Is Climate Change a Democratic priority?

[OKIsItJustMe]

I do not mean to suggest at all that it makes no difference who is elected in November. I will be voting for Hillary Clinton, and I trust we all will. However…

As a loyal Democrat, I recently received a fundraising letter survey from the DCCC Nancy Pelosi, asking about Democratic priorities. There was one question, which asked how serious I thought Climate Change was (essentially, I could choose between a “skeptical” position, or a scientific position.) However, another question gave me a list of about 10 possible legislative priorities, and I was supposed to choose the 3 most important, and rank them in order. The usual suspects were there, preserving Medicare, saving Social Security, immigration, childcare, healthcare, jobs… Climate Change wasn’t anywhere on the list!

I find this disturbing.

[ffr]

1. You could try writing her a letter or your congress-person.

Our environment is critical to our lives and you are right to place emphasis on it. The amount of support democrats can place on it will depend upon how we do in November. If we get a landslide, it'll get a lot more priority than if rethugs retain control.

Help GOTV in your area. Every little bit counts.

[tonyt53]

2. It is but ONE priority. Far to many to list. HRC HAS stated many times that she is committed to this

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. So, here’s the way I set priorities…

If something is life threatening, that’s a top priority.

Should I do something about this heart attack now? or finish shoveling the driveway first?

Climate change has the potential to be the death of us. At the very least, it has the potential to make things extremely unpleasant. The longer we put off making significant efforts to combat it, the worse things will be.

[Boomer]

3. You were right the first time

Those "surveys" are nothing more than fund-raising bait and I wouldn't take the list of priorities listed there as significant in any way. Your answers are not driving party priorities or policies; your answers are supposed to make you feel "involved" and thus more willing to donate money. It's just routine human engineering tactics used by PR designers.

As for how much of a priority it is for the party, the topic is often mentioned in speeches and raises a furrowed brow on the face of politicians who will willingly and publically confirm their belief in climate change. Is that enough for any kind of meaningful action in the face of rapidly escalating climate conditions? Not even close.

We don't have a government that can respond appropriately to such a difficult, complex and far-reaching issue. It would basically take an absolute dictator to force the necessary actions just to properly prepare for what is coming, much less to stop climate change (if that were possible, which is not likely at this point). We live in a representative democracy and that means that unpalatable actions are simply not going to get support from enough legislators to move forward.

[Ghost Dog]

5. Unfortunately so. Here are the Sustainable Development Goals

All 193 countries represented at the United Nations formally agreed to:

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300

SDG 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere

1.1 By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day
1.2 By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions
1.3 By 2030, ensure that all men and women, particularly the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership, and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology, and financial services including microfinance
1.5 By 2030, build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations, and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters...

... SDG 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

7.1 By 2030, ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services
7.2 By 2030, increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix
7.3 By 2030, double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency...

... SDG 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries

10.1 By 2030, progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 per cent of the population at a rate higher than the national average...

... SDG 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

12.2 By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources
12.3 By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses
12.4 By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their lifecycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment
12.5 By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse...

... SDG 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

13.1 Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries
13.3 Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning...

http://citiscope.org/story/2016/heres-list-sustainable-development-goal-targets-have-role-cities

[Agnosticsherbet]

4. Johnson and Weld believes there might be climate change but forcing companies to comply with taxes

or regulation to fight it won't work. Libertarians and Free Market Solutions, don't you know.

For Trump, Climate change science still needs to be 'investigated.

Hillary Clinton on Climate change https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/climate/

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. As I mentioned, it does make a difference

Trump has said he would eliminated the EPA for crying out loud.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/donald-trump-epa-dept-of-education

…

"Would you cut serve -- would you cut departments?" Wallace asked Trump.

…

"So the Department of Education is one," he continued. "Environmental Protection, what they do is a disgrace. Every week they come out with new regulations. They're making it impossible —"

Wallace interjected, "Who's going to protect the environment?"

"They — we'll be fine with the environment," Trump replied. "We can leave a little bit, but you can't destroy businesses."

[Agnosticsherbet]

10. Look up Clinton's proposals around Climate change. Her priorities will be what counts.

[cprise]

6. Their badly composed form letter shows its not.

More importantly, no one, and I mean No One who rules out a carbon tax is serious about climate change.

They think tweaking the edges of the problem is enough to buy time for FutureInvention to arrive and save their asses.

[Boomer]

7. Yeah, too late for that

Even if we could meet every single one of the Sustainable Development goals by 2030 -- which is a mere 14 years away -- we will still be experiencing the warming effects of current levels of CO2 and methane for the next 50-75 years. It takes that long to dissipate from the atmosphere.

NOTHING we do will stop the permafrost from melting, the WAIS from collapsing, the oceans from rising at least 20ft and god only knows when we could reverse the acidification of our oceans. We could stop emitting all CO2 today and we'd still face devastating climate change repercussions.

But this isn't just a political issue. People should be demanding climate change news every single day and following it the way we would any disaster. But humans are short-term attention animals and we can't focus on something that will happen "tomorrow", no matter how catastrophic.