We’ll know that we’ve turned the ultimate self-interest corner, and hopefully not too late, when climate change is referenced foremost as an existential threat–not merely a political and economic issue. To wit, much was made of a recent Monmouth University poll that showed that 64 percent of Republicans now believe in climate change, an eight percent jump since 2015. While this likely doesn’t include President Donald Trump, Sen. Rick Scott or EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, it still says that with science-based climate change increasingly manifest every day–temps hit 123 degrees recently in India–more than one in three GOPsters still doesn’t believe in climate change. That’s still unconscionable.
And too bad the Democratic Party didn’t heed the request of candidate Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington, to make climate change the lone subject of one of the 12 presidential debates. It would have forced candidates to get detailed–and not just get by with clichés. But the DNC turned it down. Chairman Tom Perez should know better. This is the ultimate existential threat to the planet–aided and abetted by the warped, science-challenged priorities of Trump, his “Deliverance”-crowd base and the fossil fuel industry. There should be no debate about that.