BillCosby

Study: Of Over 2,000 Sunday Talk Show Questions to Candidates Only 3 on Global Warming

A new study by the League of Conservation Voters found that the five major Sunday morning political shows asked the presidential candidates well over 2,000 questions in 2007. Just three of the questions mentioned global warming. We speak with the president of the League of Conservation Voters, Gene Karpinski. [includes rush transcript]

__________________
Preventive war is not war!!!!Counter-terror is not terror

OldManOnFire

Because Americans don't care about anything until their asses are on fire!!!

And because we have insane-Bush who refuses to open his mind to such a phenomenon, and therefore, our government has failed to educate and warn US citizens about the potential affects of global climate changes.

And many of our citizens seem incapable of researching and reading on their own, which is no surprise since 50% of our kids learn nothing in public schools.

This same lethargic behavior exists for our dependence on oil, our nutrition and health, and how we manage our finances.

Maybe after the football playoffs are finished, and after American Idol is done, and when all the fictional TV series end, and whenever we are out of beer and pizza, maybe we will find time for a little reading and understanding about the critical issues facing 'all of us' today...

__________________
Did you know both our problems and the solutions can be found simply by looking in our mirrors...and...Never confuse the extraordinary stuff I think and write with that of a well-balanced person...

BillCosby

Yea all that but..........

This is not the citizens but the media. The media that is narrowing the scope of debate here........

They are not asking the questions here.... Most AMericans support the kyoto protocol's etc............

It is not due to a lack of interest on the part of the public.....

__________________
Preventive war is not war!!!!Counter-terror is not terror

OldManOnFire

The topic of global climate changes has been well-promoted in the news, in documentaries, feature-films, and the Nobel prize. Anyone who reads or watches movies has a basic idea about the potential issues.

Yet in spite of this, people will simply sit around and do nothing until their asses are on fire. I don't like blaming too much on the media and/or government since all of us have the capability today to do our own research and make informed decisions. Therefore I blame people for not demanding more on the topic, and logic says until they do, it's a bit of a non-issue to the average American.

The media are a bunch of prostitutes who will sell their mothers for viewership. If you can believe this as well, then you must agree that the media would be hyping this story IF it got attention and excited advertisers.

But apparently, and sadly, it does not yet do either of these...

__________________
Did you know both our problems and the solutions can be found simply by looking in our mirrors...and...Never confuse the extraordinary stuff I think and write with that of a well-balanced person...

Titanium Cat

Part of the reason is that it involves a lot of science and the media doesn't like going into such topics in detail. Too many viewers have extremely short attention spans when it comes to things that they don't have the background to understand or are just too lazy to even try to understand.

It's why the media (especially FOX News) gives a fair bit of air time to the so called global warming skeptics, rather than addressing the science it becomes a spitting contest instead which sadly enough is often better for ratings.

OldManOnFire

It seems people today just want to be told what to do--not to be burdened or bored with the details.

And they don't want to be involved too much on things that are out of sight--too far into the future. Just talk about today's issues and what 'someone' is going to do to fix them.

And the solutions cannot ask for too much compromise or sacrifice, for if so, then it's a bad solution. The government and our representatives can pretty much do anything they wish, but in doing so, don't take anything from we the people.

We have 300,000,000 citizens who barely get involved during elections and almost no involvement at other times. Are we lazy, ignorant, disinterested, don't care, fine with representatives making all the decisions, greedy, self-serving??

If we can't find more unity on the critical issues, how can we achieve anything worthwhile...

__________________
Did you know both our problems and the solutions can be found simply by looking in our mirrors...and...Never confuse the extraordinary stuff I think and write with that of a well-balanced person...

BillCosby

lol........ I am not surprised......

Here you have a clear case.. THe public has served...........

Personally I find the disparity astounding......

These are questions put forth by the media.......... Not the well informed if they want to be public...........

It is not the public that has asked only three times in 2,000 about it........

__________________
Preventive war is not war!!!!Counter-terror is not terror

BillCosby

So you believe it is the publics fault that they (the media) asked only 3 out of two thousand questions............

They can talk about kyoto in the media all the time but Americans are just to dumb or lazy to sit through more than three questions dealing w/ global warming............ Give me a break!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

__________________
Preventive war is not war!!!!Counter-terror is not terror

Teri B.

It's Al Gore's fault. He should have run again. Nah, I do think the topic will gain some momentum in the next few months though, particularly in the California primary.

Titanium Cat

I don't blame the public entirely. But look at this board as an example. How many posts are there seriously discussing the positions of the candidates on climate change? And how many are there talking about whether Hillary staged crying or things of that nature? I guess I get tired of blaming the press when it doesn't seem that most people are really interested in going past the very rudimentary first stage of just accepting it's a problem. To be fair the details can be pretty technical and there isn't a single solution, it's going to have to be a variety of them.

Yeah but when they talk about Kyoto you hardly hear any real level of details about it or alternatives. You'll get maybe 10 seconds of cap and trade and then you'll hear a couple of the controversies surrounding the issue and then they move on. It's the media's fault because they want to present things that are more popuplar (more sexy) and it's everyone's fault that many of those things are trivial in nature.

However I expect you'll get more questions in the general election. There really isn't much of a difference between the positions of the Democratic candidates. McCain is probably the only Republican with any sort of serious plan to combat climate change. Hopefully there will be more questions. Maybe the public has to start asking them if the press won't.