{"id":3709,"date":"2019-06-17T17:37:48","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T17:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/?p=3709"},"modified":"2019-06-17T17:38:07","modified_gmt":"2019-06-17T17:38:07","slug":"environmental-journalists-know-the-value-of-a-climate-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/2019\/06\/17\/environmental-journalists-know-the-value-of-a-climate-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Environmental Journalists Know the Value of a Climate Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Democratic presidential candidate and Governor of Washington Jay Inslee speaks about climate change at the Council on Foreign Relations on June 5 in New York City. Photo: Drew Angerer\/Getty Images.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colombia Journalism Review<\/a><\/em>
by Jason Plautz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CLIMATE CHANGE HAS BECOME A DEFINING ISSUE<\/strong> in the early Democratic presidential primary. But the Democratic National Committee has rebuffed calls to hold a dedicated debate on the topic, raising concerns that the issue will once more remain siloed during an election cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DNC chairman Tom Perez wrote on Medium<\/a> this week that the party wouldn\u2019t acquiesce to candidates who wanted single-issue debates, although he said he has \u201cmade clear to our media partners that the issue of climate change must be featured prominently.\u201d Perez, who served as Labor Secretary under President Obama, said he wanted to have candidates \u201cengage on a range of issues that matter to the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But climate change wasn\u2019t treated as just one \u201cissue\u201d during Obama\u2019s presidency. It was spread out across the cabinet. The State Department, for example, negotiated \u00a0the Paris Agreement, and the Transportation Department focused on the risks extreme weather posed to infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As journalists and candidates seek to show that climate change is too vast<\/a> to restrict to an environmental issue, there\u2019s concern that the DNC\u2019s decision is going the opposite way. By refusing to devote one night to an \u201cissue that threatens to throw human civilization into crisis,\u201d wrote New York Times<\/em>columnist Justin Gillis, the DNC is enabling \u201canother round of presidential primaries in which the climate crisis is basically hidden in the attic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jay Inslee, the Washington governor and presidential candidate who led the calls for a climate debate, told\u00a0Mother Jones<\/em><\/a>\u00a0that he would still participate in a separate climate debate despite apparent DNC threats to blacklist any candidate who did so (Perez has said candidates can participate in issue-based forums and town halls). \u201cSixty-second sound bites, which is all you\u2019ll be able to get in a party debate, is grossly inadequate to the task,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike previous elections, climate change tops voters\u2019 concerns ahead of 2020; an April CNN poll<\/a> of Democratic voters found that 82 percent listed climate change as \u201cvery important.\u201d That should incentivize candidates to discuss climate change from as many perspectives as they can, Max Boykoff, director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder, says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cClimate change is an issue that cuts to the heart of how we work, live, organize ourselves, how we meet our needs every day,\u201d Boykoff, the author of the upcoming book Creative (Climate) Communications<\/em><\/a>, says.  \u201cGiven the information we have, given the challenge we face, it\u2019s insufficient to not have a dedicated debate to it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dedicating a debate to climate change would elevate \u201cthe public\u2019s awareness of\u00a0the<\/em>\u00a0biggest story of our time,\u201d Bobby Magill, a reporter at Bloomberg Environment and the president of the Society of Environmental Journalists, says in an email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are so many climate-related issues at stake: The Green New Deal, which has become a GOP favorite subject of scorn, as well as carbon pricing, renewable energy, national security, rising seas, immigration and the future of fossil fuels,\u201d he says. \u201cMost of those issues affect everybody and are highly political.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Campaigns are rarely the best venue for policy discussion, and party polarization means that a general-election debate over climate change effectively devolves into whether or not to trust the scientific consensus. But among Democrats, there is the chance for nuance. And while sixty-second answers won\u2019t allow candidates to get far beyond the top-line goals of their climate-change plans, filling 90 minutes of debate time would force each to reckon with the differences between their plans, whether it\u2019s the phase-out timeline for coal and natural gas, or how they would engage Congress in passing climate legislation.<\/strong>\u00a0Elizabeth Warren could talk about how her\u00a0public lands protection plan<\/a>\u00a0would limit fossil fuel drilling; Michael Bennet could offer more detail on his \u201cClimate Bank<\/a>\u201d strategy to catalyze private investment. Read more …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democratic presidential candidate and Governor of Washington Jay Inslee speaks about climate change at the Council on Foreign Relations on June 5 in New York City. Photo: Drew Angerer\/Getty Images. Colombia Journalism Reviewby Jason Plautz CLIMATE CHANGE HAS BECOME A … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 18:06:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3709"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3712,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709\/revisions\/3712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}