New England Public Radio

Language In Democratic Party Platform Handles Climate Change Like An All-Out War

NEW ENGLAND NEWS COLLABORATIVE

On Thursday night, Hillary Clinton accepts the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Much has been said already about the speeches, the Bernie Sanders supporters walking out, the musical acts. But not much has been said about climate change — one of the many issues in the 51-page party platform. Some say it is the number one priority for the next president of the United States.

Earlier this month at a Democratic Delegates committee meeting in Orlando, Florida, a proposed amendment to the party platform called Global Climate Leadership was read aloud.

A portion of it: “Just as America’s greatest generation led the effort to defeat the Axis Powers during World War II, so must our generation now lead a World War II-type national mobilization to save civilization from catastrophic consequences.”

If that language sounds familiar, you might have heard Bernie Sanders say something similar, back in March on MSNBC.

“In World War II, for example,” Sanders told host Chuck Todd, “the United States had to fight a war on two fronts in a very short period of time. And within three years, actually, we had essentially won the war.”

Sanders said he looks at climate change “in almost military terms. I look at the fact that if we do not significantly reduce carbon emissions, there’s going to be massive damage done to our country and to this planet.”

Sanders started using this military language over the past year, on advice from climate activists like Russell Greene, who is also the delegate from California who proposed the platform language on climate change.

The final platform was tweaked by the campaigns since the Orlando meeting, but Greene says the important parts remain intact, including phrases like “World War II-type national mobilization.”

Greene says the words elevate the topic of climate change, making it an emergency issue, not just one issue among others.

“Our intention was to look through the entire platform and find places for the World War II mobilization to be articulated,” Greene says. “As well [as] connect it to things that are already in the program, like the jobs program, a classic Democratic idea.”

There’s no better way to create employment, Greene says, “than address the climate emergency and the infrastructure change that’s required.”

If Pearl Harbor was the defining moment for the United States in 1941, it’s not clear what that moment could be for climate change. Maybe food shortages, or a war over water.

Margaret Klein Salamon, founder of The Climate Mobilization, a project that makes the case for a World War II-scale mobilization to address global warming, also provided the Sanders campaign with information. Salamon says this style of approach — an idea that’s been around for decades — is slowly becoming a movement.

“I think we’re going to have to rely on more persuasion, more community education, more social movements to accomplish the kind of collective awakening that Pearl Harbor accomplished,” Salamon says.

In the Democratic Party platform, the language about a “War on Climate Change” could easily be ignored. There’s nothing binding about it. But David Hopkins, a political scientist at Boston College, says that isn’t happening. Hillary Clinton is using the platform to her advantage, and for her, it’s not that big a deal.

“Here’s the place where [Clinton] can take steps to satisfy Sanders and the Sanders supporters in the party, and try to make them as committed and enthusiastic as possible to working on behalf of [her] in the fall election,” Hopkins says.

It’s a win-win. Bernie Sanders told his supporters earlier this week they should be proud. Because of them, this is “the most progressive party platform ever written in the history of the Democratic Party.”

But nine years ago, Hillary Clinton also spoke about climate change in this way, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, during her first run for president.

“For this generation of Americans, climate change is our Space Race,” Clinton told the crowd. “It is our home-front mobilization during World War II and it is our response to the Great Depression.”

The delegates will find out, as will the rest of us, Thursday night, if Hillary Clinton takes climate change to this same height during her acceptance speech on stage in Philadelphia.

When Politics Intersect With Preschool Playtime

Reading his grandson’s daily updates from preschool has gotten commentator and writer Robert Chipkin thinking. Maybe they’d be useful for some adults he’s been listening to lately.

I envy my two year old grandson, who leaves day care every afternoon knowing exactly where he stands, clutching a progress report in his tiny hands. Crafted in educationally correct day-care speak, the day’s “progress” ranges from the mostly sunny “James learned the proper use of the word please,” to the partly cloudy “James is still working on the proper use of the personal pronoun,” to the downright enigmatic, “James has discovered so many things to do with his hands.”

