This episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast delves into the critical issue of climate denial among politicians in the US and its impact on climate action. Despite the urgent need for eco-solutions and renewable energy, a significant number of politicians are climate deniers, hindering progress. The episode explores the importance of enacting laws and regulations to incentivize individuals, businesses, and governments to adopt sustainable practices.
Tune in to learn more about the challenges posed by climate deniers and the actions needed to drive positive change for our planet.
Link to article: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/05/climate-change-denial-congress
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Climate deniers in the US government are significantly impeding progress on climate action. The episode highlights how 123 elected officials in the US, including 100 members of the House of Representatives and 23 Senators, deny the existence of human-caused climate change. This denial is a major obstacle to enacting laws and regulations that would incentivize individuals, businesses, and governments to adopt eco-friendly solutions and renewable energy sources.
The presence of climate deniers in the government is concerning, especially given the US's status as a superpower. These deniers not only reject the reality of climate change but also hinder efforts to address it effectively. The episode points out that these lawmakers have received a combined $52 million in campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry, which further influences their stance on climate issues.
While the American public is increasingly recognizing the urgency of climate change, with fewer people rejecting climate science, the representation in the government does not reflect this shift. The discrepancy between public opinion and the views of elected officials underscores the need for change in leadership to align with the public's concerns about climate change.
The episode emphasizes the importance of voting for candidates who prioritize climate action and are willing to take steps to combat climate change. It also discusses how the fossil fuel industry and its allies have used various messaging tactics to undermine concerns about climate change, including attacking renewable energy solutions and spreading misinformation about their environmental impact.
Overall, the presence of climate deniers in the US government poses a significant challenge to advancing climate action and addressing the pressing issues related to climate change. It underscores the importance of electing officials who are committed to environmental protection and sustainability to drive meaningful progress in combating climate change.
One of the key issues highlighted in the podcast episode is the disconnect between the American public's growing concern about climate change and the lack of representation of this sentiment in their elected representatives. The episode discusses how polls show that a significant proportion of Americans are now alarmed or concerned about climate change, with fewer than one in five people in the U.S. rejecting the findings of climate science. This shift in public opinion is significant, with more people recognizing the impacts of climate change on their lives and communities.
However, the episode points out that this sentiment is not adequately reflected in the U.S. Congress. The transcript reveals that a quarter of U.S. lawmakers deny the climate crisis, with 123 elected officials, all Republicans, dismissing the existence of human-caused climate change. This discrepancy between the views of the American public and their representatives is concerning, especially given the power and influence the U.S. holds as a superpower.
The episode emphasizes the importance of having elected officials who represent the values and concerns of their constituents. It highlights the need for politicians who acknowledge the reality of climate change and are willing to take action to address it. The podcast suggests that the current composition of climate-denying lawmakers in Congress, who have received significant campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry, is hindering progress on climate action.
In conclusion, the episode underscores the urgency of aligning political representation with the public's increasing concern about climate change. It calls for voters to be informed about the climate stances of their candidates and to support those who prioritize climate action. By electing officials who reflect the public's concerns about climate change, there is a greater likelihood of enacting meaningful legislation and policies to address this pressing global issue.
Importance of Voting for Politicians Prioritizing Climate Action
In the podcast episode, it was highlighted that individuals play a crucial role in shaping climate action by voting for politicians who prioritize environmental efforts. The episode discussed how 123 politicians in the US government are climate deniers, hindering progress in climate change legislation. This emphasizes the importance of individuals making informed decisions when voting to ensure that elected officials align with their values and prioritize climate action.
The episode also touched upon the tactics used by some individuals and groups to spread misinformation and attack environmental efforts. It was mentioned that the fossil fuel industry and its allies have long used messaging to rebuff concerns of climate change, creating confusion and hindering progress. This underscores the need for individuals to combat misinformation by staying informed, fact-checking claims, and supporting politicians who advocate for science-based solutions to climate change.
By voting for politicians who prioritize climate action and combating misinformation and attacks on environmental efforts, individuals can contribute to driving positive change and ensuring a sustainable future for the planet. It is essential for individuals to engage in the political process, advocate for science-based policies, and hold elected officials accountable for their actions on climate change. Through collective action and informed voting, individuals can play a significant role in addressing the climate crisis and protecting the environment for future generations.
