The Political Climate: an ongoing commentary on the NH Primary and Climate Change

Sen. Sam Brownback, an official presidential candidate, traveled to Iowa yesterday to where he met with conservative activists and answered questions from reporters.  Despite temperatures that didn’t reach the teens Brownback talked about how “the temperature has risen.”  Brownback explained ”It seems to me just prudent that we recognize we have climate increase and temperature change.  We have CO2 loading and we need to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.”  Throughout his talks on climate change Brownback failed to mention one key term–”global warming.”  (Read the entire story from the Associate Press here.)

Brownback’s reluctance to use this term may be related to the current Waxman hearings being debated in Congress.  The New York Times reports on the hearing that is investigating allegations that White House officials have controlled climate programs and have inappropriately censored what scientists have been allowed to tell the public.  One example was “a challenge to using the phrase ‘global warming.’”  A study released yesterday by the Union of Concerned Scientists  reports on an in-depth survey of government scientists and separate interviews that senior scientists at UCS say “has brought to light numerous ways in which US federal climate science has been filtered, suppressed and manipulated in the last five years.”

Perhaps tellingly, yesterday potential presidential contenders took the opporunity to make their voices heard about the issue of climate change.  Sen. Hillary Clinton said “this is a problem whose time has come,” and Sen. John Mccain reiterated that “this is an issue over the years whose time has come.”  Sen. Barack Obama didn’t get caught in any shadows when he said “for decades far too many have ignored the warning.  Will we look back at today and say this was the moment we took a stand?”   Could this be foreshadowing of upcoming campaign rhetoric?

And another potential presidential wannabe is making clearthat he takes climate change seriously.  Gov. George Pataki will attend a March 1st conference in Concord, “Climate Change and Working Forests: A Conference for Citizens Concerned with the Future of NH Forests.”  For more information about the conference visit the Society for the Protection of NH’s Forests.