Hoax or threat: Climate change sets candidates apart
10/17/2016 / By hoaxnews
ASHEVILLE – In Alaska, the quickening pace of erosion brought on by more severe storms, melting permafrost and diminishing sea ice is forcing coastal villagers to find higher ground.
Article by Mark Barret
In seaside communities including Miami, Tybee Island, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, higher tides have led to what some call “sunny-day flooding,” as seawater rises onto streets and pedestrian areas.
In Asheville, the summer months of June, July and August were together the hottest since record keeping began in 1902. Preliminary figures say the 71.9-degree average temperature for September was 5.6 degrees higher than normal.
As more people see or feel changes scientists say are linked to climate change, fewer politicians disagree on whether the earth is warming and more give attention to how much hotter it will get, the extent to which human activity is a cause and what, if anything, government should do to slow the process or mitigate the effects.
Whoever becomes the next president and candidates taking seats in Congress will face a major decision on climate change: Whether to continue pushing President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which directs states to implement strategies to significantly decrease carbon dioxide emissions from generation of electricity.
North Carolina state officials to be chosen in November will also face choices on climate-related issues like how aggressively to push renewable sources of energy, whether to place more limits on oil and gas production or whether to impose a tax on climate generating activities.
Here’s a look at what major candidates on the ballot in Western North Carolina have said about global warming.
President
A federal appeals court last week heard a challenge to the Clean Power Plan brought by 28 states and power companies and industry groups and the issue is expected to ultimately end up at the Supreme Court. The next president will decide whether to continue efforts to implement the plan and nominate someone to fill an empty Supreme Court seat – possibly the deciding vote on whether the plan can be enforced.
Hillary Clinton endorses the Clean Power Plan and proposes to spend $60 billion to switch from fossil fuels to cleaner energy. She says clean energy is needed, otherwise it would “force our children to endure the catastrophe that would result from unchecked climate change,” The Associated Press reported. She’s pitching incentives for increased production of renewable energy as both environmentally friendly and a job creation plan, saying the U.S. needs to lead in that economic sector.
She promises to deliver on Obama’s pledge that by 2025, the U.S. will be emitting 30 percent less heat-trapping gases than in 2005.
Position papers on Donald Trump’s campaign website say he would abandon the Clean Power Plan and cut regulations to encourage more coal, oil and natural gas production.
He also tweeted in November 2012 that, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” He later called that a joke, but PolitiFact reports that Trump has called global warming a hoax on other occasions. That includes a December 2015 speech in which he said, “It’s a hoax, a lot of it.”
Senate
U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., voted against legislation in January 2015 that declared in part that “human activity contributes to climate change.” However, spokesmen for Burr said that vote stemmed from an objection to “partisan political theater.”
“Senator Burr believes that climate change is real and humans do contribute to those changes,” said spokesman Jesse Hunt. “However, it is his belief that the best way to reduce emissions and pollution is not through partisan political theater but through developing consensus on areas that will bring about effectual change.”
Hunt noted Burr’s leading role in continuing the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, which buys land for recreational and conservation purposes, and said the senator has shown “continued support for alternative energies like solar, natural gas, and fuel cells” that reduce carbon emissions and particulate pollution.
But the League of Conservation Voters on Friday named Burr to its “dirty dozen” of legislators it says have been hostile to environmental concerns. The League cited Burr’s lifetime score of voting only 7 percent of the time in agreement with the League’s position on issues, 2011 sponsorship of a bill to merge the EPA with the Department of Energy and actions it says have been hostile to the Clean Power Plan.
(Photo: Angeli Wright/[email protected])
McClatchy newspapers recently reported that Burr has received $1.7 million from coal, petroleum and utility interests since January 2011 and usually votes in agreement with them.
When she was in the state Senate, Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Deborah Ross supported mandating that utilities get a certain percentage of their power from renewable sources and tax incentives for renewable energy. She also pushed against limits on actions to prepare for expected sea level rise because of global warming.
The state League of Conservation Voters gave her a 94 percent rating on her Senate votes.
U.S. House
U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Lincoln County Republican seeking re-election in the 10th Congressional District, has said he is leaving the question of man’s role in global warming up to scientists. But, he told a town hall meeting he held in Riceville in August that he supports the renewable energy industry.
“I’ll let others debate science, but the practical reality for me as a policymaker is … I want to make consumers in my district and across the country have every possible option so they can use with their pocketbooks that enormous power to reward those that are doing good in their view and those that are not,” he said.
McHenry has been less supportive of the government requiring actions on energy and greenhouse gases. For example, he voted in December 2015 for legislation that would have blocked the Clean Power Plan. His congressional website notes his support for a 2009 bill that would have expanded tax breaks for renewables but also kept the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide.
Andy Millard, the Tryon Democrat running against McHenry, said the scientific debate is over and it’s clear climate change is occurring and man plays a major role. He also cited people who have gathered at a church camp meeting in Catawba County for decades.
When veterans of the meeting were young, they brought quilts to sleep under at night. Now, “Everybody goes home at night because if you lie down to sleep sweat runs down your nose,” Millard said.
He wants the U.S. to keep its commitments under the Paris climate agreement, favors encouraging more use of renewable energy sources and backs a carbon “fee and dividend” plan. An added fee would be placed on fuels that produce carbon dioxide. The government would return proceeds to residents monthly via equal per-person checks that would result in no net gain or loss to the U.S. treasury.
In the 11th Congressional District race, Democrat Rick Bryson said, “to say that fossil fuels don’t play a big role in global warming is to simply stick your head in the sand.”
He said he favors incentives to make the switch to cleaner energy sources.
“This is an issue of our future as a human race,” he said.
Republican incumbent Rep. Mark Meadows could not be reached for comment for this story. He also voted in 2015 to block the Clean Power Plan and last year offered an amendment to prevent any trade deal from containing provisions to limit carbon emissions.
In 2014 remarks to a conservative conference, he lampooned the idea he said had been floated by some in the State Department that “our greatest national security threat is climate change.”
“When you have our fighting men and women, they get up … and they say, ‘Man it’s a little chilly. Maybe today is the day that we gotta worry about climate change,’ it’s just ridiculous,” Meadows said.
Governor
In remarks in Winston-Salem last month, Republican Gov. Pat McCrory recalled hearing former U.S. Sen. Al Gore predict that the state’s shores would be underwater last year.
“So he exaggerated some things, but on the other hand, we can’t ignore that there are climate issues,” McCrory said. “The issue is, to me, not accepting whether there’s climate change or not, the issue is what’s the solution, how much will that solution be and what’s the impact to our economy and our quality of life.”
North Carolina is one of the states challenging the Clean Power Plan in court. The McCrory administration has raised concerns about increased costs for energy and says the federal government is overstepping its authority. A McCrory campaign spokesman cited an estimate of $434 in additional utility costs per household per year. Environmental groups dispute that number and some suggest consumers would actually save money.
State Attorney General Roy Cooper, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, advised against challenging the plan in court last year, saying doing so “will risk North Carolina’s well-deserved reputation for protecting the quality of our air, recruiting businesses that produce cutting-edge technologies and offering leadership around the world on energy issue.”
Cooper has supported past efforts to reduce emissions from Tennessee Valley Authority power plants and to require utilities to get at least a certain percentage of their power from renewable sources.
He said recently that the state should get different stakeholders together to write its own plan to comply with the Clean Power Plan.
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