April 13, 2015

Clinton Makes Climate Change a Central Issue for 2016

It’s official. Hillary Clinton is running for President of the United States. That wasn’t a surprise, but something about her campaign really stood out yesterday – and most people missed it.

By Sheril Kirshenbaum

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

It's official. Hillary Clinton is running for President of the United States. That wasn't a surprise, but something about her campaign really stood out yesterday - and most people missed it.

This tweet by John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman:

As reported at ThinkProgress, Hillary’s campaign is the first major presidential campaign to make combating climate change a central issue. And that matters.

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Back in 2008, when we launched ScienceDebate (the nonpartisan nonprofit where I serve as executive director), we tracked questions from the media leading up to the election. America's top five network news anchors at the time - CNN's Wolf Blitzer, ABC's George Stephanopoulos, MSNBC's Tim Russert, Fox News' Chris Wallace, and CBS's Bob Schieffer - conducted 171 interviews with the candidates, asking 2,975 questions. Only six mentioned "climate change" or "global warming." (For comparison, three mentioned UFOs).

By 2012, coverage was a bit better - particularly at MSNBC, but not by much. (H/T Media Matters)

Clinton is not the first 2016 presidential candidate to mention climate change at the start of the campaign, but she is the first to make it a central issue. This means we can expect to hear a lot more about climate over the next year and a half - including how it relates to energy, water, food, national security and economic policies. As a result, I certainly hope that every candidate will feel compelled to discuss these relationships. And you can bet ScienceDebate will continue working hard to ensure that science and technology policy issues are a big part of the 2016 conversation. (So make sure you sign on!)

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