The Economy
(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
A job seeker at the Green Jobs and Entrepreneurship Fair in Berkeley, Calif.
When the economy tanked in the fall of 2008, Americans had new, more immediate worries to consider, like where to find a job or how to pay the mortgage. Politicians, listening to their constituents, also began to bench discussion of climate change to focus on the economy. Likewise, the threat of soaring national deficits and debt has taken the place of climate change as the "crisis" du jour among the public.