It's been an interesting few years when we talk about natural disasters, flooding, hurricanes, like increase of hurricanes and the number and when they show up, we've seen droughts, we've seen floods, we've seen a lot. It's it's been a lot. And when we talk about solutions, we talk about investing and how governments need to invest in eco solutions, green solutions, renewable energy. We've heard all of those terms. We've heard all of those, you know, a lot of greenwashing from companies as well. As politicians, but when it really comes down to it, it comes down to enacting laws and regulations that will help incentivize people as well as businesses and cities and states and provinces and the federal governments and countries really internationally to be able to enact these types of solutions. When it comes to that, we haven't really been progressing very much. Even when we do put up, you know, legislation that's been record breaking, it's still not enough. And it really comes down to the politicians in the US. It's found that there are a number of them, including 123 politicians in the US are climate deniers. And we're going to talk about the climate deniers, what that means for the US and what that means for climate action and what we need to do to make sure that we are able to get people in there that are not climate deniers. We're going to talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host Andrew Loon. And this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. And on today's episode, we're going to be talking about taking action and the lack thereof when it comes to US politics. It's been a long time where we've seen US politicians come out and deny different parts of the climate. Deny climate change, you know, come in and say, hey, you know what? No, I, you know, I know the science says climate change, but you know, it's not, you know, we're not going to do much action on this because of whatever excuse or whatever excuse and it's getting tired. It's really getting tiring. But to know who you're voting for and what they stand for is really important. That's what we're going to be talking about today because a new report that came out from the center of American progress by cats was picked up by the Guardian and, you know, they started to talk about it and they realized that 23 senators and 100 people in the house, all Republicans all make us an outlier internationally when it comes to climate action. They are climate deniers. If they're not climate deniers, they just don't feel like to act on climate change. And that is a big problem when you talk internationally, especially when you talk about the U.S. being part of the Paris Accord, trying to put in the Inflation Reduction Act, trying to progress in climate change, but not enough because they keep coming up against barriers. They keep coming against challenges within the Senate, within the House. So total of 103 elected official, 123, sorry, elected officials in the federal of the federal representatives, 100 in the House of Representatives and 23 U.S. senators deny the existence of human cause climate change. All of them are Republicans. And that's according to a recent study made by statements made, study of statements made by current members. So this is actually them coming out and saying, hey, you know, I don't believe in climate change. And so cats so who's the campaign manager for energy and environment campaigns for the center of American progress said, that's definitely concerning. And that's a, that's a, you know, it's obviously it is. It's concerning for the American people. It's concerning for the world, especially given the power, the superpower that the U.S. is. So the report defined climate deniers as those who say that the climate crisis is not real or not primarily caused by humans or claim that the climate science is not settled. The extreme weather that we are seeing, that extreme weather that is caused by global warming or planet warming pollution is beneficial. So we've seen a change in sort of that rhetoric. We've seen it going from climate, climate denying to just being like, hey, you know what? I like the heat. It's kind of nice. You know, it's not that bad. And then we've also seen, you know, we've even seen pundits on Fox News start talking about how like when we had the wildfires last year and the smoke came into New York City, how it's not that bad for you. It's actually good to get that in your system every once in a while. Like really, really, they're really going out of their way to making sure that, you know, climate change is not that bad. Even we're seeing rhetoric from fossil fuel companies as well as politicians just being like, you know what, climate change is here. There's nothing we can do about we might as well just live with it, learn to live with it. And so that's a problem. Of course, you have senators like Senator 10 Cruz in 2018 who said, of course, the climate is changing. Oh, that's kind of nice to know. The climate has been changing for from the dawn of time. The climate will change as long as we have planet Earth, not helpful one bit. Other instances are more recent. For instance, Louisiana representative Steve Scalacy said in 2021 interview referencing long debunked research that is often still cited by climate scenarios is we have we've had freezing periods in 1970s. They said it was going to be a new cooling period. And then now they're saying it's getting warmer. It gets colder and that's called Mother Nature. But the idea that hurricanes or wildfires were caused in the last few years is just fallacy and quote that is ridiculous. That's what we're seeing in our elected officials. So climate tonight lawmakers have received a combined $52 million in lifetime campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry. So it's no wonder we're starting to not starting no wonder we've seen so much climate denying as we go through. So the research also shows that the American public perhaps uniquely among people in developed countries is represented disproportionately by climate deniers. Although 23% of the entire U.S. Congress is composed of those who dismiss the climate crisis polls show the more purport that the proportion of Americans who share the view is significantly smaller as much as half. So we're, you know, we're seeing a decrease in the amount of people who are denying climate in the American public, but we're still seeing a pretty good representation of climate deniers in the House and in the Senate. So that's that's really concerning. So even as a quarter of U.S. lawmakers deny the climate crisis, the American public has been