Latest / How To Protect The Ocean / Climate Denial in Government: The Need for Voter Awareness

Transcript

Climate Denial in Government: The Need for Voter Awareness · How To Protect The Ocean

• 0:00
  It's been an interesting few years when we talk about natural disasters. Flooding,
• 0:03
  hurricanes, increase of hurricanes, and the number, and
• 0:07
  when they show up. We've seen droughts, we've seen
• 0:11
  floods, we've seen a lot. It's been a lot.
• 0:15
  And when we talk about solutions, we talk about investing and how
• 0:18
  governments need to invest in eco-solutions, green
• 0:22
  solutions, renewable energy. We've heard all of those terms. We've
• 0:26
  heard all of those, you know, a lot of greenwashing from companies as
• 0:29
  well as politicians. But when it really comes down to
• 0:32
  it, it comes down to enacting laws and regulations that will help incentivize
• 0:36
  people as well as businesses and cities
• 0:41
  and states and provinces and the federal governments and
• 0:44
  countries really internationally to be able to enact these
• 0:48
  types of solutions. When it comes to that, We haven't really been
• 0:52
  progressing very much. Even when we do put up legislation
• 0:55
  that's been record-breaking, it's still not enough. And
• 0:59
  it really comes down to the politicians. In the US, it's found
• 1:02
  that there are a number of them, including 123 politicians in the US are
• 1:08
  climate deniers. And we're going to talk about the climate deniers, what
• 1:12
  that means for the US, and what that means for climate
• 1:15
  action, and what we need to do to make sure that we are
• 1:19
  able to get people in there that are not climate deniers. We're
• 1:22
  going to talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's
• 1:26
  start the show. Hey
• 1:31
  everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm
• 1:35
  your host, Andrew Lune, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean,
• 1:38
  how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean
• 1:42
  by taking action. And on today's episode, we're going to be talking about
• 1:46
  taking action and the lack thereof when it comes to US
• 1:49
  politics. is
• 2:09
  getting tired. It's really getting tiring. But to know
• 2:13
  who you're voting for and what they stand for is really important. That's what we're
• 2:16
  going to be talking about today, because a new report
• 2:20
  that came out from the Center of American Progress by Kat Soh
• 2:24
  was picked up by The Guardian, and they
• 2:28
  started to talk about it. And they realized that 23 senators and
• 2:31
  100 people in the House All
• 2:35
  Republicans, all make US an outlier internationally
• 2:39
  when it comes to climate action. They are climate deniers. If
• 2:42
  they're not climate deniers, they just don't feel like to act
• 2:46
  on climate change. And that is a big problem when you talk internationally,
• 2:49
  especially when you talk about the US being part of the Paris Accord,
• 2:54
  trying to put in the Inflation Reduction Act, trying to
• 2:57
  progress in climate change, but not enough because they
• 3:01
  keep coming up against barriers. They keep coming up against challenges within
• 3:04
  the Senate, within the House. So a total of 123 elected
• 3:09
  officials of the federal representatives, 100 in the
• 3:12
  House of Representatives, and 23 U.S. Senators deny
• 3:16
  the existence of human-caused climate change, All of them are
• 3:19
  Republicans, and that's according to a new study, a recent
• 3:23
  study of statements made
• 3:26
  by current members. So this is actually them coming out and saying, you
• 3:30
  know, I don't believe in climate change. And so Kat So, who's the campaign manager
• 3:34
  for energy and environment campaigns for the Center of American Progress said,
• 3:37
  that's definitely concerning. And that's a, you
• 3:41
  know, it's obviously, it is, it's concerning for the American people, it's concerning for
• 3:44
  the world, especially given the power, the superpower that the US
• 3:48
  is. So the report defined climate deniers as those
• 3:52
  who say that the climate crisis is not real or not primarily
• 3:55
  caused by humans, or claim that the climate science is
