Senator Sherrod Brown says climate change is undeniable!

Senior United States Senator from Ohio,
Senator Sherrod Brown

Climate change is a rising issue. It is talked about by many environmentalist's like Tom Steyer, who spent $74 million in 2014 on supporting Democratic candidates who made climate change a critical issue in their campaign. Climate change continues to be brought up in the 2016 presidential debates. Both democratic candidates, Hilary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have released proposals on what they plan to do about climate change. It is no secret that something needs to be done to help the environment, and Senator Sherrod Brown, who is also a member of the democratic party, agrees.

In an effort to speak with Senator Brown about his views on climate change, seven phone calls were made to his Columbus office by a student journalist, Nadia Assim. Four of the phone calls were sent to a voice message, and only three were answered. Out of those three phone calls, there were three different answers: The first was that there was nothing they could do, the second was that I had to go online and fill out a request form in order to even be considered to get a response and the third led to one of his staff assistant's, Rachel Petri. Petri confirmed that she was speaking for Senator Brown by saying him nor anyone to represent him were available for a five minute Skype interview to talk about climate change.

Petri later provided a video, in which Senator Brown talked about climate change in a previous interview. In that interview, Senator Brown said climate change is undeniable and he used Lake Erie's algae bloom crisis as an example.

By: Nadia Assim

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While doing this project I realized how difficult it is to get a hold of people in the Senate and Congress. I talked to many of my colleges, who had the same assignment and they were faced with this same issue. Going in to this project I didn't anticipate it to be terribly hard for me to get in contact with someone in Senator Sherrod Brown's office, but I was wrong. Considering these officials are working for the people of this country (which includes me), it is absurd that I cannot even get an answer from them or at least someone working for them regarding what they are doing about this serious issue. 

Nadia Assim