Does Climate Change Make Good Political TV?

Energy Gang

Wood Mackenzie

Tech News, Environment, Sustainability, Innovation, Renewable Energy, Technology, Alternative Energy, Energy, News, Cleantech, Wind Energy, Business, Climate Change, Solar Energy

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2019

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week: We’ve gone from drought to flood.

People who care about climate change have spent the last three presidential election cycles cajoling, prodding and begging television news outlets to cover the issue. But the more pressure mounted, the more coverage lagged.

Across all three debates between Clinton and Trump in 2016, environmental issues got just under 5 and a half minutes of air time. And in all of 2016, the major networks talked about climate for just 50 minutes combined.

And then suddenly in September, we got CNN’s town hall, a seven-hour extravaganza that actually allowed candidates some time to tease out the nuances of their plans.

Sure, the moderators asked some weird questions about cheeseburgers, plastic straws and electric cars. But for the most part, the conversation was substantive and helpful.

In this episode, we’re digging into a few questions: Did the town hall advance the narrative? Did it change the campaign and polling? And which candidate performed the best?

We’re joined by Dr. Leah Stokes, an assistant professor of political science at the University of California Santa Barbara, who watched and analyzed all seven hours closely.

Read Leah’s top twitter threads on the candidates:

Elizabeth Warren
Bernie Sanders
Joe Biden
Andrew Yang
Kamala Harris
Jay Inslee
You can also read her analysis in the Washington Post comparing the candidates.

Follow the gang on twitter: Katherine, Jigar, Stephen and The Energy Gang.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast is brought to you by Sungrow. Sungrow sells the most inverters in the world.
0:06.0	It is now a leading supplier right here in the Americas as well.
0:09.0	It has the world's most powerful 250 kilowatt, 1,500 volt string inverter providing disruptive technology for
0:16.1	utility scale solar and battery projects.
0:19.1	Find out more at Sungrow Power.com. From Green Tech Media this is the Energy Gang.
0:32.9	Weekly debates and discussions on the fast-changing world of energy.
0:36.1	I am Stephen Lacy, a contributing editor at GTM.
0:38.8	Welcome to the show.
0:40.2	This week, we've gone from drought to flood.
0:43.4	People who care about climate change have spent the last three presidential election cycles
0:47.5	cajoling, prodding, and begging television news outlets to cover the issue.
0:52.2	It seemed the more pressure mounted the less
0:54.5	coverage there actually was. Across all three debates between Clinton and Trump in
0:58.9	2016, environmental issues got just under five and a half minutes of air time and in 2016 the
1:05.0	major networks talked about climate for just 50 minutes combined across the entire year.
1:11.2	And then suddenly we got CNN's town hall. A seven-hour extra
1:15.6	that broke the broken TV debate model and actually allowed candidates some time
1:20.3	to tease out the nuances of their plans. boy were there a lot of plans so in
1:25.4	this episode in a nod to the format we have a seven hour episode analyzing
1:30.4	every moment of the town hall so clear schedule, strap in and keep driving that electric vehicle around.
1:36.0	Catherine, I presume you have refreshments lined up and you've told members of Congress that you can't meet with them today.
1:42.0	Absolutely, and I have a bunch of really... of our co-host and the chair of 38 North Solutions.
	...

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