• 3:59
  not settled, the extreme weather that we are seeing, that
• 4:03
  extreme weather that is caused by global warming or planet warming pollution
• 4:07
  is beneficial. So we've seen a change in sort
• 4:10
  of that rhetoric. We've seen it going from climate denying to
• 4:13
  just being like, hey, you know what? I like the heat. It's kind of nice. It's not
• 4:16
  that bad. And then we've also seen, we've even seen pundits on
• 4:20
  Fox News start talking about how when we had the
• 4:23
  wildfires last year and the smoke came into New York City, how
• 4:26
  it's not that bad for you. It's actually good to get that in your system every
• 4:30
  once in a while. Really, really, they're really going out of their way to
• 4:33
  making sure that climate change is not that bad. Even we're
• 4:36
  seeing rhetoric from fossil fuel companies as well as politicians just
• 4:40
  being like, you know what, climate change is here, there's nothing we can do about it,
• 4:43
  we might as well just live with it, learn to live with it. And so
• 4:46
  that's a problem. Of course, you have senators like Senator Ted Cruz
• 4:50
  in 2018 who said, of course the climate is changing. Oh,
• 4:54
  that's kind of nice to know. The climate has been changing from
• 4:58
  the dawn of time. The climate will change as long as we have
• 5:01
  planet Earth. Not helpful one bit. Other instances
• 5:05
  are more recent. For instance, Louisiana Representative Steve
• 5:09
  Scalese said in a 2021 interview referencing long
• 5:12
  debunked research that is often still cited by climate deniers, is
• 5:16
  we've had freezing periods in 1970s. They said it
• 5:19
  was going to be a new cooling period. And then now they're
• 5:22
  saying it's getting warmer, it gets colder, and that's called Mother
• 5:26
  Nature. But the idea that hurricanes or wildfires were
• 5:30
  caused in the last few years is just fallacy." That
• 5:34
  is ridiculous. That's what we're seeing in our elected officials. So
• 5:37
  climate-denying lawmakers have received a combined $52 million
• 5:42
  in lifetime campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry. So
• 5:47
  it's no wonder we've seen so much climate denying
• 5:51
  as we go through. So the research also shows that the American public, perhaps
• 5:55
  uniquely among people in developed countries, is represented disproportionately by
• 5:59
  climate deniers. Although 23% of the entire US
• 6:02
  Congress is composed of those who dismiss the climate crisis, polls show
• 6:06
  that the proportion of Americans who share
• 6:10
  the view is significantly smaller, as much as half. So
• 6:14
  we're seeing a decrease in the amount of people who
• 6:18
  are denying climate in the American public, but we're still seeing
• 6:21
  a pretty good representation of climate deniers in the House and
• 6:25
  in the Senate. So that's really concerning. So
• 6:28
  even as a quarter of U.S. lawmakers deny the climate crisis, the
• 6:32
  American public has been moving significantly in the other direction. Fewer
• 6:35
  than one in five people in the U.S. reject the findings of climate
• 6:39
  science, according to various studies, with long-running polling
• 6:42
  by Yale University showing that those that they class as
• 6:45
  dismissive stand at just 11%. So we are seeing this
• 6:49
  change in sort of the view of climate change. People are seeing
• 6:53
  what's happening. People are believing the science now all
• 6:56
  those predictions that people saw I'm like, ah, yeah, it's getting hotter But it's
• 7:00
  kind of nice that it's getting hotter. But now we're starting to see the ramifications of
• 7:03
  that heat we're starting to see the ramifications in terms of
• 7:07
  you know, increased hurricane number and
• 7:10
  intensity of storms. We're seeing increased flooding. We're seeing people,
• 7:14
  you know, not only getting affected by flooding and
• 7:18
  wildfires, but dying from it. You know, people's lives are
• 7:21
  being affected each and every day, maybe by not
• 7:25
  huge storms or huge natural events, but at some point, sea level
• 7:28
  rise, you know, changing in soil, changing
• 7:31
  in coastline. We're starting to see that happen more and more often.
