Can the Candidate Say Climate Change ?

With the chosen questions of the first US presidential debate, the American media have given the world a message. Global climate change will be not an issue in this election. 

A US presidential election is the biggest media event in the world. If ever there was an opportunity to have the public engage in the biggest event in human history (global warming climate change), this is it. 

Even so, the American media have censored climate change right out. Cleansed the election of the deadly dirty truth of fossil fueled global climate apocalypse. 

In our media-managed world, world leaders who want to stay in power have to say what the media want them to say. 

The media have most obviously already been rejecting climate change. The media have avoided the record northern hemisphere warming, the cause of the extreme US drought, and totally ignored the connection to the record loss of northern hemisphere snow and summer sea ice albedo cooling. 

The American media have given Obama a message: Don't debate Romney on climate change. And he isn't.

There were dull words, dumb words and false words in the first debate, but climate was one word that was not spoken. Not once. The American media are serving us up a world of make believe – and it's world that will not last much longer.

Watching the debate through the TV screen, we are Alice through the looking glass in one crazy dream.

We were looking down the rabbit hole last night but there is no light at the end of this make-believe tunnel to Wonderland.

Our world is being destroyed, but our candidates acted out Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

    Agreed to have a battle;

For Tweedledum said Tweedledee

    Had spoiled his nice new rattle.

That is about the standard of the non debate. The candidates take their grinning lead from PR Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter is running the world.

The climate is being kept out of the US election. Why? 

The media have made us consumers instead of citizens; zombies instead of thinking, caring beings; and we must keep buying more and more of the free market/global market tacky techy toys, to keep funneling more and more money into the pockets of the mega global rich.

The planet be damned, business must carry on as usual. Any serious talk of conserving more, of wasting less, of buying less is anathema to the globalizing marketers. Only burning more and more high-energy-intense fossil fuels can keep the world economy constantly expanding. No matter that our future is rapidly shrinking – like Alice down the rabbit hole. It is a fact that we have no future with fossil fuels, and that's a fact the corporate media will not allow in this US election.

The Guardian, just before the dismal debate, reported that the only bipartisan consensus during this 2012 election is not to talk climate change. Nine environmental organizations delivered more than 160,000 petitions to Jim Lehrer urging him to ask at least one question about climate change during the first presidential debate. Mike Palamuso, for the League of Conservation Voters, says the goal is to bring attention on a national stage to an issue that's been pushed aside in the election. Pinch me. I must be having a bad dream.

From last night's debate, voters were given no idea of what is really in the platforms of their two main candidates. There is a US Green Party leader called Jill Stein who wants the fossil fuels left in the ground so today's children might inherit a planet with a future. Of course, in the American media version of democracy, she never ever gets a mention.

I wonder how many American voters know what is in the climate change policy platform of the two main contenders, Obama and Romney. If you don't, read on, because it may surprise you.

My American climate friends feel desperate and determined that all votes must go to Barack Obama to prevent any risk of Mitt Romney in the White House. This, they say, is a surprisingly close election. They tell me Romney has proved himself to be an idiot, but even so, the polls indicate the race is close. They are right (on both counts) – I checked all the polls. It is close enough for Romney to get elected, and after last night's phony debate, more likely. 

So I delved deeper, and I do see what they mean, but American politics now scares the bejesus out of me more than ever.

My first shock? It's true. Both presidential candidates are steering clear of climate change.

So far the full extent of global climate change for this election is Romney's joke in his nomination acceptance speech and Obama's quick reference to it in his. That makes one mention each. Global climate change is not on the US election agenda.

That is so-ooo OUTRAGEOUS – totally incredible. US and northern hemisphere temperatures and drought are at record highs. World food prices are climbing as a result. The Arctic summer sea ice is collapsing. Methane feedback emissions are so large they are making the atmospheric methane level climb even higher. That means planet Earth is on the brink of runaway feedback warming. We are looking at the collapse of civilization but climate change is not an issue for the American presidential candidates!!!

So I just had to find out what the official party platforms were on climate change policy. GOP Romney had joked about Obama and climate change, so I knew the GOP climate change platform would be bad. But I also knew that under President Obama, federal lands had been opened up for more coal mining and for shale oil.

James Hansen warned back in 2008 that if all the coal was mined and burned, we might trigger the runaway greenhouse effect. He said that if the tar sands and shale oil were burnt as well, greenhouse runaway was a dead certainty. Hansen called this dead planet result the Venus Syndrome. So we have to be dead against more coal and any start up of shale oil.

