It's been an interesting few years when we talk about natural disasters. Flooding, hurricanes, increase of hurricanes, and the number, and when they show up. We've seen droughts, we've seen floods, we've seen a lot. It's been a lot. And when we talk about solutions, we talk about investing and how governments need to invest in eco-solutions, green solutions, renewable energy. We've heard all of those terms. We've heard all of those, you know, a lot of greenwashing from companies as
well as politicians. But when it really comes down to it, it comes down to enacting laws and regulations that will help incentivize people as well as businesses and cities and states and provinces and the federal governments and countries really internationally to be able to enact these types of solutions. When it comes to that, We haven't really been progressing very much. Even when we do put up legislation that's been record-breaking, it's still not enough. And
it really comes down to the politicians. In the US, it's found that there are a number of them, including 123 politicians in the US are climate deniers. And we're going to talk about the climate deniers, what that means for the US, and what that means for climate action, and what we need to do to make sure that we are able to get people in there that are not climate deniers. We're going to talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey
everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lune, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. And on today's episode, we're going to be talking about taking action and the lack thereof when it comes to US politics. is getting tired. It's really getting tiring. But to know
who you're voting for and what they stand for is really important. That's what we're going to be talking about today, because a new report that came out from the Center of American Progress by Kat Soh was picked up by The Guardian, and they started to talk about it. And they realized that 23 senators and 100 people in the House All Republicans, all make US an outlier internationally
when it comes to climate action. They are climate deniers. If they're not climate deniers, they just don't feel like to act on climate change. And that is a big problem when you talk internationally, especially when you talk about the US being part of the Paris Accord, trying to put in the Inflation Reduction Act, trying to progress in climate change, but not enough because they keep coming up against barriers. They keep coming up against challenges within
the Senate, within the House. So a total of 123 elected officials of the federal representatives, 100 in the House of Representatives, and 23 U.S. Senators deny the existence of human-caused climate change, All of them are Republicans, and that's according to a new study, a recent study of statements made by current members. So this is actually them coming out and saying, you
know, I don't believe in climate change. And so Kat So, who's the campaign manager for energy and environment campaigns for the Center of American Progress said, that's definitely concerning. And that's a, you know, it's obviously, it is, it's concerning for the American people, it's concerning for the world, especially given the power, the superpower that the US
is. So the report defined climate deniers as those who say that the climate crisis is not real or not primarily caused by humans, or claim that the climate science is not settled, the extreme weather that we are seeing, that extreme weather that is caused by global warming or planet warming pollution is beneficial. So we've seen a change in sort of that rhetoric. We've seen it going from climate denying to just being like, hey, you know what? I like the heat. It's kind of nice. It's not
that bad. And then we've also seen, we've even seen pundits on Fox News start talking about how when we had the wildfires last year and the smoke came into New York City, how it's not that bad for you. It's actually good to get that in your system every once in a while. Really, really, they're really going out of their way to
making sure that climate change is not that bad. Even we're seeing rhetoric from fossil fuel companies as well as politicians just being like, you know what, climate change is here, there's nothing we can do about it, we might as well just live with it, learn to live with it. And so that's a problem. Of course, you have senators like Senator Ted Cruz in 2018 who said, of course the climate is changing. Oh, that's kind of nice to know. The climate has been changing from
the dawn of time. The climate will change as long as we have planet Earth. Not helpful one bit. Other instances are more recent. For instance, Louisiana Representative Steve Scalese said in a 2021 interview referencing long debunked research that is often still cited by climate deniers, is we've had freezing periods in 1970s. They said it was going to be a new cooling period. And then now they're saying it's getting warmer, it gets colder, and that's called Mother
Nature. But the idea that hurricanes or wildfires were caused in the last few years is just fallacy." That is ridiculous. That's what we're seeing in our elected officials. So climate-denying lawmakers have received a combined $52 million in lifetime campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry. So it's no wonder we've seen so much climate denying
as we go through. So the research also shows that the American public, perhaps uniquely among people in developed countries, is represented disproportionately by climate deniers. Although 23% of the entire US Congress is composed of those who dismiss the climate crisis, polls show that the proportion of Americans who share
the view is significantly smaller, as much as half. So we're seeing a decrease in the amount of people who are denying climate in the American public, but we're still seeing a pretty good representation of climate deniers in the House and in the Senate. So that's really concerning. So even as a quarter of U.S. lawmakers deny the climate crisis, the