All of which sounds so civilized that I thought such progress reports would make a fine addition to the preschool squabbling and that has so far marked the nation’s presidential campaign. Imagine if the nightly news reports sounded like this:

  • Donald continues to show high levels of self-esteem and particularly enjoys building the highest tower of blocks. His next project is a giant wall. In his free time, he continues to explore the fluid properties of objective truth He is currently vocalizing a new sound – which appears to mean yes to the children who want to hear yes, and no to those who don’t.
  • Hillary is still working on making more friends. While others are on the playground, Hillary prefers to plan out the rest of her day surrounded by a small group of advisors, who she refers to by their email addresses. She’s demonstrated exemplary hygiene; she loves to wash her hands of almost everything. At show and tell she told us about her dream to one day both marry the president and be the president. The boys said that was impossible. But that’s what boys always say.
  • Bernie continues to make new friends among the children by promising them ponies for their birthdays. He plays equally well with Hillary’s friends and Donald’s by simply asking what they want and saying they can have it if they wish hard enough. Bernie has made “huge” progress on his language skills and was the only child to repeat the day’s lesson: that coming in second is as good as winning.

Of course all the children are winners because winning isn’t about building towers, or washing hands or promising ponies. Winning is about playing well with others.

Robert Chipkin is a columnist for the Republican newspaper. He lives in Springfield.

Neal Says Trump Nomination Puts Senate Republican Majority At Risk

Congressman Richie Neal says Republicans may lose a lot more than the White House in November, now that’s it clear Donald Trump will be the GOP nominee. Neal, a Springfield Democrat, is backing Hillary Clinton for president.

“If the Republican National Chairperson, Reince Preibus, were here, as well as what we call the gray hairs of the Republican Party, I think that they would acknowledge that the Senate is now in jeopardy,” Neal said Wednesday.

Neither Massachusetts Senate seat will be in play in November. But in New Hampshire, the latest poll shows Democratic Governor Maggie Hassan is in a dead heat with incumbent Senator Kelly Ayotte.

The Short List: Trump, Sanders, Clinton and Polls, Rattlesnakes @ Quabbin?

What made The Short List this week?

  • Super Tuesday’s coming up. A  poll conducted for WBUR shows Republican Donald Trump well ahead of his rivals in Massachusetts. On  the Democratic side, the poll shows Hillary Clinton with a slight lead over Bernie Sanders.
  • Rattlesnakes, the endangered Timber Rattlesnake to be exact, made the news this week. Officials are proposing to put a handful of them on an island in the Quabbin. And there’s been some push back.
  • The producers of a Mark Wahlberg movie about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings have asked for permission to film in the same street where the Watertown shootout took place.

Click the audio player above to hear New England Public Radio’s Susan Kaplan explore these issues with The Reminder Newspaper’s Mike Dobbs and Matt Szafranski of Western Mass Politics and Insight.

New England Democrats Stake Out Positions on Expiration of Bush Tax Cuts

As Congress gears up for another debate over the Bush-era tax cuts, set to expire at the end of this year, New England congressmen are staking out their positions on the issue. President Obama has been clear he wants to end the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, but some leading Democrats, including Bill Clinton, have strayed from that position this week. Springfield Congressman Richard Neal, who sits on the tax-writing ways and means committee, says he would consider proposals to extend the cuts temporarily.

“If we needed a couple of months of breathing room to get a bigger deal to get those tax cuts, then that would be, I think, a path forward. At the same time, if it’s simply an up or down vote on ending the Bush tax cuts for people at the top, I would certainly vote to end them.”

And Neal, the top Democrat on a subcommittee that deals with deficit reduction, told “The Hill” newspaper -a Washington publication- that talks about extending the tax cuts would need to be in the context of a deal on how best to reduce the national deficit. Vermont’s at-large Representative Peter Welch holds a slightly different view. Also a Democrat, Welch says that he wouldn’t consider compromising on the tax cuts, unless Republicans also commit to compromising on areas like defense spending. And he says he’s focused on reaching a long-term deal with both sides.

“I’m not in favor of a short-term extension…that doesn’t come with real commitment to a long-term agreement.”

Congressman Jim McGovern of Massachusetts’ third district agrees with the president on tax cuts, but says there’s never anything wrong with talking across the aisle to find solutions that benefit the country.