Talk is Cheap
Jay Inslee dropped out of the presidential race a few weeks ago, resulting in a massive loss for the Democratic Party. Now, several people won’t know who Inslee is - he wasn’t one of the most popular or well-known candidates - but he did make his central campaign issue focus on climate change which is a contrasting one compared to his opponents (think Trump’s wall on the Southern border or Obama’s healthcare initiative).
That’s not to say that Democrats aren’t concerned with climate change. In fact, last Wednesday, CNN hosted a marathon of a town hall with ten of the candidates so that they could publicly talk about their plans to combat climate change. It was full of memorable statements with Buttigieg going as far as to say that fighting climate change might be “ the hardest thing we will have done in my lifetime as a country.” Several candidates endorsed the controversial Green New Deal, while others brought forth their own policies. In short, Dems were anxious to show that any one of them would be the right person to fight climate change. If not the right person, certainly better than the alternative.
However, none of these candidates inspire particular confidence when it comes to climate change. Inslee’s “Climate Change Agenda”, a comprehensive, detailed package of policies focused on fighting climate change, has been lauded as the gold standard. Nevertheless, even though a few candidates have incorporated parts of Inslee’s plan into their own - such as Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro - no candidate has put forward policies as exhaustive as Inslee’s. Most candidates are focusing on other issues, such as economic inequality and healthcare, which puts fighting climate change on the backburner.
In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report outlining the urgency of the task at hand in fighting climate change. The panel of scientists reported that, at the current rate of pollution, we have until about 2030 for the planet to be irrevocably impacted. That’s why the lukewarmness of the candidates on climate change is concerning. It’s not enough to simply bring back the environmental regulations the Trump administration rolled back or to push new carbon taxes. Whoever is elected President next year needs to be aware that they need to reverse decades of inaction on climate change, which will only be done with big ideas.
Gabriel Zita is a junior studying psychology.