More and more Americans are watching the climate crisis come into focus amid a chaotic summer disaster that has devastated every inch of the country.
Hurricane Ida devastated an area of more than 1,000 miles in the eastern United States. But if the storm clouds have a bright side that has winds strong enough to knock down trees and houses in the south, and rain that can flood the northeast, then the time is right.
Ida, Larry, Mindy, and the ongoing tropical storms that are becoming increasingly devastating – along with a string of forest fires, droughts, and other natural disasters – work effectively to raise concerns about climate change and fuel key debates about budget and duration of elections. Impact on Policy Making for Decades to Come.
Climate change has become an important part of the public debate in recent years, as political observers say they hadn’t seen it half a decade ago. They see the 2020 race as the first real climate election, especially since Joe Biden and his main Democratic opponents have spoken more aggressively about fighting them. In addition, younger generations are mobilizing to combat climate change, especially since it will suffer from the consequences. While supporters welcomed rising climate change as a 2020 theme, it has been largely overshadowed by other issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the spectacle of the race itself.
Now, more Americans are trying to focus more on the climate crisis amid a chaotic summer of disaster that has devastated every inch of the country. According to an analysis by the Washington Post, almost one in three Americans lives in a country that experiences extreme weather conditions during the summer.
“(Climate change) is at the center of national political debate like never before,” said Matto Mildenberger, professor of political science with an emphasis on environmental policy at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “This is attention to a climate that we would not have seen five to ten years ago.”
And politicians who have long talked about the dangers of climate change have caught up. The federal government is now working to implement climate change mitigation policies with historic investments in the environment and green infrastructure, backed by Biden, the party leaders, and the progressive wing who have made it a more important issue for them.
Climate has become a top priority for Biden, who ran a far more ambitious climate platform than any previous Democratic candidate in 2020. And his concern for the environment comes after his predecessor Donald Trump often downplayed or denied climate science and overturned many of the Obama administration’s climate-friendly policies and rules.
This week, Biden witnessed the damage Ida caused in New Jersey and New York City. And next week he will visit the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, to investigate the damage caused by the fires in Sacramento, California. During his visits, he discussed the role of climate change in every recent disaster, while promoting his economic agenda by combining environmental efforts with job creation.
“Every part of the country is affected by extreme weather conditions and we are now seeing in real-time what the country will be like if we don’t act,” Biden said Tuesday. “I think we’ve all seen – even the climate skeptics – that this is important.
Congress is passing two parts of Biden’s agenda by the end of the month, including massive investments in climate-related precautions: the $ 1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and the $ 3.5 trillion Democratic plan. , in addition to the expansion of social security. net.
Physical Infrastructure Act provides billions of dollars to expand clean energy public transportation such as electric school buses and the nation’s first network of electric vehicle charging stations along highways and in communities. But compromise legislation lags behind many of the Democrats’ climate priorities, which have a much larger footprint in the larger bill.
In addition to family, health, and education programs, the $ 3.5 trillion global spending plan focuses on key environmental areas. Some of the climate-related measures include tax incentives for clean energy, manufacturing, and transportation; Invest in public and green housing, and create a civilian body for the climate on the model of the civil protection utility established under the New Deal.