Climate Action, Not Climate-Hushing

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As the all-important midterm elections draw closer, Democrats are fine-tuning their economic messaging while Republicans are…well, panicking. That doesn’t mean the 2026 mid-term results are a foregone conclusion, though. If economic messaging is all the Democrats to offer, they are missing an opportunity to motivate a key demographic, namely, voters who recognize that Congress must pick up the climate action ball dropped by US President Donald Trump.

Spokane Is Burning

The latest news on the climate front indicates that the global warming chickens have come home to roost, with a vengeance. On top of a series of record setting heat waves across the country, smoke from Canadian wildfires engulfed much of the US Northeast last week, and this week Mother Nature has followed up with three wildfires burning their way through Spokane County, Washington. So far they have consumed more than 600 buildings, many located within the borders of the City of Spokane. Thousands have been forced to evacuate, with some under urgent “leave now” and “last notice” warnings.

Meanwhile, the impact of wildfire smoke on human health is coming into sharper focus. Too bad US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has chosen this moment to launch a cooking show on teevee (roadkill, much?) instead of employing his media amplifier in the service of CDC health advisories, but such is the world we live in today.

Fortunately, the information gap has been filled by science. In addition to an ongoing advisory remaining on the CDC website, the journal Frontiers in Environmental Health has just published a research paper showing that an increase in wildfire smoke over the past 16 years has offset the public health gains of reducing pollution from transportation and industry. The new study pinpoints low birthweight and pre-term births among the rise in negative health outcomes related to the impact of wildfire smoke on pregnant women.

“Even in regions that are not strongly associated with wildfire, such as the southeast region of the U.S., wildfire pollution rates grew substantially during that time period,” summarizes the news organization Stateline.

What’s With All The Climate-Hushing?

In a nutshell, wildfire smoke is now the single leading pollutant impacting pregnant women in the US, on top of the direct, destructive impact of wildfires on homes, businesses, and communities. Moreover, wildfire hazards are just one of many climate-related impacts to hit the domestic electorate over the head on an up-close-and-personal basis beyond the oft-cited sea level rise metric, including increasing cycles of heat waves, drought, and flooding. Regardless of how far or near they are to a seacoast, more US voters are getting to know climate change on a painfully intimate level.

Clearly, if climate change is not the primary economic issue of all time, it is among other major economic issues left unaddressed (to put it kindly) by the current Republican majority in Washington, on up to and including the impact of the Iran war on fuel prices.

Nevertheless, word on the street is that Democratic strategists are encouraging candidates to avoid talking about climate change. A research team at the University of California – Santa Barbara, for example, cites multiple advisory groups and pundits that have advised against including climate change in campaign messaging.

“Candidates have listened: an Inside Climate News analysis of press releases from congressional Democrats finds that mentions of climate change have dropped 80 percent since 2021,” the researchers note.

Why Not Talk About Climate Change?

Rather than dwell on the situation as-is, the USC researchers took it upon themselves to investigate whether or not climate-hushing is sound advice for Democratic candidates this year. They summarize the climate-hushing argument in three parts:

Claim 1 Climate is not a top issue Voters care more about costs, health care, jobs and other issues.

Claim 2 The phrase “climate change” is polarizing The same policies labeled with climate will divide people along partisan lines.

Claim 3 Emphasizing climate change loses votes This does NOT necessarily follow from Claim 2.

In support of the climate-hushing argument, the USC team found that Claim 1 is true. Climate clawed itself up only as far as the #12 spot out of 15 in an exercise designed to test voter priorities, and there it sat. Meanwhile, the top three priorities, predictably, were the cost of living, the economy, and health care.

If you spotted the missed opportunity, there it is. To the extent that climate solutions address the cost of living, the general economy, and public health, climate action should be part and parcel of economic messaging.

More to the point, the study contradicts Claim 2. “Saying the word climate does not polarize. Identical policies drew the same support when framed as climate versus energy or clean air. Voters care more about the policy mechanism than the policy’s goal,” the USC team summarized, indicating that it’s important to provide a context and solutions rather than simply bandying “climate change” about.

A similar finding applies to Claim 3. “Climate supporters are far more motivated to vote on climate than climate opponents. Emphasizing climate actually increased support for candidates rather than lowering it,” the researchers explained.

For the record, the USC researchers tested each of the three claims through two national surveys totaling approximately 3,500 adults this past summer.

Now What?

It remains to be seen where the Democrats go with climate messaging as the 2026 election cycle heats up, so to speak. If anything, climate action provides candidates with a common-ground argument and a solid track record of recent support to pull on, considering the ambitious programs set in motion by the Biden administration.

That kind of universal messaging is sorely needed at a time when divide-and-conquer forces are working against a Democratic landslide, particularly in regards to Israel’s role in the Iran war. In addition, Democrats in office are not immune to criticism over broad structural issues that predate Trump, including the cost of housing, health insurance, and education alongside more recent developments like the data center boom and the rising impact of AI-enabled systems.

Digging into the particulars of the USC study, while 50% of those surveyed ranked “cost of living” among their top three priorities, a relatively healthy 14% gave a top three ranking to “energy and electricity.” The category “clean air and water” also earned 14%, while “climate change” clocked in at 12% — a relatively small showing but still worth a mention in campaign materials. USC emphasizes that caring about an issue is not the same as voting on it, but the team’s findings on Claim 2 indicate that climate-carers are significantly more motivated to vote for candidates who center climate change.

“Climate supporters and opponents were sharply mismatched. Supporters rated the pull of climate on their vote at nearly 75 out of 100,”  the USC team reported.

“Opponents rated it as under 38 out of 100, a gap of 37 points. Clean energy followed a similar pattern, with a 36 point gap. These findings suggest that supporters will reward climate candidates, while climate opponents will remain relatively indifferent,” they elaborated.

Notably, the researchers also found broad, non-partisan support for specific decarbonization technologies, with rooftop solar taking the lead at 69% favorable compared to just 20% unfavorable. The team also cites onshore wind, large solar farms, and heat pumps among those with wide favorability margins.

“These findings suggest that climate messaging can be grounded in clean technologies themselves, which are broadly popular with voters,” they emphasized.

Readers, if you are voting this year, drop a note in the discussion thread and share your priorities. Better yet, find your representatives in Congress and let them know what you think.

Image: While surveys show that “climate change” is not among the top issues that voters profess to care about, climate-carers are strongly motivated climate voters (screenshot, courtesy of USCSB).