So what is the official Dem climate change platform? Surprise! A good one.

Even though he is not talking climate change this time around, Obama, I found, still believes what he said about climate change when he won the White House, and even more. The Obama platform actually recognizes that global climate change is catastrophically dangerous. Most climate change organizations, most of the time, are strangely silent on global climate catastrophe. The big climate C word is in the Obama platform – twice. Score another point or two for Obama! Most important of all, Obama recognizes that climate change is a catastrophic threat to US national security.

Democrat Party 2012 platform. Climate Change. The national security threat from climate change is real, urgent, and severe. The change wrought by a warming planet will lead to new conflicts over refugees and resources; new suffering from drought and famine; catastrophic natural disasters; and the degradation of vital ecosystems across the globe. We know that global climate change is one of the biggest threats of this generation – an economic, environmental,  and national security catastrophe in the making. We affirm the science of climate change, commit to significantly reducing the pollution that causes climate change, and know we have to meet this challenge by driving smart policies  that lead to greater growth in clean energy generation and result in a range of economic and social benefits.

Why in God’s name then is Obama not telling the American public that global climate change is a catastrophic threat to their national security? That is his sworn duty as president. Of course. Because the media prefer him to be Tweedle Dum(b) on climate.

It would be to Obama's great personal advantage to talk about it. This summer, not surprisingly, has turned Americans into global warming believers. Global warming causes more drought, and drought kills crops. Ergo, global warming really matters. The American media have been busy connecting dots all summer. Record warming and record drought mean that record warming leads to record drought.

Last election, Obama, the presidential hopeful, presented himself as the climate change savior and won. This time Americans know they need a climate change savior – but there is no candidate for the job. Why is Obama throwing away this huge opportunity to defeat his climate change denier opponent?

The American media have decided climate change is not to be an election issue. Today, even the US president cannot risk running against the media. 

Though climate change is absent from this election, don't think this election is not very much about climate change. Americans are very worried about global warming right now. They have seen the terrible drought, which even now has not let up. But this US election is going to take their minds off their climate change concerns. Come November, drought and dying crops will be all forgotten. This election is all about removing climate change from the minds of Americans. It is all about continued inaction on greenhouse gas emissions. 

So what about the GOP Romney climate change platform? I read it all the way through and through again. I spell checked every possible word. I looked for other versions of the GOP platform. But, oh my God, there is nothing. Can you believe the Romney platform does not say a word about climate? Obama says we are headed to climate change catastrophe, and the science is now overwhelming that we are. But for Romney, climate change literally does not exist. Now I know you can't believe this. Nor could I, but I am not making it up. 

How strange a coincidence that climate change does not exist in Romney's platform and climate change does not exist in this election. What a huge advantage to Romney. 

Here is a Romney shocker. What a difference eight years makes. In the past eight years, global climate change has turned globally disastrous, including in the US. But as climate change catastrophe has loomed ever larger, Mitt Romney has turned from climate change champion to climate change denier. You see, in 2004 as governor of Massachusetts, Romney proudly delivered a great climate change disaster prevention plan.

DEAR FELLOW CITIZEN OF THE COMMONWEALTH:

I am proud to announce the Massachusetts Climate Protection Plan, the first in the history of the Commonwealth and among the strongest in our nation. The same policies that protect the climate also promote energy efficiency, smart business practices, and improve the environment in which our citizens live and work. For Massachusetts,promoting climate protection in the Commonwealth and throughout our nation also promotes Massachusetts businesses that are at the forefront of the new markets for renewable energy technologies. … We can also lead the nation in new energy technologies. The actions in this Climate Protection Plan will have a significant impact on the future of our state. Although many of the policies will not be easy to implement, the benefits will be long-lasting and enormous – benefits to our health, our economy,our quality of life ,our very landscape.These are actions we can and must take now if we are to have “no regrets” when we transfer our temporary stewardship of this earth to the next generation.

Public opinion says climate turncoat / denier Romney won the debate by quite a margin. Romney is guilty of the greatest lie of all time, that global climate change does not matter. Obama could knock him right out of this election by holding him accountable to this world-ending lie.

An American president who supports more global warming emissions and opposes any measures to even slow them? In a sane world, this would be out of the question. We are down the rabbit hole, folks. At this rate Tweedle Dee Romney will get into the White House. 

The American people can and must get out of this hole. They can make climate change the big election issue. They can give Romney no chance of winning. They can turn a disastrous election into a potential winner for all humanity.