American public has been moving significantly in the other direction. Fewer than one in five people in the U.S. reject the findings of climate science, according to various studies, with long-running polling by Yale University showing that those that they class as dismissive stand at just 11%. So we are seeing this change in sort of the view of climate change. People are seeing
what's happening. People are believing the science now all those predictions that people saw I'm like, ah, yeah, it's getting hotter But it's kind of nice that it's getting hotter. But now we're starting to see the ramifications of that heat we're starting to see the ramifications in terms of you know, increased hurricane number and intensity of storms. We're seeing increased flooding. We're seeing people, you know, not only getting affected by flooding and
wildfires, but dying from it. You know, people's lives are being affected each and every day, maybe by not huge storms or huge natural events, but at some point, sea level rise, you know, changing in soil, changing in coastline. We're starting to see that happen more and more often. And it's just getting to be like what we're seeing all the time. It says here, the amount of people at each end of the
spectrum, alarmed and dismissive. So there are some people who are alarmed of climate science, and there's some people who are dismissive of climate change, were essentially tied back in 2013. So they're equal in 2013, but now there are at least three alarm people to every one dismissive. So there's been a fundamental shift in how people see climate change in the U.S. That's by Anthony Lazoritz, an expert in climate public opinion at Yale University. So we're seeing this change in the American
people. And we're seeing that climate change is being, people are worrying about it, people are seeing it right in front of their eyes. But we're not seeing that same representation in the Senate or in the House of Representatives. That's a huge problem. That's something that we cannot have. We wanna make sure that our elected officials are supposed to be a reflection of the people. You know, whether if you're in a democratic society, you get
to vote for who your government is, that's what you'd like it to be. You
want your representatives to represent you, to represent your values. If you are seeing the effects of climate change and are concerned or alarmed of the effects of climate change, you want your politicians to represent you and those values and say, hey, We need to do something about climate change because it's affecting my neighbor, it's affecting me, it's affecting my community, it's affecting my city, it's affecting my state or province, it's affecting my country.
And that's something that you just don't want to see. So why are we allowing these politicians to be in power? A lot of times these politicians are really popular. Senator Ted Cruz is really popular. He's had a lot of scandals, he's had a lot of problems, but he has been in power a lot. And trying to get him out and trying to put somebody against him that would actually get him out is gonna be really difficult because people know him so much. And this is where you gotta get to
know your candidates. You've got to make sure that you understand what your candidate brings to the table and what you need. Even if you fully agree with climate change or not, look at your surroundings. Look at your city, your county. Look at what's happening to it. Look at the people affected and start to say, we need a change because things haven't changed in
a long time. Government is supposed to bring change. You know, whether you agree with that change or not, they're supposed to be bringing change. So if you want the change to be what you want, then you have to make sure that you put the right people in. And that's how it's going to be to, you know, that's how you vote in for the people that you want is you go out and you support them and you rally for
them and you go out and you vote them. So it said, you know, the fossil fuel industry and its allies have long used a variety of messaging to rebuff concerns of climate. She said that, you know, so this is going to change of not just climate denying, but also climate sort of like supporting, but not really supporting. So as far back as the 1990s, they were saying renewable energy isn't really reliable enough, so they're going after the solutions. Or they were saying that wind
power will kill whales. And now you're even seeing the Republican candidate talk about wind power kills birds and how there's a huge graveyard of birds under each windmill if you actually go out and look for it. That's almost a direct quote from him in a recent speech from Donald Trump. These all could be debunked. These all are managed. People are aware of some of these issues. And the technology has gotten that much better. But still, climate deniers and climate alternatives, they're trying to
make sure they're throwing you off with the solutions. They're going after and attacking the solutions. So it really is so different. from climate denial, if you don't deny the science, but you deny the possibility of the solutions. We've seen it for EVs. You know, I've seen it, I've seen here people, and I talk about my EV, like, well, yeah, well, you know, it's not great for the
environment. Well, no, it's not perfect for the environment. The technology is just, you know, we're just starting to accelerate the technology, but it's better than the alternative. It's better than gas power when you look at it in the long run. You know, we look at the emissions that it provides. That's what we've seen and that's what you have to, that's what you have to, like when you start talking to people about it, these are the arguments that I always come up
with. And I think that's what we have to do. When you start talking about the solutions, you have to just debunk all these myths around those solutions. right, and I think that's really big. Even I've seen for EVs, even there's a lot of people like in the dad groups I'm a part of and some of the Facebook groups I'm a part of, they're like, and even just on my regular page of friends that I have, they start talking about how EVs
