Welcome back to Climatific, a free, weekly read on climate science emailed right to your inbox. We’re breaking it down so it makes sense- not for scientists or researchers, but for everyday people trying to understand the planet we live on, what’s happening to it, and why it matters.
On August 7th, 2022, I was huddled around a television channeled to C-SPAN with my coworkers on the second floor of a building on the White House complex as members of the Senate voted on the Inflation Reduction Act- the largest climate investment in US history.
This was my Superbowl.
The votes were painstakingly close- one Yea for every Nay. It was a nailbiter. Roughly 27 hours later, the IRA passed the Senate with a 51-50 vote (Yea-Nay).
Every single Yea was from a Democrat, and every single Nay was from a Republican.
Five days later, the IRA passed the House with a 220-207 vote- that is, 220 votes from Democrats, and 207 votes from Republicans.
Not a single Republican voted in favor of the IRA, and not a single Democrat voted against it.
I promise you that, by the end of this issue, you will find this a heck of a lot more shocking than you do right now.
🌎 Back to the Good Ole Days
Believe it or not, it wasn’t long ago that there was bipartisan support for acting on climate change.
Some of the nation’s most influential climate/environmental legislation has come from Republican administrations. See for yourself:
1963: Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson passes the Clean Air Act—the first ever federal legislation to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. And, no, it wasn’t just to improve air quality!
1965: Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson’s scientific advisory committee publishes a report warning of the heat-trapping impacts of carbon dioxide emissions- namely, sea level rise, ocean acidification, and decreased carbon in soils.
1970: Republican President Richard Nixon passes the National Environmental Policy Act, which builds momentum for the creation of the EPA and a slew of other environmental regulations that ultimately dubs the 70s the “environmental decade.”
1981: Climate change makes the front page of The New York Times in response to mounting, unanimous concern among scientists, politicians, and citizens.
1897: The Senate hosts a hearing on climate change with scientific testimony from climate science legends like James Hansen and Carl Sagan. Democrats and Republicans alike agree that climate change is a human-caused and urgent concern that needs immediate legislative action.
1992: Republican President George H. W. Bush instituted the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which turned out to be a huge motivator for international collaboration on climate action.
Throughout this time, support for environmental protection between self-identified Democrats and Republicans differed by only ten percentage points.
Credit: Presenting a Framework to Address Climate Obstruction Through Activism (Ulrich, 2024).
Early 2000s: Red states like Kansas and Texas were national leaders in wind energy, so much so that Texas alone had more gigawatts of wind energy installed than every country in the world except Germany, Spain, and India.
Things were headed in a great direction, which is exactly why the fossil fuel industry had to step in.
Despite having previously allocated funding for climate science programs in the 70s, ExxonMobil and other leaders of the fossil fuel industry devised public campaigns to sow doubt about climate science.
There are some climate wins like the Energy Policy Act (2005) and Massachusetts v. EPA (2007), but, largely, bipartisan support for climate action begins to collapse.
2001: Republican President George W. Bush rejects the Kyoto Protocol due to concerns about its effects on the economy and for exempting major polluters.
2008: An increasing number of Republicans believe that the media is exaggerating the seriousness of climate change.
2008-2010: The great cap-and-trade debate—a time many Americans regarded as the prime moment for climate action due to a scientific consensus on climate change, public support for legislation, and momentum to act in the House, Senate, and the White House—falls flat.
2011: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney acknowledges that climate change is happening and human-caused, which conservative critics call “political suicide.”
2017: A study finds that ExxonMobil communicated that climate change is “real and human-caused” in 80% of its internal documents, but doubt about climate change in 81% of public-facing materials.
2022: A study by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reveals that 78% of Democrats consider climate change a “major threat to the country” compared to just 23% of Republicans- a 55% difference.
Giphy
To date, the fossil fuel industry has gifted more than 80% of political donations to Republicans and conservative groups due to a greater alignment of ideological views against government regulation.
The moral is not to debate where you should fall politically in all of this, or to point fingers at which side messed up in getting us here (spoiler: they both did).
It’s that Big Oil executives are, unfortunately, very smart. Just as the personal carbon footprint tracker was a deflection campaign to get industry out of the limelight (see last week’s issue), so were their campaigns to infuse public denial and doubt about climate change.
We still feel the impacts of these campaigns today when people choose whether to “believe” in climate science, undermine the scientific consensus on climate change, or think that climate change will have a net positive impact on society. They’ve caused exacerbated political polarization, a decrease in public trust in science, and political inaction altogether.
Okay, Doomsday is over. What can you do about it, you ask?
Focus on the common ground we all share—concern for a warming planet—and don’t get caught up in the politics.
Make Climatific yours- let us know what we can do better, what you want to learn about, and what you’re confused about. Because there’s always room for improvement… and lots to be confused about.
Share your newfound knowledge with your parents, coworkers, friends, and relatives! Better yet, tell them to subscribe to Climatific, so they can grow their brain like you are every single week.
🌎 In the Forecast
Next week’s issue is reader-inspired! They want to know:
“I want to know why we have stronger winds on a more consistent basis than in the past. I know it’s due to climate change, but why?”
We’ll cover why climate change is associated with stronger winds, and more volatile weather patterns, too, like droughts, floods and temperature extremes on both ends.
Thanks, Jeff, for the suggestion!
🌎 Hungry for more science?
A dose of good news? We’ll take it! Here are three climate wins we’re reading this week:
Wondering where you are or how you got here? Allow us to fill you in.
🌎 Abstract
You're not a climate denier, but you're not the Lorax, either. You recycle when you can, and you're at least mildly concerned when you see news headlines about extreme weather events that you don't remember happening even a few decades ago. You want to learn more about the climate, but not enough to want to spend large chunks of time reading and sifting through news posts and research articles.
Does this describe you? If so, welcome aboard.
Climatific strips the politics from climate change to provide brief weekly lessons on what the Earth’s climate is, how it works, and why it matters. It saves you time, energy, and resources by sending a TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read) on climate science right to your inbox on Tuesday mornings.
Climatific calls on climate science, not the news, to help you better navigate the conversations around you.
No buzzwords, just science.
🌎Methodology
What Climatific is:
A 5 to 10-minute weekly read on what the Earth’s climate is and how it works
A complete overview of climate science
What Climatific is not:
Politically biased or affiliated
A newsletter
Thanks for being here. See you next Tuesday!
Stay curious,
Climatific
