Mayor Jim Brainard of Carmel Indiana, who has served his post for more than 20 years and was a delegate at the Republican National Convention last week, continued to make his push for Republican Party leaders to consider climate change policy.
“It would be easy, I think, to sit on the sidelines,” Brainard said. “I don’t think that’s the way to change public opinions. The way to change it is to get in there and talk about it.”
As previously reported on ClimateEye, the mayor calls out that “the root of conservative is conserve” and frequently highlights the conservation contributions made by Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon. Since he’s been in office, Brainard has spearheaded a number of climate-inspired actions in Carmel, including a plan to install 100 roundabouts.
“We can move four to five times as much traffic through a roundabout, and it can be beautiful. With each roundabout, we save about two million gallons of gasoline each year from cars not having to stall,” according to the mayor, who is also a co-chairman of the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Energy Independence and Climate Protection task force.
“There’s a lot of hesitation on behalf of Republicans now to speak out, mostly because the climate deniers are loud and brash without very much thoughtful discussion,” he noted. And if Trump wins the presidency, Brainard said he would, “attempt to change his mind on some of the climate issue, and give him some good, solid reasons for doing that.”