Earth Day is tomorrow and, in this presidential election year, it might be illuminating to take a look at the five remaining major party candidates and how each stands on what is the single biggest long-term threat to the health of the world’s environment—climate change.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both agree that climate change is a major global threat, but they have different philosophies about how to address it.
In last Thursday’s debate, Clinton said she’d stay the course set by the Obama administration, in particular by abiding to the terms of the Paris climate agreement, gradually reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and transitioning to cleaner alternatives. Sanders, on the other hand, favors more dramatic action. “Incrementalism and those little steps are not enough. Not right now. Not on climate change,” he said.
For the most part, Republican candidates’ opinions about climate change are quite differen...