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‘What Could Be a Bigger Issue?’

-- Mike -- 02/09/2007

Washington Post White House reporter Michael Fletcher participated yesterday in an online chat about the latest political news, and it included this exchange:

Washington: Michael, on Friday an international panel of scientists released a report on climate change, agreeing that global warming is here and that it almost certainly is a result of human activity. I was surprised (and frankly disappointed) to see that it had legs for, oh, a single news cycle. Do you see climate change as being a significant part of the debate in the presidential campaign?

Michael Fletcher: Yes, yes, yes. It feels like this issue is penetrating the public after years of floating in the realm of the abstract. The report probably didn't have legs, as you put it, because I think most of the scientific community already had drawn that conclusion. But now, for example, you see the Bush administration explaining that the president long has acknowledged the huge human component in global warming, and the president even invoked it in his State of the Union address. I bet this is only the beginning. After all, what could be a bigger issue?