Global Warming, "They don't see votes in it"

Global Warming- This is the first time since 1988 where this was not brought up during the debates.  The omission was noticed to a great extent and a website was set up to urge Obama and Romney to give Climate change the attention it had in in the 2008 election.

Articles offer various reasons why neither candidate was eager to bring up the subject.  The article US presidential debates' great unmentionable: climate change gives reasons for why Obama scaled back on his climate/green agenda and states it is due to anti-government conservatives pressuring Obama, leading to the administration downplaying the green agenda and delaying and weakening environmental regulations. It states that this also led to the adoption of what Obama called an "all of the above" energy strategy, which saw a role for expanded offshore oil drilling and domestic production, due to new techniques in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.

I enjoyed JonathanFranzen’s take on Obama and his presidency not being green. "I can understand your disappointment, but your hopes seem to me misplaced. I think he did the right thing in making the Affordable Care Act the centerpiece of his first term, and the economic catastrophe he inherited from George Bush made it simply impossible for him to take on climate change as well. But I do have some hope that he’ll do it in his second term."  He gives examples of what may have happened if Romney/Ryan had won.

What was the mass media’s role in the control of the discussion? After one debate CNN's Candy Crowley, the debate moderator,said that there had been questions from the audience about climate change, but she thought the economy was the priority.  "Climate change, I had that question," she was quoted as saying. "All you climate change people. We just, you know, again, we knew that the economy was still the main thing."

Many, like Candy, think climate change was trumped by the economy and jobs. Other believe it is now a special interest issue that need not be in the spotlight. This article lists Five Reasons to Talk Energy and Climate at the Foreign Policy Debate.  Shawn Otto, CEO of the non profit group ScienceDebate.org,which focuses on trying to inject discussions of science-based issues into presidential and other campaigns says "I've talked to political operatives, and they think science is a boutique issue, like changing to the metric system or something. They don't see votes in it."  And there lies the issue: no votes, no interest to the politicians.  Maybe those swing states aren't big climate change states.  You'd think Florida would be!

Democracy Now! hosted a debate between two third party candidates: Green Party's Jill Stein and Justice Party's Rocky Anderson.
They actually discussed the topics omitted from the Obama/Romney debates.  Rocky Anderson delivered a statement that many wanted to hear from the two major party candidates "The most important issue in terms of the long term impacts on the greatest number of people -- an absolute tragedy in the making -- is the climate crisis. And our nation -- although every science academy in the world agrees that this is a huge problem with horrendous consequences -- our government continues to abdicate its highest responsibility to provide international leadership on the climate crisis. And the most tragic part of this is the window of opportunity was very, very small the last 10 years to do anything about it, to save our children and later generations from experiencing the most catastrophic consequences of climate change."

And from Mother Jones Why No One Said the C-Word in the Debates

ScienceDebate.org persuaded the Obama and Romney campaigns to provide written answers to 14 science policy questions, carefully chosen by leaders of the scientific community to reflect their most pressing concerns.  There is one question focusing on climate.