As a Campaign Issue, Global Warming Ignored by Media and Pollsters

First it was the Sunday morning talk shows, and now the Gallup pollsters. Mum's the word on climate change in the 2008 presidential election, thanks in large part to America's most prominent opinion makers and their total lack of prodding and pulling on the climate issue.

A New Hampshire citizen lays bear the latest in this letter-to-the-editor published in Foster's Daily Democrat:

Climate change not an 'other' issue

To the editor: Last night I received a call from a Gallup pollster asking if I'd participate in their USA Today poll about the upcoming election. One question, in particular, was very easy for me to answer: "What issue is most important to you in this election?" The pre-selected responses were Iraq, taxes, health care, and the economy. When I told the interviewer that the most important issue to me was climate change, she responded that it would need to go into the "other" category.

Climate change is not an "other" issue. Climate change is the issue.

The heat-trapping gases we emit every day from our vehicles, factories, power plants, and homes are warming our planet. The images we see of melting arctic glaciers, rising sea levels, droughts and wildfires are, indeed, the face of climate change but so too are the subtler, less obvious changes such as the arrival of the brown recluse spider, which previously lived only in milder climate states.

It's tough to take a complex and global problem like climate change and bring it down to our level, to how it impacts us. We don't live in the Arctic Circle, nor Bangladesh and as Americans we will be sheltered somewhat from the worst consequences of our changing climate. But we're not immune either. Our food doesn't come from the grocery store. It must be grown on agricultural lands whose productivity is principally determined by stable climate and adequate rainfall. Hurricanes on the Gulf Coast affect us, wildfires in Alaska and California affect us, and the inevitable conflicts that result when much of the world doesn't have enough food and fresh water most definitely affect us.

So, on Jan. 8, I'm taking climate change out of the "other" category and making it my primary focus......

Please prioritize climate change in your vote on Jan. 8.

Denise Blaha
Nottingham

More on the candidates' positions on climate change here.

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