Environmental Protection Essay -- American Government, The Reagan Admi

The situation about environmental protection began to change in the early 1980s, as the Reagan administration labeled environmental regulations a burden on the economy and tried to weaken them and reduce their enforcement (Dunlap and McCright, 2008). The anti-environmental orientation of the Republican Party became important yet again following the Newt Gingrich led Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, sparking a modest negative reaction from the public (Dunlap,2002), and has been greatly amplified during the George W. Bush administration (Pope and Rauber, 2004). According to Dunlap and McCright (2008) the divide has been most obvious among political elites, such as members of Congress, who tend to be more ideologically concentrated on contrasting positions than the general public. The latest research from Gallop (2009) shows a currently very large gap between Republicans and Democrats in terms of believing that facts about global warming. Eagan and Mulllin (2009) believe to a large extent, people’s perceptions are likely to be guided by the contradictory discourse of elites, with the consequence that more partisan and politically sophisticated citizens will express more consistent beliefs. Americans’ beliefs about the existence of global warming are unstable (Eagan and Mullin, 2009). The belief level in 2009 represents an eight point drop from a year earlier, when 61% of respondents surveyed by Gallup agreed that global warming effects had already begun (Saad, 2009). This instability in opinion reflects the low public salience of the climate change issue and the sharp disagreement among policy elites about the problem and potential solutions. Regardless of the media’s culpability, currently the media is not a trusted so... ...vating a moral orientation through which to address climate change and the broader challenges facing America and the world. (Goldstein and Wapner, 2006) The Republican presidential contenders consider global warming as a hoax or, at best, make light of its importance. The most vocal denier is Rick Perry, the Texas governor and longtime friend of the oil industry, who claim that climate change is an unproven theory created by "a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects." Unfortunately, because of the economic downturn, addressing climate change has become less urgent for voters but that doesn’t mean that the issue is going away. The nation badly needs a candidate with a logical, disciplined national strategy. We have yet to find a Republican who fits that description. (NY Times, 2011)