The rhetoric and the reality on McCain and the environment

[babylonsister]

The rhetoric and the reality on McCain and the environment
Posted May 12th, 2008 at 1:35 pm



When pressed on his differences with George W. Bush, John McCain now relies on a three-prong answer: McCain is more committed to cutting spending than Bush has been, McCain disapproved of the Rumsfeld strategy, and McCain cares more about the environment.

All three struggle under scrutiny. McCain talks about spending, but comes up short when pushed for specifics. He criticizes Rumsfeld years later, but while Rumsfeld was failing, McCain was urging Americans to “stay the course.”

And then there’s environmental policy, which McCain is emphasizing heavily this week as a way of making him appear more moderate, helping him with independents, and distancing himself from the far-right wing of his own party.

One of the presidential candidates is off to the Pacific Northwest today to talk up a big campaign pledge to combat climate change — and it’s a Republican.

John McCain is set to outline his proposal for offsetting global warming in a major address in Portland, Ore., this afternoon. His campaign says he’ll “propose a domestic cap-and-trade system that will mobilize market forces to develop and commercialize alternatives to carbon-based fuels” — a split from the Bush administration, which has largely ignored the topic. <…>

Senator McCain also has a new environmental ad now playing in Oregon to coincide with his global warming speech. “One extreme thinks high taxes and crippling regulation is the solution; another denies the problem even exists,” an announcer says. “There’s a better way.”

Mr. McCain’s decision to make climate change a key part of his campaign is “evidence of his intention to battle Mr. Obama for independent voters, a group the two men have laid claim to,” write Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny of The New York Times.

It all sounds very nice, just so long as you don’t look past the surface.

If we’re judging McCain on a sliding Republican scale, then sure, he’s not quite as reckless and irresponsible on environmental issues than some of his fellow conservatives. He believes global warming is real and he doesn’t believe trees cause pollution. If the soft bigotry of low expectations means anything, McCain looks pretty good in comparison to, say, James Inhofe.

But part of the problem is that McCain’s commitment to sensible environmental policies is a bit like the weather in Chicago: if you don’t like it, wait a few minutes, because it’s bound to change.

more...

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15513.html

[babylonsister]

1. McCain Climate Plan a Fraud, Relies on Unlimited Hot Air

Joseph Romm
McCain Climate Plan a Fraud, Relies on Unlimited Hot Air

Posted May 12, 2008 | 03:53 PM (EST)


Sen. John McCain announced his long-awaited climate plan today. Ironically, he made the announcement at a Danish wind turbine company in Oregon -- ironic because like so many conservatives before him, he has worked hard to kill off the domestic wind industry (see here).

Much worse, though, his plan's cost-containment strategy for his climate policy is a fraud. It substitutes a huge amount of low cost, phony emissions reductions both here and abroad -- called offsets -- for actual domestic emissions reductions. Offsets are "credits for reductions made from sectors of the economy outside the trading system."


Such an offset strategy is little more than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, and would "involve substantial issuance of credits that do not represent real emissions reductions," according to a recent analysis by Stanford. Ironically, one of the carbon offsets that McCain explicitly cites, no till farming, does not actually offset carbon emissions, according to the latest science.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-romm/mccain-climate-plan-a-fra_b_101390.html