Why environmental issues may sway the 2020 election
America is reaching a crossroads when it comes to climate change.
Compared to past presidential elections, the current election cycle has a major difference: climate change and environmental policy have become crucial issues. Americans are more concerned about climate change now than they have ever been, with 6 in 10 adults seeing it as a major threat to the U.S. and the majority of American voters saying that climate change will be important in deciding who they vote for on Nov. 3.
"The turn of 2020: global pandemic, historic anti-racism civil rights movement, climate change and the U.S. presidential election" by Dana L. Brown is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden just released a campaign ad in Michigan dedicated to climate change, and the long-running science magazine Scientific American broke a 175-year tradition and endorsed Biden because of environmental concerns. Even here in Connecticut, most candidates running for legislative office have made some reference to environmental issues.
So what are the issues?
The largest environmental issue that the country faces right now is climate change. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing 250 times faster than it did after the last ice age, and scientists argue this is caused by human activity since the mid 20th century.
Burning fossil fuels, deforestation and land use changes have all contributed to the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that trap heat in the air, and these gases have contributed to causing earth’s average surface temperature to rise 2.05 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 19th century. This rise in temperature has caused warmer oceans and rising sea levels, melting ice in the Arctic and Antarctica, worse storms and an increased amount of wildfires.
According to UConn Geography professor Mark Boyer the country is coming to a crossroads when it comes to climate change.
“We’re starting to get to some tipping points like the speed of warming, the crisis of wildfires and the extreme weather events that are emerging at a faster pace than we expected,” Boyer said.
Climate change resulting from human activity also has another large impact: biodiversity in nature, or the variation in species and the types of individuals within these species, is being threatened. This occurs both from species struggling to adapt to climate change and habitat loss from human activity.
UConn Ecology & Evolutionary Biology professor Mark Urban explained what the loss of biodiversity could mean.
“With biodiversity loss, there are very substantial effects that can alter our health, well-being and economies. Some of these effects are a bit more indirect and less appreciated in the general public,” Urban said.
According to Urban, biodiversity helps society find solutions to both technological and medicinal problems. For instance, we may find new antibiotics or cancer treatments from certain species of plants, but if these species go extinct, these potential benefits to society are lost forever.
“With biodiversity loss, we’re burning these books of knowledge before we’ve even read them,” Urban said.
What do the candidates think?
The presidential candidates have very different opinions about addressing the issue of climate change with environmental policies. Biden has put forward a moderate climate plan that is not quite as extensive as the proposed Green New Deal, but seeks to put forth a future without fossil fuels and more focus on environmental justice with a budget of $2 trillion over four years.
Trump has spent his years in office questioning the science of climate change and rolling back environmental regulations and opening formally protected lands such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. He’s also withdrawn the U.S. from the international Paris climate agreement, which aims to limit the warming of the Earth to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial revolution temperatures.
What should young voters care about?
We talked with environmental journalist Christine Woodside, a UConn Journalism Visiting Professor, about what environmental issues should be most important to young voters concerned about climate change.
“The problem right now is that our president is withdrawing from an international agreement. If that happens, the U.S. has decided not to cooperate with other countries on greenhouse gas emissions, and they will think we want to be isolationists. I say for voters, the biggest issue is whether we go forward in the Paris agreement,” Woodside said.
Woodside said she is also concerned that the economic costs of addressing climate change are hindering a solution.
“When money is the only consideration, it almost seems like a cartoon. We know that scientists have been telling us that we need to do something as a nation. Even corporations are studying climate change, everybody knows we need to do something,” she said.
Ultimately, she thinks voters should decide if they want someone who is willing to do something about the crisis.
“If you want to vote for someone who takes climate change seriously, we might be back in the Paris agreement and be respected by other countries,” she said.
Urban also thinks young voters should focus on preserving the environment for their generation.
“Many of these negative effects won’t be solved by the people making decisions now, they will be solved by the current generation of college students. The impacts are growing and will be placed on the shoulders of today's college students. If they care about biodiversity of future livelihoods or future medicine, they should care about this issue,” Urban said.
Is climate change relevant to Connecticut voters though?
Climate change and other environmental issues have become significant issues in this election, but it may be hard for voters to care if they don’t find it personal.
“It’s a hard argument to make on a daily basis because most impacts are to be felt in 25 years, to be felt in a generation,” Mark Boyer explained. “Unless you live in wildfire areas or the Gulf of Mexico where there are severe storms, these things aren't the number one priority, especially in a pandemic.”
Environmental issues have indeed been brought into focus here in Connecticut, though. Tropical Storm Isaias is an example of a severe storm caused in part by climate change, which brought widespread destruction to the state. Smoke from the wildfires on the west coast brought a haze over the Connecticut sky, and the summer of 2020 was the state’s hottest summer on record.
Environmentalists also clashed with Governor Ned Lamont last year over a proposed natural gas plant to be built in Killingly, going against his plan to reduce reliance on greenhouse gases.
Connecticut voters have definitely become more passionate about environmental issues in this election — 56% of Connecticut adults say that a presidential candidate’s view on climate change matters to them, and 64% think President Trump should be doing more to address global warming, according to findings from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
Woodside thinks it is important to consider climate change issues here in Connecticut when voting for local candidates, too.
“There are plenty of races going on here in Connecticut, and the General Assembly has an environment committee. A lot is riding on how they act to enforce federal laws and also how they make our own laws regarding the environment,” Woodside said.
Satellite image from NOAA