• 7:35
  And it's just getting to be like what we're seeing all
• 7:39
  the time. It says here, the amount of people at each end of the
• 7:42
  spectrum, alarmed and dismissive. So there are some people who
• 7:45
  are alarmed of climate science, and there's some people who are dismissive of
• 7:49
  climate change, were essentially tied back in 2013. So they're equal
• 7:52
  in 2013, but now there are at least three
• 7:56
  alarm people to every one dismissive. So there's been a
• 8:00
  fundamental shift in how people see climate change in the U.S.
• 8:03
  That's by Anthony Lazoritz, an expert in
• 8:07
  climate public opinion at Yale University. So
• 8:17
  we're seeing this change in the American
• 8:21
  people. And we're seeing that climate change is
• 8:24
  being, people are worrying about it, people are seeing
• 8:27
  it right in front of their eyes. But we're not seeing that same representation
• 8:32
  in the Senate or in the House of Representatives. That's
• 8:36
  a huge problem. That's something that we cannot have. We
• 8:40
  wanna make sure that our elected officials are supposed to be a reflection of the
• 8:43
  people. You know, whether if you're in a democratic society, you get
• 8:46
  to vote for who your government is, that's what you'd like it to be. You
• 8:49
  want your representatives to represent you, to represent your values. If
• 8:53
  you are seeing the effects of climate change and are concerned
• 8:57
  or alarmed of the effects of climate change, you want your politicians
• 9:00
  to represent you and those values and say, hey, We
• 9:04
  need to do something about climate change because it's affecting my neighbor, it's affecting
• 9:07
  me, it's affecting my community, it's affecting my city, it's affecting my
• 9:10
  state or province, it's affecting my country.
• 9:15
  And that's something that you just
• 9:18
  don't want to see. So why are we allowing these
• 9:22
  politicians to be in power? A lot of times these politicians
• 9:26
  are really popular. Senator Ted Cruz is really popular. He's
• 9:29
  had a lot of scandals, he's had a lot of problems, but he has been in
• 9:33
  power a lot. And trying to get him out and trying to put
• 9:37
  somebody against him that would actually get him out is gonna be really
• 9:40
  difficult because people know him so much. And this is where you gotta get to
• 9:43
  know your candidates. You've got to make sure that you understand what
• 9:47
  your candidate brings to the table and what you need. Even
• 9:50
  if you fully agree with climate change or not,
• 9:54
  look at your surroundings. Look at your
• 9:57
  city, your county. Look
• 10:01
  at what's happening to it. Look at the people affected and start to
• 10:05
  say, we need a change because things haven't changed in
• 10:08
  a long time. Government is supposed to bring change. You know,
• 10:11
  whether you agree with that change or not, they're supposed to be bringing change.
