Climate Chaos at Presidential Debate

Did a Republican debate audience just boo Vivek Ramaswamy's climate denialism? Or was that a fever dream?

Techbro turned Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said “climate change is a hoax”

Welcome back to Wicked Problems.

If you’ve been looking for signals about whether or not the Inflation Reduction Act climate and energy policies would survive into a Republican administration, you’re probably not going to like this. But it could have been a lot worse.

For the past few US presidential election cycles, climate has more or less been absent from the political discussion - particularly among Republicans who would really rather you didn’t think about that.

So it was notable that FOX News (!) felt the need to put two climate questions to the eight contenders last night. The Maui wildfire, with hundreds dead or missing, and its relationship to climate change, has proven to be the kind of “focus event” that moves the US climate conversation into new territory.