moving significantly in the other direction. Fewer than one in five people in the U.S. reject the findings of climate science according to various studies with long running polling by Yale University showing that those that they class as dismissive stand at just 11%. So we are seeing this change in the sort of the view of climate change. People are seeing what's happening. People are believing the science now. All those predictions that people saw, I'm like, oh, yeah, it's getting hotter, but it's kind of nice that it's getting hotter. But now we're starting to see the ramifications of that heat. We're starting to see the ramifications in terms of, you know, increased hurricane number of a number and intensity of storms. We're seeing increased flooding. We're seeing people, you know, not only getting affected by flooding and wildfires, but dying from it, you know, people's lives are being affected each and every day, maybe by not huge storms or huge natural events. But at some point, sea level rise, you know, changing in soil, changing in coastline. We're starting to see that happen more and more often. And it's just, it's just getting to be like what we're seeing all the time. It says here, the amount of people at each end of the spectrum alarmed and dismissive. So, you know, there are some people who are alarmed of climate science and there's some people who are dismissive of climate change. We're essentially tied back in 2013. So they're equal in 2013. But now there are at least three alarmed people to every one dismissive. So there's been a fundamental shift in how people see climate change in the US. That's by Anthony Lizzaro, Lizzaro, it's Lizzo, it's Lizzo, it's an expert in climate change opinion or climate opinion, a climate public opinion at Yale University. So we're, you know, we're seeing this change in the American people. And we're seeing that climate change is being, you know, people are worrying about it. People are seeing it right in front of their eyes, but we're not seeing that same representation in the Senate or in the House of Representatives. That's a huge problem. That's a, that's something that we cannot have. We want to make sure that our elected officials are supposed to be a reflection of the people, you know, whether, no, if you're in a democratic society, you get to vote for who your government is. That's what you'd like it to be. You want your representatives to represent you, to represent your values. If you are seeing the effects of climate change and are concerned or alarmed of the effects of climate change, you want your politicians to represent you and those values and say, Hey, we need to do something about climate change because it's affecting my neighbors, affecting me. It's affecting my community, it's affecting my city. It's affecting my state or province. It's affecting my federal, like, like my country. And that's something that you don't, you know, you just don't want to see. So why are we allowing these politicians to be in power? A lot of times these politicians are really popular. Senator Ted Cruz, like, is really popular. He's had a lot of scandals. He's had a lot of problems, but he has been in, in power a lot and trying to get him out and trying to put somebody against him that would actually get him out is going to be really difficult because people know him so much. And this is where you got to get to know your candidates. You've got to make sure that you understand what your candidate brings to the table and what you need. Even if you, you know, you're, you fully agree with climate change or not. Look at your, look at your surroundings. Look at your city, your, your, your county, you know, look at who, what, what's happening to it? Look at the people affected and start to say we need a change because things haven't changed in a long time. Government is supposed to bring change, you know, whether you agree with that change or not, they're supposed to bring change. So if you want the change to be what you want, then you have to make sure that you put the right people in. And that's how it's going to be to, you know, that's how you vote in for the people you want is you go out and you support them and you rally for them and you go out and you vote them. So it said, you know, the fossil fuel industry and its allies have long use of variety of messaging to rebuff concerns of climate. She said that, you know, so this is going to change of not just climate denying, but also climate sort of like supporting, but not really supporting. So far back as the 1990s, they were saying renewable energy isn't really reliable enough so that they're going after the solutions or they were saying that wind power will kill whales. And now you're even seeing the, you know, the Republican candidate talk about wind power kills birds and how there's, you know, a huge graveyard of birds under each windmill if you go actually go out and look for it. That's almost a direct quote from him in a recent speech from Donald Trump. These are all can be debunked. These all are managed. These all are people are aware of some of these issues and, you know, the technology has gotten that much better, but still climate deniers and sort of climate, sort of alternatives, like they're trying to make sure they're throwing you off with the solutions or going after and attacking the solutions. So it really is so is it so different from climate denial? If you don't deny the science, but you deny the possibility of the solutions, we've seen it for EVs. You know, I've seen it. I've seen here people and I talk about my EV like, well, yeah, well, you know, it's not great for the environment. Well, no, it's not perfect for the environment. The technology is just, you know, we're just starting to accelerate the technology, but it's better than the alternative is better than gas power. When you look at in the long run, you know, we look at the emissions that it provides. That's what we've seen and that's what you have to, that's what you have to, like when you start talking to people about it. These are the arguments that I always come up with. And I think that's what we have to do when you start talking about the solutions, you have to just debunk all these myths around those solutions, right? And I think that's really big. Even I've seen for EVs, even there's a lot of people like in the dad groups that I'm part of and some of the Facebook or some part of, like, and even just on my regular page of friends that I have, they start talking about how EVs are not manly enough, you know, like attacking just like your sort of like you as a person, whether you're