By Abby Wester ’22
Staff Writer
Climate change is a growing crisis affecting the environment in a multitude of ways. In the past few months alone, the United States has seen historically devastating fires on the West Coast and a record-breaking hurricane season on the East Coast. Despite how this global crisis is expected to disturb economies, infrastructure and human health, it is still a heavily contested subject in American politics. United States presidential debates have a history of glossing over, or completely ignoring, the issue of climate change. The heated and insult-ridden presidential debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden on Sept. 29 directly addressed the subject for the first time in 12 years.
The last question about climate change in a presidential debate was posed in 2008. This year, moderator Chris Wallace dedicated 10 minutes of discussion to the topic. According to a Tweet made by meteorologist and journalist Eric Holthaus, those 10 minutes “[double] the total amount of time [spent talking about climate change] in all 2000 minutes of presidential debates since 1988.”
In an interview with NBC News, Nathan Hultman, director of the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland, stated that the presence of questions about climate change in the debate “[reflect] the heightened political and grassroots interest in the subject.” Groups such as the Sunrise Movement have been advocating for discussion about climate change since June 2019, when they staged a sit-in outside of the Democratic National Headquarters demanding a Democratic primary debate dedicated to the discussion of climate.
Wallace’s question delivered differing answers from the two candidates. Trump spoke about his aspiration of “crystal-clean water and air” while dodging questions about his rollbacks of Obama-era environmental legislation and withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords. Biden laid out his plan for renewable energy, but separated himself from the Green New Deal proposed by left-wing Democratic congresspeople.
Although the candidates’ answers were filled with insults and interruptions, they still left an impression of their beliefs about climate change. Environmentalists and Americans worried about climate change were left with a sense of reassurance that this topic will be discussed further in the future of U.S. politics.