Climate change has hardly been addressed at all this election season. Both President Obama and Gov. Romney have professed their love for coal, oiland natural gas numerous times, but neither man has talked about their plans for the future of climate change. 

Two-Thirds of Americans agree that climate change exists and needs to be addressed. Nobody can deny the recent changes in our weather systems, most recently last summer's drought in the southwest and the "Frankenstorm" hitting the southeast.

However, by leaving the issue of climate change out of the presidential debate the issue itself is delegitimized.

"On climate change, the political discourse here is massively out of step with the rest of the world, but also with the citizens of this country,"Andrew Steer, president of the World Resources Institute, told the New York Times, 

Obama started out his first term hoping to implement changes in our energy policy; however, his efforts ran dry after a failed cap-and-trade policy in 2010.

Obama aimed to use the market to set limits on how much emissions each individual company could produce, however at that time the market was just coming out of its huge slump of 2009.

Mr. Romney also tried cap-and-trade in Massachusetts but also backed out of the plan. Romney plans on reversing Obama's air quality regulations that would require automobiles to have a fuel efficiency of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, according to the New York Times. 

Both Obama and Romney have legitimized the energy companies monopoly on energy resources by supporting measures such as "clean coal" that attempt to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions. 

 

Reach Staff Reporter Alexis Miller here.