Wildfires And Hurricanes Make Climate Change A Volatile Political Issue In November

Hartford Courant (CT)

The massive destruction from the West Coast wildfires -- and that smoky haze on the Connecticut skyline last week -- has quickly pushed climate change back into the forefront of political debate, from local government to candidates running for the General Assembly to the presidential race.

“It’s a sea change,” said Lori Brown, executive director of the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters, which has been surveying candidates running for legislature.

Earlier this summer, the CTLCV sent its 2020 Survey on the Environment to candidates running for legislative office in Connecticut, asking where they stand on strengthening environmental justice laws, requiring climate change education in public schools and other issues. It has received more than 100 responses so far.

Brown has also spent the last two months interviewing all of the candidates. “They’re infinitely more tuned in and aware of a broad range of environmental issues,” she said. “Every single one of them we’ve talked to have made some reference to it."

Before the fires, surveys have been showing a majority of voters who believe climate change is a crisis that must be addressed.

A national Quinnipiac poll last month found that 56% of voters see climate change as an emergency -- and 67% think more needs to be done to address the problem.

Overall, more than half (56%) of Connecticut adults said a Presidential candidate’s views on global warming are important to their vote, according to recent findings by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, while 60% believe the President should do more to address global warming.

Many candidates view climate change as an important part of their platform, citing its appeal to young voters, the connections between racial and environmental justice and the energy needs of the state -- brought into sharp focus by Tropical Storm Isaias, the battle over a proposed natural gas plant in Killingly, and the warmest summer on record.

Climate is a “top-line” issue in Connecticut this year, Brown said, particularly because the electorate is younger. “They’re speaking up and they’re demanding that climate change be dealt with,” Brown said.

Recently, the Common Council in Middletown unanimously passed a resolution to declare a climate emergency and to eliminate greenhouse gases by Dec. 31, 2030. Mayor Ben Florsheim, who ran on a platform of promoting a localized version of the Green New Deal, told city department heads to develop a new strategy to reduce carbon emissions.

Kate Farrar, a Democrat running in the 20th House District (West Hartford), said she’s promoting green commercial and residential development, transit-oriented development and greater pedestrian and cycling use. Climate change, Farrar said, was by far the top issue for younger voters in her district.

“For so many voters -- and I would say particularly young people that I’ve spoken with over the last nine months -- climate change is really front and center for them and is at the heart of so many of the health and racial issues that were dealing with," Farrar said. "We have to make sure in our state that we’re not ignoring how this is affecting all of our daily lives.”

Not like four years ago

Four years ago, when President Trump ran against Hillary Clinton, climate was an “untouchable word," Brown said.

In 2016, 36 out of 48 legislative candidates endorsed by the CTLCV won their races in the 2016 election. But the backlash against Democratic incumbents flipped four Senate seats to Republicans, who also gained eight House seats, and environmentally conscious candidates, including incumbent Rep. Phil Miner (D-38) and Sen. Dante Bartolomeo (D-13), were voted out.

Proposals raised in the 2018 and 2019 legislative sessions to require the teaching of climate change in public schools were never signed into law. Nationwide, environmental issues barely surfaced during the 11 Democratic presidential debates in 2019 and 2020. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, whose top issue was climate change, scrapped his presidential campaign in August 2019.

Last month, President Trump blamed California for its wildfires and threatened to withhold federal aid. Trump told officials at a briefing this week that “it’ll start getting cooler, you just watch ... I don’t think science knows, actually.” Biden responded by calling Trump a “climate arsonist” and denier, stating that climate change was “another crisis he won’t take responsibility for” and likening it to Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last week -- with more than 4.6 million acres burned across 10 states and at least 35 people dead from the fires in the west -- Connecticut’s attorney general took aim at ExxonMobil Corp.

On Monday, the state of Connecticut sued ExxonMobil Corp., claiming the fossil fuel company used "deceptive, unfair and illegal” practices to rob the state of decades of time to mitigate climate change through policy actions. The lawsuit calls attention to rising sea levels, which could greatly affect Connecticut’s shoreline.

“ExxonMobil knew that continuing to burn fossil fuels would have a significant impact on the environment, public health and our economy, yet it chose to deceive the public,” said Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, who was joined at a press conference by New Haven mayor Justin Elicker and Katie Dykes, Connecticut’s commissioner of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

Disagreement among Republicans

While polls show Democrats overwhelmingly see climate change as an emergency, Republicans surveyed take an opposite view. In a recent Quininpiac survey, 81% of Republicans said climate change was not an emergency.

Rep. Whit Betts, a conservative Republican from Bristol, said he is not immediately concerned about the political ramifications of the climate change debate while the fires are still burning on the West Coast. He said it is "disgusting'' to be fighting about the political aspects in a time of emergency.

"The issue, for me and I would hope it would be for everybody else, is to focus on a strategy that will work that will end the fires,'' Betts said. "Any discussion about the cause and whether it’s related to climate change or whatever is clearly secondary to the urgent need to put these fires out. That should be the first, second, and third priority. To me, it’s obvious. I don’t talk about anything else until I get these fires under control and out.''

Betts said he had "no idea'' about the eventual political fallout in the presidential race.

"To use that in a political sense, it’s disgusting,'' Betts said. “Let’s get real. What are our priorities? Saving lives -- not talking about climate change and that stuff. That’s not going to do them one damn bit of good. If we get distracted into a debate while the fires are still going on, shame on us. That’s just wrong.”

But state Sen. Tony Hwang, a Republican from Fairfield County, said the state can no longer pretend that climate change isn’t behind the devastation from Tropical Storm Isaias, the Western wildfires and other extreme weather events.

“We cannot continue with business as usual and say these dramatic weather pattern shifts are just anomalies,” Hwang said. “They are patterns that are -- unfortunately -- alarmingly consistent, and we have to do a far better job in recognizing that.”

Hwang compared what some perceive as anti-science rhetoric coming from the Trump administration on climate change to campaign-season bluster. “I don’t always agree with it,” he said.

“But ultimately for me, as a local legislator on a Senate level, I can advocate and represent the best interests of my community. Climate change is impacting people’s lives, and we need greater accountability from policymakers -- and also economic factors -- to be sure that we keep people safe and protected.”

Michael Hamad can be reached at [email protected]. Christopher Keating can be reached at [email protected].

___

Visit The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.) at www.courant.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.