Sometimes, being a climate reporter feels like being in a twisted version of Groundhog Day. Every time you think the world has finally moved beyond debating whether climate change is real or fake, you wake up to find that the day has reset—and a white guy with oil money seeking power pushed the button.

Last night, JD Vance pushed the button while thousands of Americans were suffering from one of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history. At the vice presidential debate on Tuesday, Donald Trump’s running mate cast doubt on the “idea” that heat-trapping pollution heats the atmosphere, calling it “weird science” that he would only accept “for the sake of argument.”

“One of the things that I’ve noticed some of our Democratic friends talking a lot about is a concern about carbon emissions—this idea that carbon emissions drive all the climate change,” he said. “Let’s just say that’s true, just for the sake of argument, so we’re not arguing about weird science. Let’s just say that’s true.” 

Vance went on to criticize the Democratic Party’s climate policies, claiming they wouldn’t solve the hypothetical problem of climate change that Vance continually refused to acknowledge, even when pressed again by the moderator. The only environmental problems Vance would acknowledge? "Donald Trump and I support clean air, clean water," he said. Fantastic. 

Meanwhile, in actual reality, climate scientists were sounding the alarm about the impact of fossil fuel development on extreme weather events like Hurricane Helene. They said current warm ocean temperatures, which rapidly turned Helene into a massive Category 4 hurricane, were made 300 times more likely by climate change. They also estimated that climate change caused 50 percent more rainfall in Georgia and the Carolinas—a shocking number given the unprecedented 40 trillion gallons of rain. 

Only a few days ago, Trump told supporters at a rally that climate change is “one of the greatest scams of all time.” Vance did not take this direct route of denial, likely because it would have seemed insensitive in the face of such destruction from Helene. He’s trying to seem like the adult in the room.

But Vance’s comments were the same old Trumpian climate denial, albeit a far more cowardly form. On a national stage, amid unprecedented extreme destruction, Vance was too afraid to tell Americans what he actually believes: That we should stay stuck in this Groundhog Day forever, and allow the window for action to run out of time.  

What else happened in last night’s debate?

• The moderators thankfully executed a climate fact-check. “The overwhelming consensus among scientists is that the Earth’s climate is warming at an unprecedented rate,” said CBS’s Norah O’Donnell after Vance’s comments. But it’s easy to be prepared with a climate basic fact-check when you’ve been stuck reliving the same, settled debate for decades.
  

• Walz acknowledged that climate change is real. Don’t you love the bare minimum? The Minnesota governor said that many people know climate change is dangerous, regardless of party affiliation. “These are not folks that are Green New Deal folks,” he said. “They are farmers that have seen 500-year droughts, 500-year floods back-to-back.” Walz went on to say that “Reducing our impact is absolutely critical,” and touted the job-creating aspects of the Inflation Reduction Act.
  

• Walz also touted the Biden administration’s expansion of fossil fuels. The Minnesota governor also doubled down on Harris’ appeal to moderate voters by promoting the Biden administration’s expansion of fossil fuels, while failing to acknowledge the role fossil fuels play in causing the climate crisis—much less the fact that experts say we need to phase them out. Under Biden, Walz noted, the U.S. is now producing more oil and gas than any country in the world; and Biden approved a record number of oil and gas leases compared to Trump. And Walz added, the U.S. is also producing more clean energy under the Biden administration, which is also true.
  

• Vance said that the U.S. has the cleanest economy in the world. (It doesn’t.) The U.S. emits more carbon dioxide per capita than any other country in the world, including China, and is the second-largest emitter overall (but the largest historic emitter). We also don’t have the cleanest economy, which is measured by comparing carbon emissions to GDP. According to that measurement, the U.S. emitted 0.26 kilograms per dollar of GDP in 2022, putting the country squarely in the middle of the road.

• Vance also said that Trump cares about the cleanest air and water. (He doesn’t). Vance said that both he and Trump want “the environment to be cleaner and safer.” During his term in office, Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental protections, including rules governing clean air and water.

• Walz called out Trump’s proposed $1 billion deal with oil executives. Right at the end of his time, the governor pointed out that Trump met with oil executives and offered to repeal all of the Biden’s Administration’s climate policies if they donated $1 billion to his campaign. “We could be smarter than that,” said Walz. It was perhaps the understatement of the night.

Further reading:

• Trump will attend two fundraisers in oil-rich Texas today. The Guardian, October 1, 2024.

  First, he will hold an invite-only lunch in the Permian Basin, the world’s most productive oilfield. Later, he’ll reportedly hold a Houston cocktail party co-hosted by Jeff Hildebrand, who runs Hilcorp Oil and has been a major donor to Trump since 2017.

  Last week, Trump’s vice-presidential pick, JD Vance, also attended two fundraisers thrown by oil industry executives in Dallas and Fort Worth, before being forced to cancel two Georgia fundraisers due to the hurricane.

• JD Vance is one of the top recipients of oil and gas money. Now he’s shilling for their interests. Ohio Capital Journal, September 5, 2023.

  J.D. Vance, the wealthy venture capitalist who moved back to Ohio to become a U.S. Senator as a reborn MAGA zealot, owes his deep-pocketed benefactors big time. Chief among them are the titans peddling fossil fuel. Vance was among the top 20 of all recipients of oil and gas donations in the 2022 campaign.

• Ohio reaps benefits from climate law JD Vance repeatedly attacks. New York Times, October 1, 2024.

  Despite Vance’s critiques, residents in his state — including in the senator’s hometown, Middletown, Ohio — have been big beneficiaries of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. Many local leaders and residents say they do not want to see the new investments, which are already starting to revitalize the local economy, disappear. 
  

  Since the bill’s passage in mid-2022, companies have announced more than $7 billion in clean energy investments in Ohio, according to an analysis from E2, an environmental nonprofit organization. Only six other states have surpassed that amount, according to the analysis.

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