“Like the Moon Landing”: 8 Candidates Confront the Next President’s Most Urgent Task

The climate change discussion we deserve on the Weather Channel Thursday night.

Bernie Sanders visits Paradise, California, the scene of a wild fire

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News

What’s your plan? How much will it cost? Where will the money go? Which regions require the most aid? These are questions that politicians across the political spectrum will need to answer when it comes to climate change, one of the most defining issues not only for the 2020 election but for the future of the planet.

That’s why the Weather Channel, Mother Jones, and Climate Desk have teamed up: to have thoughtful conversations with 2020 hopefuls from both parties, to see up close places across the country that have been affected by extreme weather, and to discuss policy proposals and personal insights about the climate crisis. The result is a one-hour special, “2020: Race to Save the Planet,” which airs on Thursday, November 7 at 8 pm ET.  The Weather Channel’s hurricane expert and broadcast meteorologist Dr. Rick Knabb will host the segment, which will feature five Democrats and three Republicans. 

Times have dramatically changed since the last presidential election, when climate change took a back seat to issues like the economy and immigration. But rising awareness of the dangers of climate change combined with heightened concern about the rollbacks of environmental protections under President Donald Trump has turned addressing a warming planet into a top issue for voters in 2020

“It was so frustrating to cover the 2016 cycle and just wait around hoping candidates would talk about climate change in the debates—and that discussion barely happened,” says Mother Jones environment reporter Rebecca Leber. “Now, we’re in a completely different cycle where everyone has a plan, or multiple plans, to tackle this.”

In this week’s episode of the Mother Jones Podcast, host Jamilah King sits down with Dr. Knabb and Leber to discuss some of the differences among the plans from Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Mark Sanford, and others: How do they intend to support frontline communities and invest in infrastructure? How much will their plans will cost? And how has their own awakening to the importance of the issue taken place?

“This special is really not intended to be partisan at all,” says Dr. Knabb. “It’s really intended to allow candidates from both sides to get their side of the issue out there.”  

The candidates acknowledge we’re in a crucial moment—as South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg said, “like the moon landing, or the Manhattan Project…this is certainly as urgent, as pressing, as any of those things we’ve taken on before”—but they all have different approaches. Understanding these differences will be crucial to voters who want to go to the polls and make an informed choice. Tune into the podcast for highlights straight from the special, join the discussion on social media with #RaceToSaveThePlanet, and ask Dr. Knabb a question after the podcast on a streaming show on Pattrn.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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