a man or not or identifies a man or not, they're attacking your bravado and being like, well, you need to drive a truck or a gas power car to make sure that you still can be manly enough, if not, you're not manly. And it's just absolutely ridiculous how they attack. But sometimes it's effective, it's effective in knowing how that happens. And again, it's the people who start attacking them. You start you don't want to argue against them as much because you just you're always being attacked and then in the article that I'm reading that I'm reading here in the Guardian and I'll I'll link to it in the show notes. That's that's a problem in itself because once you start going silent, because you don't want to be attacked, that's when they win. That's when people look and see the major conversation around solutions for climate change is bad. And if you do that, you're a bad person. It's, you know, the the the the solutions are not perfect. So why would you do it? You know, a lot of times people will attack me for being in my office and talking about science when I'm not out on the ocean doing scientific work. Like, well, you're just an armchair conservationist. Yes, I am because I can't get out in the field all the time. Most people can't get out in the field all the time if they want to talk about conservation. In fact, conservation, you can argue it's not done out in the field. A lot of times, conservation is done in a boardroom or in a meeting room in a hotel or in an office somewhere and talking to other people meeting with other people at a workshop or a government and lobbying government. So there's a lot of different ways you can do this, but people will attack you because you're not what they expect a conservationist should be. You're not what they expect, you know, a person who's trying to do better for the planet is to be, they'll attack you as much as possible, but you have to fight back. You have to stand up for yourself and you have to say, these are the reasons I'm doing it. But these are the reasons I'm doing it so that other people will feel confident in speaking up as well. And I think what happens is when you have people who attack, you know, that even though they're a small minority, they vote. And if you don't speak with your vote, if you don't go out and vote, then they will win and there will be no change at all. So it starts with you, it starts with voting and it starts with getting out there and doing something that you believe in and that you want to change. If you want climate action to change, that's how you do it. Vote for people who will actually do climate change, who will actually take action against climate change. One of the really interesting things, and I know I've talked a lot about Democrats and Republicans, and I don't mean to polarize anything. I just find that the Democrats in this election are very much for the making changes in the environment, albeit maybe not fast enough, but, you know, they are making changes, while the Republicans don't seem to be making any changes, their climate and either they're using that as a political tool to separate people even more, which obviously we don't need, we need to actually take action to save our planet. We don't need to politicize this. It's not a political issue, in my opinion, but they've made it to be a political issue. But they want you, you know, they, the people who attack you are the ones who vote. If you don't vote, you don't get, you don't get in. And what's been really refreshing is the VP candidate for the Democrats, Tim Watts, is one of those guys who's just kind of like, you see, you hear him is just very refreshing to hear someone just talk frankly. It's like, look, I just want it to be a better planet. I don't want my neighbor to have his house flooded. You know, I don't want my neighbor to lose his house in a wildfire. I want my community to be safe. I want my community so that, like, when I go out, I know nothing's going to happen to my neighbor, nothing's going to happen to the car beside me or the person beside me or myself or my family. I want it to be safe. And what's wrong with taking action against climate change? If we know that's going to put us in harm, we've seen the harm that puts us in as a population, as a species, why don't we want to go out and help each other and do that? You know, a lot of the times when we talk about climate change and protecting the ocean and climate change, it's like, well, you know, our country's not really contributing that much, you know, to climate change, you know, whatever you do, a per capita or by country, you know, we're not, we're not up there. We're not the top list and until China and India do something, then we're not going to do anything. Have you heard that argument before? I hear it all the time and it is something that we have to combat every time. If we have the means to do it, you know, whether you're from the US, the UK, Canada, it doesn't matter where you're from, Russia, you know, China, India, we need to take action. We all need to take action and we all need to lead in that taking action so that we can all see each other take action because when one country doesn't, the other country's like, why should I take actually if that country's not doing it? So we need to make sure from an international level that we are taking action to show other countries that we are serious about this. We want to look out for each other. We want to look out for our well-being that, you know, our friends in other countries that also need our help and we're here to help. And that's what we do, you know, for me as a Canadian, that's what I hope that we do and we help out more than we destroy. And that's what I'd like to see us do more. And I think you should all, you know, have that same kind of goal. So that's sort of my opinion on this. I would love to hear your opinion. If you go on Spotify, you go on YouTube, you go hit me up on Instagram at how to protect the ocean, you will be able to leave a comment. I'd love to hear what you think about what's happening with climate, your politicians, whether they're climate deniers or not and how fast legislation is going to get put through if we don't have these climate change deniers. 123 of them in the US government, that is insane and that needs to change. So hopefully this November, 2024, that will change. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Hit me up on Instagram at how to protect the ocean and subscribe and share this episode as much as possible to people who you think would like to hear it. And I want to thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
