ICYMI: Whitehouse Makes the Case for Climate Fight in New Op-Ed

Washington, DC - In case you missed it, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), the Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, published an op-ed on Tuesday in WBUR encouraging Democrats to ignore the "climate hushers" and take up a fight for climate action and against the villainous fossil-fuel industry that peddles in dark-money corruption and climate-denial fraud.

"There's a thing out there called 'climate hushing' - people arguing that Democrats should stop talking about climate change if they want to win elections. Whatever their motives, the climate hushers are wrong about pretty much everything," wrote Whitehouse.

"Climate hushers ignore that this is a fight in which there are real and dangerous villains. Our climate peril didn't just "happen." It was done - through fraud and corruption. Independent voters are more concerned about Big Oil's influence over the Trump administration than any other industry, even Big Pharma and Wall Street. The fossil fuel industry's climate denial fraud operation and its dark money corruption operation are in fact villainous. Villains as evil as those behind these operations need to be fought. Plus, most every story is better with villains," added the Senator.

"Democrats' messaging on climate has long been weak. But the choice isn't between crap messaging and no messaging. There's a good and just fight to be had - and we better have it now, while there's still time," wrote Whitehouse.

Senator Whitehouse is one of the Senate's leading climate champions, where he fights to advance smart solutions to address climate change, position Rhode Island as a leader in the clean energy economy, clean up our oceans, and hold the fossil fuel industry accountable. Whitehouse has delivered 308 "Time to Wake Up" speeches urging his colleagues to wake up to the threat of climate change.

Read the full piece at WBUR or below.

Much ink has been spilled over the DNC's autopsy of what went wrong in 2024.

I can tell you what I've observed: voters, dogged by cost pressures and fuming about a perpetually out-of-reach American Dream and an increasingly billionaire-centric system, needed a fighter at the top of the ticket.

The first question voters asked themselves in November 2024 was, "Is this person a fighter?" If the answer was yes, the second question was, "Will this person fight for me?"

Democrats never made it through the first gate. Donald Trump, on the other hand, will pick a fight with anyone over anything. He had trouble with the second part of the test, but Democrats couldn't even make it past the first question.

When word clouds bring up terms like "weak" and "won't fight" to describe the Democratic brand, my message to fellow Democrats is that a good way to show you're a fighter is to get into a fight. For me, it's hard to imagine a more important one than taking on the fossil fuel industry and fighting to put the planet on a path to climate safety.

Not everyone agrees. There's a thing out there called "climate hushing" - people arguing that Democrats should stop talking about climate change if they want to win elections. Whatever their motives, the climate hushers are wrong about pretty much everything.

First, they're wrong about where people are. There is a mountain of evidence that the public is ahead of the politicians on this. Take recent polling by Yale University and George Mason University. In an electorate focused on costs, 65% say climate change is raising prices. Families face increased grocery costs, electric bills and home insurance premiums. Climate-driven hikes in home insurance are the top economic issue in many places. In a poll by the Potential Energy Coalition, by a margin of 74-10, voters want companies to pay for the harm their pollution causes. And a recent Gallup poll found that concern about climate change is reaching a high point, even with near-zero Democratic effort to highlight the issue.

Second, climate hushers are wrong about consequences. An economic cliff looms. As climate risk clobbers home insurance, cascades into mortgage markets and slams property values, it's poised to cause a full-on recession if we don't do anything. It's already started in Florida. The warnings about climate consequences are real, and the leading edge is financial. Democrats need to tell that truth, now.

Third, climate hushers ignore the leadership feedback loop. When leaders don't talk about something, enthusiasm slips among voters. In politics, you can make your own wind, or you can make your own doldrums. The hushers are conceding defeat, falling into circular reasoning, asking us to make our own doldrums.

Specifically, they ignore the pervasive Democratic problem of "poll-chasing": We take a poll, ask where voters are, and then repeat back to them what they were thinking when the polls were taken. It's static, lifeless and backwards looking. Voters are smart. They pretty easily sense who's got nothing new to say and instead repeats stale, worn phrases.

Last - and returning to the theme of having a fight - climate hushers ignore that this is a fight in which there are real and dangerous villains. Our climate peril didn't just "happen." It was done - through fraud and corruption. Independent voters are more concerned about Big Oil's influence over the Trump administration than any other industry, even Big Pharma and Wall Street. The fossil fuel industry's climate denial fraud operation and its dark money corruption operation are in fact villainous. Villains as evil as those behind these operations need to be fought. Plus, most every story is better with villains.

Democrats' messaging on climate has long been weak. But the choice isn't between crap messaging and no messaging. There's a good and just fight to be had - and we better have it now, while there's still time.

Imagine the economic crash happens. People are suffering, looking around for explanations, and we Democrats can't even say: "We tried, we told you so." If we knew - all the information and warnings were available to us - but we didn't go into the fight because enough voters weren't yet aware of their peril? That's some lame stuff.

That's the meta-message here: Democrats are a bunch of brawling, truth-telling fighters, unafraid to take on the billionaire special interests trying to rob our pocketbooks and our children's futures. Separate from the substance of any argument, people want to see a willingness to fight, which Democrats can show by fighting - not by meekly shying away from righteous and winnable fights against evildoers.