The Great Unspoken

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/19/1146917/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Roundup-We-need-more-hear-more-about-climate-change

One of the more frustrating aspects of the Presidential debates is how they coalesce around the same damned issues.  Kudos to the person asking a gun violence question, but including it was one of Crowley's worst moments.  There is no more debate about guns in America.  The NRA won.  Time to move on.

Otherwise: taxes and deficits.  Taxes and deficits.  Not that they aren't important and not that Romney's continued evasions on the budgetary issues isn't important, but there are other issues.

Like climate change.

I don't subscribe to the idea that Obama "hasn't done a thing" on climate change.  Improved CAFE standards and increasing funding for renewable energy is a real change and a real accomplishment.  But almost all of Obama's environmental programs have been cloaked in the argument of "green jobs".

Part of the problem is that "this election is about the economy" so we just will skip over abortion, birth control, climate change, deportations and electoral suppression (just to use the first five letters of the alphabet).  Nope, it's about the economy, and since we all know that "real Murikans" only care about the economy that we can't have an honest conversation about climate change.

Here's where an honest conversation would go: We'd have to talk about nuclear power, post-Fukuyama.  We'd have to talk about even greater fuel efficiency.  We'd have to talk about conservation.  We'd have to talk about cap-and-trade.  We'd have to have a real conversation about China beyond bellicose sword rattling.

I guess one can hope that - because this is a global issue - we will have some discussion about climate change as we live through the warmest year on record.

But because it is a debate, that discussion will likely be stupid.