With Election Day two days away, it’s easy to focus on the economy or terrorism or immigration reform. Today’s New York Times features the headline “U.N. Panel Issues Its Starkest Warning Yet on Global Warming,” and the story that follows begins thusly:
“The gathering risks of climate change are so profound that they could stall or even reverse generations of progress against poverty and hunger if greenhouse emissions continue at a runaway pace, according to a major new United Nations report.
“Despite growing efforts in many countries to tackle the problem, the global situation is becoming more acute as developing countries join the West in burning huge amounts of fossil fuels, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said here on Sunday.
“Failure to reduce emissions, the group of scientists and other experts found, could threaten society with food shortages, refugee crises, the flooding of major cities and entire island nations, mass extinction of plants and animals, and a climate so drastically altered it might become dangerous for people to work or play outside during the hottest times of the year.
“In the starkest language it has ever used, the expert panel made clear how far society remains from having any serious policy to limit global warming.”
Have you heard ANY candidate from either major political party talk about climate change in any substantive way?