America Isn’t Sweating Climate Change

Summer has begun—which is to say, wildfires in the West are chasing residents from their homes, the snowpack has dwindled to near-record lows in several states, drought is spreading, and temperatures are regularly exploring new heights. Yet America does not seem to be sweating climate change. You could call it “climate hushing,” as Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and others do, or a “worry gap,” as one study has. Whatever you call it, America’s interest in talking about climate change is at an ebb.Certainly, the Trump administration has made a point of disregarding climate change. Yet when President Trump made similar moves in his first term, he was met with a surge of resistance. Environmentalists and Democratic politicians formed their own climate alliances and pushed through state and local laws designed to take carbon out of the American economies. At the time, Jay Inslee, then the Washington governor, said, “We governors are going to step into this cockpit and fly the plane.”These days, Democrats and even climate activists are acting as if fighting to slow global warming, let alone campaigning on it, is passé. As gas prices soared during the Iran war, blue-state governors have given fossil fuels another look, pushing the message of affordability, debating new gas pipelines, and putting off, in some cases, commitments to cut emissions. California’s frontrunner for governor, Xavier Becerra, who took campaign donations from oil companies, has not committed to phasing out gas cars as the state has planned; New York Governor Kathy Hochul rolled back the state’s landmark 2019 climate law. Congressional Democrats, who need to win seats during the midterms, are focused on economic issues. “Look at the Senate map,” Jane Flegal, a senior fellow at the Searchlight Institute, a moderate Democratic think tank, told me. “I mean, Alaska, Texas, Iowa. These are not places where anyone with brain cells would say: Run on blocking fossil fuels and addressing the climate crisis.” Many