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Next Tuesday is the first Democratic Presidential debate. Anderson Cooper will moderate the conversation between Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and other candidates who all admit global warming is a real and urgent problem. Sign here to ask him to focus the next debate on climate change and make it a central issue.
Friend,
We've been pushing hard to get the moderators of the presidential primary debates to ask tough questions about climate change.1 So far, all the debates have been among the Republican candidates -- who mostly deny that climate change is a real, urgent or solvable problem for an American President.2
All that will change on Tuesday night when the leading Democratic candidates for President take the stage to be questioned by CNN's Anderson Cooper. All of these candidates agree that climate change is a real, urgent problem. And they all claim to have plans to address climate chaos and cut emissions.3
But admitting there is a problem is only the first step. For voters to really know what these candidates think, and more importantly what they will do, we need Cooper and his team to spend serious time questioning and cross examining the candidates on the most serious problem facing our planet. Sign here to tell Anderson Cooper and his team at CNN to ask Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and all the candidates tough questions on climate change.
In the first Republican debate hosted by Fox, climate change wasn't discussed at all. And during the second, CNN anchor Jake Tapper asked only one question about climate change. But the question came more than two hours into the broadcast, and he only allowed three of the 11 candidates on stage to speak for less than three minutes before quickly moving on to the topic of whether candidates believe in vaccines.4
It's up to Cooper to break the climate silence and make climate change a top issue during the next debate. That's why climate leaders, including Tom Steyer and Bill McKibben, have already asked him to devote significant time to the candidates' climate plans.5
There's real news to be found on this topic: The leading Democratic candidates have talked tough on climate, but have yet to flesh out many crucial details. Most importantly, we need to know if these candidates will do more than talk: will they break from President Obama's disastrous "All of the Above" policy that has ok'd drilling in the arctic, the Canadian and U.S. tar sands, and off the Atlantic coast? And will they recognize and plan to get tough on the issue of methane leaks (a much more potent global warming pollutant than carbon dioxide) from the U.S. fracking boom by shutting down fracking wells, pipelines and other related infrastructure?6
The next CNN Debate is just a few days away, will you sign here to tell Anderson Cooper to ask tough, detailed questions on climate change before the debate?
Thanks,
Drew and the #AskOnClimate crew at Environmental Action
PS - Want to tune in and watch the debate with us next week? Have a question you want Anderson Cooper to ask? Click here to RSVP to watch with us and get info on how to submit your question to CNN.
1 - Environmental Action, GOP Debate Posts, Environmental Action blog
2 - Ben Adler, How do we get conservative politicians to vote for climate action? Attack and embarrass them, Grist, July 6 2015
3 - Ben Adler, Why the Democratic Debate Should Focus on Climate Change, Mother Jones, October 6, 2015
4 - Environmental Action, Jake "The Flake" Tapper Continues Climate Near-Silence During GOP Debate, September 17, 2015
5 - Tom Steyer, Climate Change, Clean Energy and the Democratic Primary Presidential Debate, NextGen Climate, September 29, 2015
6 - Greg Sargent, Voters don’t care that much about climate change. Democrats should talk about it anyway, The Washington post, September 29, 2015
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