Neither Barack Obama or Mitt Romney mentioned climate change in three TV debates, despite a summer of record temperatures and historic drought in the US.

What was needed to wake people up, the veteran broadcaster famous for series such as Life and Planet Earth said: "Disaster. It's a terrible thing to say, isn't it? Even disaster doesn't do it. There have been disasters in North America, with hurricanes and floods, yet still people deny and say 'oh, it has nothing to do with climate change.' It visibly has got [something] to do with climate change."

But some US politicians found it easier to deny the science on climate change than take action, he said, because the consequence of recognising the science on man-made climate change "means a huge section from the national budget will be spent in order to deal with it, plenty of politicians will be happy to say 'don't worry about that, we're not going to increase your taxes.'"

Extremely stupid.  Extremely short-sighted.  Extremely disastrous.  The US economy will drop like a lead weight in a pond as well the standard of living.  This was the issue and Obama and Romney avoided it.