The Associated Press talked with some of the world’s leading risk experts, and they all came to the same conclusion: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have completely ignored the real issues facing the American public, and instead they are focusing on exaggerated threats that are incredibly unlikely. The Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
Transcription of the above video:
Anyone who’s been following this election for the last year and a half, we can all pretty much agree on one thing and that is that this election has been almost completely devoid of issues. We’re not hearing policy talk from Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. We’re hearing attacks on one another. We’re hearing buzz words. We’re hearing catch phrases. We’re hearing a lot about things that we have to be afraid of, but according to more than twenty of the top risk analyst in the world, we actually shouldn’t be afraid of those things that both Hillary and Donald Trump are telling us to be afraid of.
The associated press spoke with more than twenty risk analyst to decide whether or not the presidential candidates are actually talking about real threats to the United States. As it turns out, no, they’re not. According to this risk analyst, the number one threat to the United States is climate change. You get the same answer from the CIA and the Department of Defense too. Climate change is the number one threat. Donald Trump thinks it’s a hoax. Hillary Clinton mentions climate change in passing every now and then, but there’s been no real discussion about how to move this country forward in addressing climate change, according to this risk analyst.
They’re also not talking about issues of cyber security, technological advancements in the United States that while they are great are going to displace a lot of workers and only make inequality greater in the United States. That’s another point that they’re not talking about, according to this analyst. They’re not talking about pandemics and they’re vaguely and incorrectly talking about nuclear weapons according to the analyst.
Back to the issue of climate change, there have been more climate and severe weather related deaths in the United States since September 10, 2001 than there have been deaths due to terrorism and that includes the attacks on 9/11. Over eight thousand people have died in the united states due to extreme weather events in the last fifteen years. Meanwhile, less than four thousand have died from terrorism on US soil.
Which one’s the greater threat? Anybody who understands what number is bigger than the other one would answer climate change. Yet here, we have two presidential candidates telling us that we got to be afraid of ISIS. We got to be afraid of Al-Qaeda. We got to be afraid of Muslims because they’re going to come and kill us. We’ve got to be afraid of immigrants because they’re going to come and kill us. No. You know what’s going to kill us? All these damn oil pipelines. All the oil drilling. All those emissions coming out of coal fired power plants and from the back of our SUVs. That’s what’s killing us. Look at the numbers. There is no dispute. Climate change is deadlier than terrorism by more than double. Yet, nobody’s talking about it. That’s a shame.
It’s a shame that we have hit this point and American politics when both the democrat and republican are playing off our fears. Irrational fears. Fears that will almost never come to fruition and it’s not because of what Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton do as president, it’s because it’s just that unlikely.
The corporate media bares a little bit of this blame because ABC, NBC, and CBS have devoted a grand total combined of thirty two minutes to talk about issues during this last year. Thirty two minutes combined. Most of that, seventeen minutes was on terrorism. Seven minutes was on foreign policy. That remaining eight minutes is what they spent combined on climate change, healthcare, immigration, and everything else that should be important to American voters. The media is to blame, the politicians are to blame, but when you look at the numbers, there is no other way to say it, climate change is deadlier and a bigger threat to the way of life in America than terrorism.
