Awesome!

[ProSense]

Carpetbagger regular Hark alerted me to the full text of Kerry's remarks, and I have to say, they're worth reading. He stressed the crisis of global warming; he characterized reduction of oil as a national security issue; and he offered to pay for the policy proposals by rolling back tax breaks for the oil industry and recapturing them into a dedicated fund.

It's a solid, progressive policy that addresses serious challenges head-on. Putting presidential politics and 2008 aside altogether, Kerry deserves kudos for telling it like it is.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7784.html

[TayTay]

1. Comment to a commentor posted

cuz that was one flaming idiot.

[ProSense]

2. Excellent! Thanks! n/t

[TayTay]

3. Those people who say, 'johnny come lately' on the environment

tick me off. Sen. KErry was one of the first to raise this issue in Congress.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES ON SUMMIT'S AGENDA, STATE DEPT. TELLS KERRY
BOSTON GLOBE, THIRD, Sec. NATIONAL/FOREIGN, p 6 05-24-1988
By Globe Staff Dianne Dumanoski

Global environmental issues, including the Earth's escalating temperature and tropical deforestation, will be raised by the United States at the upcoming summit between Mikhail Gorbachev and President Reagan, the State Department confirmed in a recent letter to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)

According to Richard McCall, Kerry's foreign policy aide, it is expected that this will lead to the formation of a high-level working group to address those issues. .

In December, Kerry wrote letters signed by 70 other senators to Reagan and Gorbachev, asking that environmental issues -- such as global warming, the rapid destruction of the world's tropical rainforests and plastic pollution in the oceans -- be among priorities at the summit.

In his letter to Gorbachev, he noted that "one vital area which we believe deserves immediate cooperative attention is the environment. What issue makes more sense to address jointly than our shared concern over the future of our global environment? As world powers, we can respond together to the dangers facing our planet."

Kerry and his colleagues recommended "the establishment of a high-level, bilateral task force on environmental concerns to report back its findings to a future summit."

McCall said that the Montreal Protocol, a global treaty that was concluded last September to protect the ozone layer "opened the door for dialogue and possible cooperation." If these issues are discussed, he noted, it could be a major step toward making them "a mainstream issue" on the foreign policy agenda between the two superpowers.

The State Department response to Kerry's letter said that in preparations for the summit, "the State Department has made clear the US desire to see raised at the summit the subject of global climate and environmental change." McCall said State Department officials told him the Soviets haven't objected to the proposal.

Kerry said he was pleased to see that environmental concerns will get "top-level attention. These and other environmental issues deserve serious cooperative efforts by the Soviet Union and the United States."

Since Kerry's letter, the two superpowers have issued a joint statement committing themselves to addressing global climate issues. The US has already ratified the Montreal Protocol and the USSR has said that it also intends to ratify.

DUMANO;05/23 NIGRO ;05/24,11:22 KERRY24
***************************************************

or this:

Washington Talk: Briefing; Hot Issue
New York Times, Late City Final Edition, Sec. B, p 8 12-22-1988
By PHILIP SHABECOFF & JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr.

A bipartisan array of Senators have sent the new administration a signal that the environment will be a significant issue in foreign policy.

In their first letter to James A. Baker 3d before the hearings on his impending nomination as Secretary of State, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee raised only one issue: what the next administration intends to do about global warming.

"We hope that the new administration will fashion a series of initiatives so the United States can take a lead role on this global problem of unprecedented magnitude," said the letter. It was signed by the committee chairman, Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island; two other Democrats, Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and John Kerry of Massachusetts, and three Republicans, Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, Nancy Landon Kassebaum of Kansas and Rudy Boschwitz of Minnesota. (-- Gee, whose name is missing here, but was serving in the US Senate at this time.)

The Senators said they intended to ask Mr. Baker whether the United States should endorse a goal of reducing carbon dioxide pollution from the burning of oil and coal, the single major contributor to the global warming trend, by 20 percent in the year 2005. That was the goal set this summer by an international conference in Toronto on the warming trend.

The letter reminded Mr. Baker that President-elect Bush had promised on the campaign trail to do something about global warming if elected.

[ProSense]

4. Great stuff!

More facts to counter the distortions (intentional or otherwise)! Thanks Tay!