event that took most scientists by surprise due to the scale of the melt.

Although climate change was a visible part of Obama's 2008 campaign, he has barely mentioned the issue over the past years, following a failed attempt to pass climate legislation and stalled action internationally. For his part, Romney has recently been shifting his language on climate change during his long campaign. He recently questioned whether or not it is man-made, i.e. linked to greenhouse gas emissions, and made the issue the butt of a joke in his Republican National Convention Speech.

EDIT

http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1004-hance-climate-debates.html

[Nihil]

1. They only discuss things that they care about ...

Money money money money money money money money
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[EnergyVisionary]

2. Fossil-Fuel Energy is subsidized @ $300 Billion/yr.

Romney's understates this subsidy by 99% in the presidential debate of Oct 3, 2012. Hereinafter is a plausible underestimate of the true externalized costs visited upon the US by the US fossil-fuel energy industries.

In my opinion, the most significant deceit in Governor Romney's statement is quantifying the annual US subsidy at less than $3 billion / year (at best this only considers tax subsidies). When just the carbon dioxide externality is considered, I argue that the US subsidy is at least 100 times that figure. Here is the argument. 1. During the last 50 or more years, the US has been responsible for roughly 25% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide. 2. Anthropogenic carbon dioxide is widely accepted as the principal cause of global climate change and sea level rise. 3. At the current rate, the world should expect a 7 meter rise in the next 200 years. 4. Images at Geology.com easily indicate the extent of inundation of major centers of population along the coasts of the US at 7 meters of sea level rise. 5. My estimate of the value of the inundated real estate and infrastructure resulting from a 7 meter rise of some of the U.S. is over $60 trillion. 6. Although $60 trillion is within the US only, it is reasonable to assume (because the US population is about 2% of the world) that the sum of the potential economic value of destruction outside the U.S. is at least 3 times that; consequently, (more than proportionally) the US has itself to blame. 7. If you divide $60 trillion by 200 years, you get $300 billion / yr.

See full text @
http://storify.com/MyronKatz/fossil-fuel-energy-is-subsidized-dollar-300-billio/

[GliderGuider]

3. "Debates are not the time to discuss serious issues."

They are a time to score cheap political points, or to hand your opponent the rope he will use to hang his political career.

IOW, they are about obtaining power, not about its use.