By Donald Brown
dabrown57@gmail.com 
Scholar In Residence, Ethics and Law
Widener University School of Law
Donald writes on applied, environmental, 
and climate change ethics.

One can tell by how climate change policies are being debated around much of the world that few people, including very educated people,  understand the scale and urgency of the problem now being articulated by the most prestigious scientific international institutions.

The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions entailed by the mainstream scientific understanding is not being covered by the US press

In this writer’s experience this is true not only of average citizens but also of most college students and academics that are not enrolled in climate science courses and by almost all press that periodically reports on this issue.

This entry describes what needs to be understood to evaluate the adequacy of the US response to climate change although the analysis contained here could be applied to almost any nation in the world. This is so because the adequacy of any national response to climate change must now be examined in light of the scale of the problem, yet few people understand the magnitude and urgency of this enormous threat.

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy and reports that 2012 was the warmest year in US history, climate change has been more visible in the US press recently.  Yet despite this increased attention, for the most part, the urgency and magnitude of the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions entailed by the mainstream scientific understanding of this civilization challenging problem is not being covered by the US press.