In USA election coverage, media ignores climate chnage
Climate change: the missing issue of the 2016 campaign, Guardian 5 July 16
Guardian US survey reveals anger of voters as election year debate fails to deal with concerns over the gathering global disaster by Ed Pilkington and Mona Chalabi The race for the White House is failing to grapple with the key issues of the day, especially the urgent need to combat climate change before atmospheric changes become irreversible, a slice of the American electorate believes.
As the primary election season turns toward a head-to-head between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, there is increasing anger and frustration over the nature of the contest. A Guardian call-out to online readers in the US asking them to reflect on the race so far was met by a barrage of criticism on the tone and substance of the world’s most important election – with the two main parties, individual candidates and the media all coming under heavy fire.
The Guardian asked readers to identify the “one issue that affects your life you wish the presidential candidates were discussing more”. Resoundingly, the largest group of participants pointed to climate change………
The concerns of voters came to light as part of the Guardian’s Voices of America series which aims to highlight the way key issues have been ignored or under-played during a primary season when trivial personal attacks seemed to take precedence over substantial debate of issues that matter.
The Guardian call-out was not a poll, and as such was not a controlled survey of opinion. But it does illuminate a largely hidden depth of concern, particularly among liberal Americans, about a gathering global disaster that has tended to be discussed, if at all, at the fringes of the presidential debate…….
The climatologist Michael Mann, who is director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, said he did believe that Clinton and Sanders had engaged in meaningful dialogue about climate change, and pointed the finger of blame at the media for failing fully to reflect that. He added that as the general election gets underway he hoped there would be more focus on “substantive and critical differences in the views of the candidates, and less focus on frivolous and prurient matters that serve as little more than distraction and misdirection”.
Mann said: “The American people could not have a starker choice before them between a presumptive candidate of one of the two parties who recognizes the risk posted by human-caused climate change and articulates solutions, and the presumptive candidate of the other party, who denies that climate change is even real.”……..https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/05/climate-change-voters-2016-election-issues?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco
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