• 10:14
  So if you want the change to be what you want, then you have
• 10:18
  to make sure that you put the right people in. And that's how it's going to
• 10:21
  be to, you know, that's how you vote in for the people that
• 10:24
  you want is you go out and you support them and you rally for
• 10:28
  them and you go out and you vote them. So it said, you
• 10:31
  know, the fossil fuel industry and its allies have long used a variety of messaging to
• 10:34
  rebuff concerns of climate. She said that, you know, so this is going
• 10:38
  to change of not just climate denying, but also climate sort
• 10:42
  of like supporting, but not really supporting. So
• 10:45
  as far back as the 1990s, they were saying renewable energy isn't really reliable enough,
• 10:49
  so they're going after the solutions. Or they were saying that wind
• 10:52
  power will kill whales. And now you're even
• 10:55
  seeing the Republican candidate talk about wind power kills
• 10:59
  birds and how there's a huge graveyard of birds under each windmill
• 11:02
  if you actually go out and look for it. That's almost a direct quote from
• 11:06
  him in a recent speech from Donald Trump. These
• 11:10
  all could be debunked. These all are managed. People
• 11:14
  are aware of some of these issues. And the
• 11:17
  technology has gotten that much better. But still, climate deniers
• 11:21
  and climate alternatives, they're trying to
• 11:25
  make sure they're throwing you off with the solutions. They're
• 11:28
  going after and attacking the solutions. So it really is so
• 11:32
  different. from climate denial, if you don't deny the
• 11:35
  science, but you deny the possibility of the solutions. We've
• 11:39
  seen it for EVs. You know, I've seen it, I've seen here people, and
• 11:42
  I talk about my EV, like, well, yeah, well, you know, it's not great for the
• 11:45
  environment. Well, no, it's not perfect for the environment. The technology
• 11:49
  is just, you know, we're just starting to accelerate the technology, but
• 11:53
  it's better than the alternative. It's better than gas power when you look at it
• 11:56
  in the long run. You know, we look at the emissions that it provides. That's
• 12:00
  what we've seen and that's what you have to, that's what you have to, like when you
• 12:03
  start talking to people about it, these are the arguments that I always come up
• 12:06
  with. And I think that's what we have to do. When you start talking about
• 12:10
  the solutions, you have to just debunk all these myths around those
• 12:13
  solutions. right, and I think that's really big. Even I've seen
• 12:17
  for EVs, even there's a lot of people like in the dad groups I'm a part
• 12:20
  of and some of the Facebook groups I'm a part of, they're like, and even just on
• 12:23
  my regular page of friends that I have, they start talking about how EVs
• 12:27
  are not manly enough. You know, like attacking just like your,
• 12:31
  sort of like you as a person, whether you're a man or not,
• 12:35
  or identify as a man or not, they're attacking your bravado and
• 12:38
  being like, well, you need to drive a truck or a gas powered car to
• 12:41
  make sure that you still can be manly enough. If not, you're not manly.
• 12:45
  And it's just absolutely ridiculous how they attack. But
• 12:48
  sometimes it's effective. It's effective in knowing how
• 12:51
  that happens. And again, it's, The
• 12:56
  people who start attacking them, you don't
• 12:59
  want to argue against them as much because you're always being attacked. In
• 13:03
  the article that I'm reading here in The Guardian, and I'll link
• 13:07
  to it in the show notes, That's a problem in
• 13:10
  itself because once you start going silent because
• 13:13
  you don't want to be attacked, that's when they
• 13:16
  win. That's when people look and see the major
• 13:20
  conversation around solutions for climate change is
• 13:24
  bad. And if you do that, you're a bad person. The solutions
• 13:29
  are not perfect, so why would you do it? A lot
• 13:33
  of times people will attack me for being in my
• 13:36
  office and talking about science when I'm not out on the ocean doing
• 13:40
  scientific work like well you're just an armchair conservationist yes
• 13:43
  I am because I can't get out in the field all the time most people can't
• 13:47
  get out in the field all the time if they want to talk about conservation in fact
• 13:50
  conservation you can argue is not done out in the field a lot of
• 13:53
  times conservation is done in a boardroom or in a meeting room in a hotel or
• 13:57
  in an office somewhere and talking to other people, meeting
• 14:01
  with other people at a workshop or at government and lobbying government.
• 14:04
  So there's a lot of different ways you can do this but people will attack you because you're not
• 14:07
  what they expect a conservationist should be. You're not what they
• 14:11
  expect a person who's trying to do better for the planet
• 14:15
  is to be. They'll attack you as much as possible But you have
• 14:18
  to fight back, you have to stand up for yourself, and you have to say, these are the reasons I'm
• 14:21
  doing it. You don't have to agree with it, but these are the reasons I'm doing it so that other
• 14:24
  people will feel confident in speaking up as well. And
• 14:27
  I think what happens is when you have people who attack, even
• 14:31
  though they're a small minority, they vote. And if you don't speak with
• 14:34
  your vote, if you don't go out and vote, then they will win and there
• 14:37
  will be no change at all. So it starts with you, it starts with
• 14:41
  voting, and it starts with getting out there and doing something that
• 14:44
  you believe in and that you want to change. If you want climate
• 14:48
  action to change, that's how you do it. Vote for people who will
• 14:51
  actually do climate change, who will actually take action
• 14:55
  against climate change. One of the really interesting things, and I know I've talked a lot about
• 14:58
  Democrats and Republicans, and I don't mean to polarize anything.
