Climate change is something we hear about every day and yet still not many of us take notion of it. Those, who do, divide into three main camps: believers, who believe that action should be taken; believers, who either count on others to take action first or believe that they are minority and their contribution to the global problem would be negligibly small and thus no action is needed; and non-believers. It is interesting to statistically analyze and briefly go over each of the initial presidential candidate’s position on climate change to see what moods prevail among the politicians and how they correlate with the parties and political associations. It is generally believed and supported by facts that Democrats seem to be more proactive in terms of governmental intervention in the climate change issue, while majority of the Republican candidates tend to either dismiss the problem or acknowledge it as an inevitable natural process. Among the pro-active believers, who want at least to continue President Obama’s programs and adhere to the international treaties that have been signed, we have three Democrats: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O’Malley, and one Republican: Lindsey Graham. The non-believers camp is quite larger and includes only Republican candidates: Ben Carson, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, and Rand Paul. Finally, the group, who recognizes that climate change is taking place but yet oppose any laws to regulate it comprises Jeb Bush, Jim Gilmore, George Pataki, Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Carly Fiorina. Concluding the statistical analyses of the claims made by the presidential candidates, we have 25% of those, who support regulations regarding climate change; roughly 44% of those, who despite of the scientific research done in the area continue to ignore the existence of the problem; and the rest (31%) accepting the idea of climate change but opposing any political intervention in regards of the issue.
Below is the summarization of each of the candidate’s position on the issue:
Hillary Clinton
She has not been always known as a supporter of the Green movement, such as she vowed for Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal (Foehringer Merchant). Yet her current stance on climate change problem indicates that she not only acknowledges the fact of its existence but also is willing to take action in the form of transitioning from the fossil fuels and investing in the solar batteries program.
Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sander’s is the best choice for the president position in terms of his support of the climate change regulations. It is enough to say that he considers climate change to be “the biggest national security threat” (Caldwell).

Martin O’Malley

Martin O’Malley proposed an extensive plan to counteract climate change. He has an arsenal of coherent programs to do so, which include transition from fossil fuels and creation of the Clean Energy Job Corps (Foehringer Merchant).

Lindsey Graham

The only Republican to support regulations regarding climate change, Lindsey Graham focuses on “business-friendly ways” to reduce the emissions (Foehringer Merchant). He also emphasizes the importance of “energy independence” of the United States, which means switching to the domestic sources of natural gas and oil, which should be obtained safely and cheaply.

Jeb Bush

Jeb Bush believes in that human activity contributes to climate change, but thinks that “being alarmist” is not a way to deal with it (Foehringer Merchant).

Chris Christie

Chris Christie understands the connection between the human caused emissions and climate change but thinks we are already doing enough to preclude further change in climate (Foehringer Merchant)

Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz rejects climate change idea as being nothing but a “religion” and advocates his position saying that he is not a “denier” but a “skeptic”, and good scientist should be skeptical (Foehringer Merchant).

John Kasich

John Kasich accepts the theory of climate change but does not believe that any radical action should be taken based on the theory that, in his words, has not been proven yet (Caldwell).

Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina seems to comprehend the concept of climate change, but she does not believe the United States cannot influence the situation all alone in any significant way (Foehringer Merchant).

Jim Gilmore

Jim Gilmore calls climate change “real” but says that no law or regulation should be enacted to deal with it. He argues that the benefits from such laws will be much smaller than the harm caused to the economy, and therefore there is no economic incentive to implement the laws or regulations (Foehringer Merchant).

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee fails completely to grasp the importance of the climate change issue. In a speech addressed to his supporters, he said that “beheading is a far greater threat than a sunburn” referring to groups like ISIS (Foehringer Merchant).

George Pataki

George Pataki supports climate change idea, but believes that it should be dealt with through technologic innovations and not through government regulations (Foehringer Merchant).

Rand Paul

Rand Paul denies the existence of manmade climate change and believes that the global temperature is supposed to swing like it does (Foehringer Merchant).

Marco Rubio

Marco Rubio is supposedly the worst candidate when it comes to climate change (Foehringer Merchant). He recognizes that climate is changing but denies that humans have any significant impact on it. In his energy plan, Marco Rubio opposes the transfer to renewables and mainly focuses on fossil fuels extracted through fracking and drilling from the earth.

Rick Santorum

Rick Santorum ranks high among the most unrelenting deniers (Foehringer Merchant). He regularly distorts the scientific facts and constantly argues against the idea of man-caused climate change.

Donald Trump

Donald Trump says, “I believe there’s weather. I believe there’s change, and I believe it goes up and it goes down, and it goes up again. And it changes depending on years and centuries, but I am not a believer, and we have much bigger problems” (Foehringer Merchant). This statement alone is enough to summarize his political views on climate change.

As a bottom line: From the brief summarization and analyses above, it is clear that there are many more presidential candidates, who either disbelieve the idea of climate change or are against any regulations regarding it than there are those, who adequatly judge the situation and understand fully the seriosness of the problem we are facing. While the position on climate change issue is not a good goodness-of-fitness test for presidential candidates, it is certainly indicative of what moods prevail among politicians. There have been a significant increase of the awareness of climate change in the population, yet there is still a considerable amount of space for progress in this area.

 

Work Cited

Merchant, Emma Foehringer. “How the 2016 Presidential Candidates View Climate Change.” New Republic. New Republic, 29 Nov. 2015. Web. 21 Sept. 2016.

Caldwell, Leigh Ann. “Earth Day: Where the Presidential Candidates Stand on Climate Change.” NBC News. NBC News, 22 Apr. 2016. Web. 21 Sept. 2016.

“Presidential Candidates on Climate Change.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 15 Dec. 2015. Web. 21 Sept. 2016.