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5 urgent climate change stories not dealt with in US presidential election

As already previously commented upon here at MPS, climate change didn't figure in any of the so-called presidential debates between Clinton and Trump.

Juan Cole, writing on his blog, Informed Comment, under the title "The Top 5 Most Urgent Climate Change Election Stories the Mainstream Media Suppressed" takes the media to task for not addressing climate change in the discussions during the presidential election.

 Cole lists 5 critical topics relating to climate change which ought to have been raised.....

"Here are 5 climate tie-ins with the election that the news channels didn’t convene panels to dissect at length.  Maybe they didn’t report them at all.  Maybe it was in a single sentence or in that ticker at the bottom where they sometimes put real news.

1.  It is rare for China to say anything to a US presidential candidate publicly.  Beijing nevertheless came out and blasted Donald Trump for saying he would renege on the Paris climate agreement. Xie Zhenhua, China’s top climate negotiator, said that “The world is moving towards balancing environmental protection and economic growth.”  Of politicians like Trump, he added, “If they resist this trend, I don’t think they’ll win the support of their people, and their country’s economic and social progress will also be affected . . . I believe a wise political leader should take policy stances that conform with global trends . . .”  China is investing heavily in renewables at some social cost and won’t sit still for US backsliding.

2.  While the election has been going on, something has gone seriously wrong with this year’s arctic sea ice cover.  Zack Labe, a doctoral student in climate science, posted to Twitter, “Sea ice extent has set 142 new daily record lows.” and for the first time since 1970 “hadn’t reached seven million square kilometres by November.”  Trust me.  This is monstrously bad.  The less ice on land in the arctic and antarctic, the more water in the sea.  If your house is near a beach, this should concern you. A lot.  Why, you might even expect it to be on the news.

3.  The Paris Climate accord became international law on Friday.  Question:  Is America going to be a scofflaw nation and rampage around destroying the climate for everyone on earth?

4.  Americans are already being displaced from their homes by climate change.

5.  Our burning of fossil fuels now seems likely to throw the Southwest into a decades-long mega-drought."

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