• 15:02
  I just find that the Democrats in this election are very much for
• 15:06
  making changes to the environment, albeit maybe not fast enough, but
• 15:10
  they are making changes. While the Republicans don't seem to be making any changes,
• 15:14
  they're climate denying. They're using that as a political tool
• 15:18
  to separate people even more, which obviously we don't need.
• 15:21
  We need to actually take action to save our planet. We don't need
• 15:24
  to politicize this. It's not a political issue in my opinion, but
• 15:28
  they've made it to be a political issue. But they want
• 15:31
  you, you know, the people who attack
• 15:35
  you are the ones who vote. If you don't vote, you don't get in.
• 15:38
  And what's been really refreshing is the VP candidate for
• 15:42
  the Democrats, Tim Watts, is one of those guys who's just
• 15:45
  kind of like, you hear him, it's just very refreshing to hear someone just
• 15:49
  talk frankly. It's like, look, I just want it to be a better planet. I don't
• 15:52
  want my neighbor to have his house flooded. I don't want
• 15:55
  my neighbor to lose his house in a wildfire. I want my community to
• 15:58
  be safe. I want my community so that when I go out,
• 16:02
  I know nothing's going to happen to my neighbor. Nothing's going to
• 16:05
  happen to the car beside me or the person beside me or
• 16:08
  myself or my family. I want it to be safe. And what's wrong
• 16:11
  with taking action against climate change if we know that's going to put us
• 16:15
  in harm? We've seen the harm that puts us in. as a population, as
• 16:19
  a species, why don't we want to go out and help each other and do that?
• 16:22
  You know, a lot of the times when we talk about climate change and protecting the
• 16:25
  ocean and climate change, it's like, well, you know, our country is not really contributing that much,
• 16:29
  you know, to climate change. You know, whatever you do per capita or by
• 16:32
  country, you know, we're not up there. We're not the top list. And until
• 16:36
  China and India do something, then we're not going to do anything.
• 16:39
  Have you heard that argument before? I hear it all the time. It
• 16:43
  is something that we have to combat every time if we have the
• 16:46
  means to do it You know whether you're from the US the UK Canada
• 16:50
  doesn't matter where you're from Russia, you know, China
• 16:54
  India We need to take action. We all need to take action.
• 16:58
  And we all need to lead in that taking action so that we can all see each other
• 17:02
  take action. Because when one country doesn't, the other country's like, why should I
• 17:05
  take action if that country's not doing it? So we need to make sure, on
• 17:08
  an international level, that we are taking action to show other countries that
• 17:11
  we are serious about this. And we want to look out for each other. We want to look out
• 17:14
  for our well-being. of the Spotify,
• 17:38
  you go on YouTube, you go hit me up on Instagram at
• 17:42
  how to protect the ocean. You will be able to leave a comment.
• 17:45
  I'd love to hear what you think about what's happening with
• 17:49
  climate, your politicians, whether they're climate deniers or
• 17:53
  not, and how fast legislation is going to get put through if we
• 17:56
  don't have these climate change deniers. 123 of them. in
• 17:59
  the US government. That is insane. And that needs to change. So
• 18:03
  hopefully this November 2024, that will
• 18:06
  change. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Hit me up on
• 18:09
  Instagram at HowToProtectTheOcean and subscribe and share this
• 18:12
  episode as much as possible to people who
• 18:16
  you think would like to hear it. And I want to thank you so much for
• 18:19
  joining me on today's episode of the HowToProtectTheOcean podcast. Have a great day.