Climate Change: A Real Force In The 2020 Campaign?

Climate change has assumed a higher profile in American life and electoral politics than at any time in history. Last weekend, large portions of the country endured extreme heat during a month that climate scientists project will be the hottest ever recorded. The heat has come during a 2019 punctuated by widespread California wildfires, disastrous flooding in the Midwest and, further north, 90 degree temperatures in the Arctic gateway city of Anchorage, Alaska. Attribution science, the rapidly developing discipline that allows scientists to trace the cause and effect relationship between climate change and extreme weather, makes it increasingly clear that Earth’s warming atmosphere is the driver of more frequent environmental emergencies.