Originally published on the CGS blog on September 27, 2012.
Over the last two months, the team here atCitizens for Global Solutions has been working to make climate change a bigger election issue this cycle, starting with the first presidential debate on October 3rd hosted by Jim Lehrer of PBS’s NewsHour. This morning, Citizens for Global Solutions, along with eight other organizations like the League of Conservation Voters and the Environmental Defense Fund, delivered over 160,000 of your petitions to the Newshour offices. Representatives for NewsHour accepted our petitions and guaranteed that our voices would be heard by Mr. Lehrer. According to one staff member, this petition is the largest they have received this election cycle.
Over 3,200 of the signatures were from Citizens for Global Solutions members, demanding that the presidential campaigns make climate change a focus this fall. According to Don Kraus, CEO of Citizens for Global Solutions, “Climate change is a global challenge that affects Americans and people worldwide. The next leader of the free world must have a plan to address it. What good is a debate about bolstering the economy when the environment it rests upon is degrading? Mr. Lehrer must hold President Obama and Governor Romney accountable on this critical issue.”
Thanks to your support, we’ve brought climate change to the attention of the first debate moderator. We aren’t going to stop until we’ve heard a serious debate from our candidates on how they’re going to address one of the most pressing issues of our time!
For more information on both Romney’s and Obama’s statements on climate change, check out the interactive guides we’ve created on Storify:
http://storify.com/GlobalSolutions/barack-obama-energy-and-climate-change-1
http://storify.com/GlobalSolutions/mitt-romney-climate-change-and-energy
