At the presidential debate on Tuesday, Ingrid Jackson asked a great question on climate change and green jobs:
Sen. McCain, I want to know, we saw that Congress moved pretty fast in the face of an economic crisis. I want to know what you would do within the first two years to make sure that Congress moves fast as far as environmental issues, like climate change and green jobs?
View their responses here:
On August 4th the Obama campaign released a comprehensive program for reform of the U.S. energy system. This article is a critical analysis of that program.
Following an introduction, there are seven separate sections.
The Introduction
Obama frames his program as primarily a response to “our dependence on oil.” He calls this dependence “a threat to our national security, our planet and our economy.”
Comment: It is striking that in this introduction, and nowhere else in the 8-page, single-spaced document, does Obama identify our fossil fuel addiction, or the carbon pollution from the burning of oil, coal and natural gas, as the, or even a, problem.
He does say in the concluding paragraph of the introduction that “the nation (needs) to face one of the great challenges of our time: confronting our dependence on foreign oil, addressing the moral, economic and environmental challenge of global climate change, and building a clean energy future that benefits all Americans.”
He lists in a prominent box six things his program will do:
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Barack Obama shone some of his rays of hope on the climate movement. He named “serious” action on global warming as one of the benchmarks for success in his first term. “If I haven’t gotten combat troops out of Iraq, passed universal health care and created a new energy policy that speaks to our dependence on foreign oil and deals seriously with global warming, then we’ve missed the boat.”
In order to deal “seriously” with climate change, we need a moratorium on new coal plants. According to James Hansen, “it’s just silly to build a new one now.” And yet VP hopeful, our own Governor Tim Kaine, aggressively pushed for his and Dominion’s coal plant in Wise County. As Gov. Kaine says on this video, “There are some who say that you can’t build any new coal plants, and I don’t agree with that.”
Join the campaign at www.chesapeakeclimate.org/nocoal
Another VP hopeful, Kathleen Sebelius, has a record on coal that is much more promising than Gov. Kaine’s. She made herself a hero by standing up to a Republican legislature and strong utilities by blocking a coal plant from being built. Even the Republicans have a strong hero in the VP running. Florida Governor Charlie Crist successfully halted the construction of a new coal plant and stated his strong support of renewable energy. “Coal is what it is and I know it’s been an important source of energy in the past. But you know we have solar, we have nuclear, we have wind and other alternative opportunities for energy in the Sunshine State.”
It’s obvious that Kaine supports coal. He wants coal now, and he wants coal in the future. Is this going to meet up with Obama’s stated goal, to seriously address global warming?
Last Saturday, Senator and Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama took the stage at Live Earth in one more attempt to realign himself with climate activists after his (failed) dirty work in the Senate to provide funding for coal-to-liquid technologies created quite a stir in the climate community.
An article in The Hill shows that after USCEC’s petition exposed Obama’s Coal-to-Liquid amendment, the Senator quickly readjusted his stance:
In a statement released before the Senate energy debate, Obama announced that he would only support the development of coal-to-liquid fuels if they emitted less global warming-linked carbon than conventional fuels.
Obama also voted against an amendment sponsored by Bunning that would have mandated the use of coal-to-liquid fuels.
Just a reminder of the great power in political action!!