Climate Change and the Issue Attention Cycle

An article in the NY Times explains how climate change has been moved to the back burner of the political agenda by both Democrats and Republicans. The article mentions that in 2008, both Barack Obama and John McCain believed climate change was man made and supported legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Now, only one of the Republican candidates, Jon Huntsman, says he trusts scientists' assertion that climate change is a real threat. Obama has also shifted from his earlier vigilance against greenhouse gas emissions as his administration is working to exempt American airline carriers from a European law that charges airlines landing in Europe for carbon dioxide emissions. It seems that climate change is firmly in the fourth stage of the issue attention cycle in which the public is confronted with and disapproves of the costs of addressing the issue. Data from a recent poll shows the percentage of Americans who think the earth is warming dropped to 59 percent last year from 79 percent in 2006. In the article, Andrew J. Hoffman, director of the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute for Sustainable Development, states: “People say, ‘Wait a second, this is really going to affect how we live!’ ”