are not manly enough. You know, like attacking just like your, sort of like you as a person, whether you're a man or not, or identify as a man or not, they're attacking your bravado and being like, well, you need to drive a truck or a gas powered car to make sure that you still can be manly enough. If not, you're not manly. And it's just absolutely ridiculous how they attack. But sometimes it's effective. It's effective in knowing how
that happens. And again, it's, The people who start attacking them, you don't want to argue against them as much because you're always being attacked. In the article that I'm reading here in The Guardian, and I'll link to it in the show notes, That's a problem in itself because once you start going silent because you don't want to be attacked, that's when they win. That's when people look and see the major conversation around solutions for climate change is
bad. And if you do that, you're a bad person. The solutions
are not perfect, so why would you do it? A lot of times people will attack me for being in my office and talking about science when I'm not out on the ocean doing scientific work like well you're just an armchair conservationist yes I am because I can't get out in the field all the time most people can't get out in the field all the time if they want to talk about conservation in fact conservation you can argue is not done out in the field a lot of
times conservation is done in a boardroom or in a meeting room in a hotel or in an office somewhere and talking to other people, meeting with other people at a workshop or at government and lobbying government. So there's a lot of different ways you can do this but people will attack you because you're not what they expect a conservationist should be. You're not what they expect a person who's trying to do better for the planet
is to be. They'll attack you as much as possible But you have to fight back, you have to stand up for yourself, and you have to say, these are the reasons I'm doing it. You don't have to agree with it, but these are the reasons I'm doing it so that other people will feel confident in speaking up as well. And I think what happens is when you have people who attack, even
though they're a small minority, they vote. And if you don't speak with your vote, if you don't go out and vote, then they will win and there will be no change at all. So it starts with you, it starts with voting, and it starts with getting out there and doing something that you believe in and that you want to change. If you want climate action to change, that's how you do it. Vote for people who will actually do climate change, who will actually take action
against climate change. One of the really interesting things, and I know I've talked a lot about Democrats and Republicans, and I don't mean to polarize anything. I just find that the Democrats in this election are very much for making changes to the environment, albeit maybe not fast enough, but they are making changes. While the Republicans don't seem to be making any changes,
they're climate denying. They're using that as a political tool to separate people even more, which obviously we don't need. We need to actually take action to save our planet. We don't need to politicize this. It's not a political issue in my opinion, but they've made it to be a political issue. But they want you, you know, the people who attack you are the ones who vote. If you don't vote, you don't get in.
And what's been really refreshing is the VP candidate for the Democrats, Tim Watts, is one of those guys who's just kind of like, you hear him, it's just very refreshing to hear someone just talk frankly. It's like, look, I just want it to be a better planet. I don't want my neighbor to have his house flooded. I don't want my neighbor to lose his house in a wildfire. I want my community to be safe. I want my community so that when I go out,
I know nothing's going to happen to my neighbor. Nothing's going to happen to the car beside me or the person beside me or myself or my family. I want it to be safe. And what's wrong with taking action against climate change if we know that's going to put us in harm? We've seen the harm that puts us in. as a population, as a species, why don't we want to go out and help each other and do that?
You know, a lot of the times when we talk about climate change and protecting the ocean and climate change, it's like, well, you know, our country is not really contributing that much, you know, to climate change. You know, whatever you do per capita or by country, you know, we're not up there. We're not the top list. And until China and India do something, then we're not going to do anything.
Have you heard that argument before? I hear it all the time. It is something that we have to combat every time if we have the means to do it You know whether you're from the US the UK Canada doesn't matter where you're from Russia, you know, China India We need to take action. We all need to take action. And we all need to lead in that taking action so that we can all see each other take action. Because when one country doesn't, the other country's like, why should I
take action if that country's not doing it? So we need to make sure, on an international level, that we are taking action to show other countries that we are serious about this. And we want to look out for each other. We want to look out for our well-being. of the Spotify, you go on YouTube, you go hit me up on Instagram at how to protect the ocean. You will be able to leave a comment.
I'd love to hear what you think about what's happening with climate, your politicians, whether they're climate deniers or not, and how fast legislation is going to get put through if we don't have these climate change deniers. 123 of them. in the US government. That is insane. And that needs to change. So hopefully this November 2024, that will
change. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Hit me up on Instagram at HowToProtectTheOcean and subscribe and share this episode as much as possible to people who you think would like to hear it. And I want to thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the HowToProtectTheOcean podcast. Have a great day.