Elizabeth Kolbert interviews Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse:

For the last 15 years, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, has been Congress’s most outspoken member on climate change. In 2012, he had a sign made up that showed the Earth as seen from space. “Time to Wake Up,” it said. The sign became a prop for a series of speeches the senator delivered on the urgency of the climate crisis. Not long ago, Whitehouse gave his 307th “Time to Wake Up” speech on the Senate floor.

Over the last few months, Whitehouse has been speaking out against the notion that Democrats shouldn’t talk about climate change ahead of the midterm elections. (Some pollsters and academics have been advocating this sort of silence, which has become known as “climate hushing.”) Recently, Whitehouse spoke to e360 contributing writer Elizabeth Kolbert about how climate change is affecting red state voters, why for many Americans it is becoming a pocketbook issue, and how he would frame the issue to give it more bipartisan appeal.

“This story has literally central-casting-quality villains, mustache-twirling quality villains,” Whitehouse said. “The two big villains are the climate denial fraud operation that the fossil fuel industry runs and the dark money corruption operation that the fossil fuel industry runs. People don’t like to be fooled and defrauded, and they sure don’t like dark money. That’s bipartisan and fiercely powerful.” [Continue reading…]