海角大神

Follow us on Twitter @CSM_politics. Review the previous five installments, from guns to Muslim refugees, here.

In this week's edition:

1. Cover story: Why climate change divides us聽
2. By the numbers: Where the world's climate skeptics live 鈥� in one chart
3. Scientific perspective: 'Consensus' on climate change 鈥� what that does and doesn't mean
4. Civics 101: Why Obama's Clean Power Plan faces constitutional challenge
5. The candidates: How Clinton and Trump differ on fracking, offshore drilling, and more
6. Engage:聽What does it mean to say someone is a聽climate change skeptic?
7. Guest column: We got Al Gore and climate skeptics in a room. Here's what happened.聽
8. Our picks: "Aliens Cause Global Warming" 鈥� and more

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Why climate change divides us

By Amanda Paulson, Staff writer

FORT COLLINS AND GREELEY, COLO. 鈥斅燢ellie Falbo is tackling climate change one step at a time. That means lowering carbon emissions by driving a biodiesel vehicle, keeping a vegetable garden, and composting with worms.

Sure, those efforts by themselves won鈥檛 make much difference globally. But she sees a constellation of small steps here in the heart of Colorado鈥檚 Larimer County that can ripple outward to address an overwhelming challenge.聽

About 30 miles southeast, in neighboring Weld County, Steve Wells looks out over very different picture.聽

More than 600 oil and gas wells dot the flat grasslands that extend to the horizon of his 35,000-acre ranch. Many of them involve hydraulic fracturing.

He gets angry when he talks about the activists who would like to ban fracking but who have never come to talk to him or bothered to see that the water hasn鈥檛 been damaged and that wildlife is thriving. The income from those wells has made an enormous financial difference for Wells, allowing him to contribute to local charities.

As for man-made climate change? He doesn鈥檛 believe it is happening.

When it comes to global warming, the border between Weld and Larimer Counties might as well be a fault line.聽

They are blue and red America in miniature, and their different approaches to climate change mirror the rift within America itself.聽

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BY THE NUMBERS

Also see climate opinion maps at the state, congressional district, and county levels聽made by Yale University's Project on Climate Change Communication.聽

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Scientific perspective: 'Consensus' on climate change 鈥� what that does and doesn't mean

By Amanda Paulson, Staff

Discussions of climate change often pit two polarized sides talking past each other, split along partisan political lines.

Little wonder that it can seem hard to sift the answer to a fundamental question: Just how certain is the science, and how much do scientists agree?

When it comes to core concepts, the scientific agreement is broad and clear-cut: Climate change is happening. The Earth is getting warmer. Human activity is largely responsible.

When people talk about the 鈥�97 percent鈥� consensus among international scientists, this is the fundamental issue to which they鈥檙e referring. Where the consensus starts to disappear is when it comes to more specific questions and predictions 鈥� how much and how quickly will temperature rise? What will the effects be for specific regions? Have we passed a point of no return, or can the changes be halted?

A few scientists worry aloud that a kind of groupthink and peer pressure is compromising public confidence in the quality of published research, as academics see their careers as tied to toeing acceptable lines.

But that critique isn't widely shared.

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CIVICS 101: Why Obama's Clean Power Plan faces constitutional challenge

By Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer

In August 2015, President Obama聽unveiled his Clean Power Plan, calling it the 鈥渟ingle most important step that America has ever made in the fight against global climate change.鈥�

Six months later, the Supreme Court issued a stay on the plan, pending resolution of a legal challenge from 27 states and a number of energy interests (West Virginia v. EPA).

At issue is whether the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the authority to implement the CPP,聽which is without legal precedent.聽

One of the more prominent CPP critiques came from Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe. In聽testimony to Congress, he accused the EPA of 鈥渁ttempting an聽unconstitutional trifecta: usurping the prerogatives of the States, Congress and the Federal Courts聽-聽all at once. Burning the Constitution should not become part of our national energy policy.鈥�

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THE CANDIDATES: Where they stand on climate change

We encourage you to contact the Monitor on Twitter @csm_politics or by email csmpolitics@csps.com if you can improve our chart!

Sources: the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Gary Johnson campaign, ProCon.org, the Donald Trump campaign website, Jill Stein鈥檚 Twitter account, the Jill Stein campaign website, Fox News, ISideWith.com, Donald Trump鈥檚 twitter account

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ENGAGE: Living Room Conversations and AllSides.com

Is there any common ground between environmentalists and climate change skeptics and deniers? Let's better understand different perspectives and each other so we can move forward together. Here are some tools and links to help.

• Words mean different things to different people. What does it mean to say someone is a聽climate change skeptic or climate change denier? What do different people mean when they say聽climate change or global warming? Note how different people think about聽environmentalism, environmentalists聽and the聽EPA (Environmental Protection Agency).聽

• Discuss Climate Change聽with half a dozen friends who have diverse opinions. Enjoy this simple, respectful, structured program provided by Living Room Conversations that begins with human relationships.聽
• See more聽perspectives, facts and the latest news on the environment and climate change聽from left, center and right biased news sources and think tanks.聽

• For schools - discuss climate change in the classroom聽using this specialized lesson plan that teaches respectful dialog, fostering mutual respect and understanding. This program can be easily integrated into current curriculum, and includes various guides and online tools for making the class activity more engaging and revealing.

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GUEST COLUMN: We got Al Gore and climate skeptics in a room. Here's what happened.

By Mark Gerzon, Contributor聽

Imagine for a moment this unlikely scenario.

Al Gore and his colleagues, who were about to release their movie聽An Inconvenient Truth, spent three days at a retreat center high in the Rocky Mountains with a team from the Competitive Enterprise Institute who had published attack ads dismissing the movie as a liberal lie.

Thanks to some remarkable allies from across the political spectrum, we were able to actually assemble a cross-section of stakeholders from across the spectrum of opinion on climate change. If one wants to understand what is truly going on聽behind聽the polarized political positions on this critical issue, the story of what unfolded between Mr. Gore and his critics offers some hopeful glimpses into a sustainable future.

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OUR PICKS: Recommended reading and viewing

1. "What about the planet?" New York Times op-ed by Paul Krugman, Pulitzer Prize-winning economist

2. "Denying the Climate Catastrophe," a 9-part series by Warren Meyer, author of the blog "Climate Skeptic"

3. "'The Sixth Extinction鈥� by Elizabeth Kolbert," Al Gore鈥檚 review of this 2014 Pulitzer Prize-winning book

4. "Climate Change Recalculated," by Saul Griffith, engineer and MacArthur Fellow

5. "Aliens Cause Global Warming,"聽a 2003 talk at CalTech by the late author Michael Crichton