Geographer tells Moyers: Climate change 'does not care' if you're Republican or Democrat

Bill Moyers returned to the issue of climate change on his show Friday, decrying not only politicians, but a fellow journalist for avoiding the topic at their peril.

"As the clock ticks away and warnings mount, official Washington irresponsibly continues to look the other way," Moyers said in a commentary.

He then showed a clip of CNN anchor Candy Crowley explaining her decision to ask both President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney economy-related questions instead of addressing climate issues when she moderated between them.

"And so she veered away, avoiding the issue as if global warming is of concern only to a small clique of elites instead of every one of us," he said, pointedly. "And so for the first time since 1984 there was no mention of climate change in any of the presidential debates. No mention as that clock ticks away and the warnings mount."

Those warnings, said his guest, geographer Anthony Leiserowitz, should be heeded and addressed at the national level by Obama, given that the impact of superstorms like Hurricane Sandy are decidedly bipartisan.

"This issue has to stop being a partisan issue," said Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. "The earth's climate does not care whether you are a Democrat or a Republican. It doesn't care whether you're liberal or conservative. Sandy did not only destroy the homes of Democrats and not Republicans."

Ideally, Leiserowitz said, Obama would reaffirm to the nation in a State of the Union address that the findings of groups like the National Academy of Sciences confirm that global warming does in fact exist, and is a man-made phenomenon, while reassuring Americans that the tools are also in hand to solve it.

Watch Moyer's interview with Leiserowitz, aired Friday, below.

[h/t Crooks and Liars]