According to an article in the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, “In much of the nation, ‘cap and trade’ has become a dirty phrase this election season, and the political storm over global warming’s causes and solutions may determine several key races.”
If global warming is so pivotal in so many races, though, why did the Times decide to bury its story, which focused on the congressional race in Virginia’s fifth district, on page fourteen? If, as the article claimed, “Polls suggest several House races may turn on whether the incumbent voted for the ‘cap and trade’ bill in 2009,” isn’t that worthy of, say, front-page attention and analysis?
The answer should, of course, be yes. The problem is that the Times’s claim about what polls have suggested is highly dubious. The article refers to two pollsters. The first is the National Resources Defense Council Action Fund, which supports climate legislation and, on October 18, published the results of a survey of voters in twenty-three congressional districts. The poll asked respondents whether they would be more or less likely to vote for a candidate that had voted for a clean-energy bill, and most people said they would be more likely to do so. That says absolutely nothing about whether voters will cast their ballots based primarily on a candidate’s position on energy, however.
The Times’s second piece of evidence for its claim about the centrality of cap and trade to the mid-term election comes from Jon McHenry, a Republican pollster who surveyed thirty-one House races (from west, to Midwest, to east) for the conservative American Action Forum. Contrary to the NRDC Action Fund’s conclusions, he found that voters would be less likely to support a candidate who had voted for cap-and-trade legislation. Again, however, that says nothing about whether or not voters are basing their decision primarily on candidates’ positions on energy issues. In fact, they probably aren’t. The NRDC Action Fund survey didn’t even ask about other issues, and the American Action Forum survey found that there were other issues—like health care and the capital gains tax—that made more voters less likely to vote for a candidate. Moreover, both groups’ questions were quite leading, stressing the arguments for or against energy legislation that matched their own interests.
As heartening as it would be to see candidates and voters taking energy and environmental issues into serious consideration this election season, the evidence simply doesn’t support that narrative. The economy is eclipsing all other concerns, and where climate legislation has come up on the campaign trail, it has generally been given short shrift, serving only as one measure among many of a candidate’s position on “big government.” Where there has been coverage of the role energy and environmental issues have played in the election, it has usually been up to reporters to draw out candidates’ views.
Take this nut graph from a Greenwire story about three tight House races in Washington, where support for the environment is the “default” position among all candidates:
Washington residents, many of whom are hikers and bikers, spend a lot of time outdoors. And many voters care about the environment, according to a recent survey of registered voters in southwest Washington, commissioned by two environmental groups. Seventy-three percent said conservation is important when considering whether to support a political candidate.
But even in Washington, jobs and government spending, rather than the environment, have dominated the dialogue in the three close U.S. House races.
Or this lede from an article in The Providence Journal at the end of September:
During one public meeting after another in recent weeks, the four leading candidates for governor rarely strayed from talking about the economy, the state budget crisis and taxes. In their first debate Tuesday night devoted to the environment, they continued focusing on the economy, state budget and taxes.
They all said they favored recycling more, bringing more alternative energy sources online and continuing to protect Narragansett Bay. But they all kept falling back to the economy, where they did offer differing ways for turning things around.
If The Media Had Covered Climate Change As Well As They Did Toyota……….
For the last 24 years of crisis warnings, the IPCC climate scientists have continued to agree that the consequence of Climate Change on the planet Earth is still estimated to be anything from “catastrophic” and “unstoppable” warming, to negligible consequences if any, and may or may not include more extreme weather events.
In other words, climate change was Liberalism’s WMD-ridden Iraq War of fear mongering and lying.
Meanwhile, the UN had allowed carbon trading to trump 3rd world fresh water relief, starvation rescue and 3rd world education for just over 24 years of climate crisis warnings. Nice! History is watching.
Now who’s the neocon.
#1 Posted by Meme Mine, CJR on Thu 28 Oct 2010 at 04:56 PM
The headline says it all, possibly unintentionally. Climate changes is one of those 'white liberal' issues, politically. It is not high on the voters' priority list, but is high on the priority list of journalists, who tend to fall into the category above. For years these reporters have been highlighting stories with predictions of health and environmental disasters of biblical proportions, punishment for the sinful American masses. (Global cooling, nuclear power, AIDs, SARS, Avian flu, electric power lines, and, just last winter, the H1N1 virus.) The public has been way ahead of journalists in perceiving that, with sovereign China and India seeking to improve their living standards to, if not quite Hollywood levels of consumption, at least that of El Cerrito, there's probably not a lot that politicians can do to make the weather different. At some point, the consumer's eyes glaze over. But as good w.l. types, the journalists keep pressing w.l. issues.
#2 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Mon 1 Nov 2010 at 12:34 PM