Hillary Clinton will lose the 2016 election because she has not stressed climate change and enlisted the energy of younger voters. This is a terrible blunder that the planet can’t afford.
Currently, over 70% of Americans believe that climate change is real; 64% are worried.[i] Of our 2016 candidates Donald Trump is a climate denier. Gary Johnson is sitting on the fence but his comments are more denier than supporter. Jill Stein is ardently Green and a climate change believer, but her Green Party is only on the ballot in 36 states and even with write-ins she hasn’t got a prayer of winning. This leaves Hillary Clinton.
You would think that people concerned with climate change and the environment would flock to Clinton’s banner because she is diametrically opposed to Trump in every aspect. She would abide by the Paris accords and he would not. She would expand investment in alternative energy and install five hundred million solar panels in her first 4 years; he would increase use of fossil fuels and expand offshore drilling. She would ban drilling in the Arctic and the Keystone XL Pipeline; he would remove emission limits on power plants and complete construction of the XL pipeline. [ii]
Another way to tell how serious a candidate is about climate and the environment is to see who their advisers are. Clinton has about 100 formal and informal climate advisers. Her campaign chairman is John Podesta who was President Obama’s adviser in the area of climate change. Hillary has created a broad climate and energy policy.
Trump has no formal climate agenda; he has called climate change a “Chinese hoax.” Two of Trumps energy advisers indicate his thinking. Trump’s Secretary of Energy most likely would be Harold Hamm[iii]. Hamm is an Oklahoma oilman, billionaire, and fracking enthusiast. He is member of the Oil And Gas Compact Commission, a questionable organization set up by Congress to lobby the government internally for the gas and oil industry while fighting any regulation and the EPA. [iv]
Yet, news articles indicate that some don’t believe that she is genuinely committed to saving the planet. During her primary fight with Bernie Sanders she spoke about climate change and shifted her position toward Sander’s. After she won the primary, climate change dropped off of her radar and she barely mentions it while on the stump.[v] Millennials that I’ve spoken to are skeptical of Clinton, believing that her stance on climate change was simply a ploy to beat Sanders.
Unless Clinton embraces fighting climate change and makes it one of her key issues, she is going to lose the election.
[i] U.S. Concern About Global Warming at Eight-Year High, Lydia Saad and Jeffrey M. Jones, 03/16/2016, Gallup, www.gallup.com/...
[iv] Three Things That the Media Should Know About Harold Hamm, Trump’s Leading Pick For Energy Secretary, Denise Robbins, 07/22/2016, MediaMatters for America,
mediamatters.org/...
[v] Hillary Clinton 'dropped climate change from speeches after Bernie Sanders endorsement', Karl Mathiesen, 09/20/2016, The Guardian,
www.theguardian.com/...