Who gets elected has a lot to do with how and whether we seek to tackle this problem. McCain: not much. Obama: a hell of a lot more.

So, it’s pretty f****** relevant.

I agree that Obama will probably try harder than McCain, but I have serious doubts that EITHER can get much through Congress - too many people with their own agenda. (Mostly thrying to make the other party look bad.)

http://www.barackobama.com/ pdf/ factsheet_energy_speech_080308.pdf

Page 5 “Promote the supply of donestic energy” is the key part. If climate change was a priority he would be fighting tooth and nail to do NONE of the items in this section.

Conservation efforts (e.g. improving building standards, MPG of vehicles etc) are commendable but are unlikely to reduce emissions. The only way to reduce emissions is to limit the amount of oil, coal and gas available, and to ultimately leave as much as possible in the ground. Obama is doing the opposite.

[JR: Hard to lose sleep over that. We certainly could use more domestic natural gas, and as I’ve written many times there isn’t much domestic oil — and conservatives are going to hold their breath until we exploit that stuff anyway so it is inevitable.]

Along the north shore of the Amazon River, just east of the Rio Negro, there are boulders brought down by floods which are up to 3 meters in diameter; the result of flash floods during a time about 40,000 years ago when the Amazon basin was savanna.

Obama has put a strong emphasis on a strong NASA environment monitoring satellite program. He also supports NASA’s controversial Ares/Orion vehicles to replace the Space Shuttle. He originally wanted to postpone the return to the Moon program in favor of a Federal education program, but now is in favor of the exploration program, or some alternate “plan to explore the solar system” “that involves both human and robotic missions”. My personal opinion was that his earlier policies didn’t even make sense (they were self-contradictory and the budget math didn’t work at all), but his recent policies are self-consistent.

McCain has consistently supported the current return to the Moon program. Other than that he hasn’t said much about his space policy, but in general wants to focus on fiscal discipline. Unfortunately the return to the Moon program is one of NASA’s likely areas for budget overruns, so he may have to weigh which is more important.

A lot of the space interest community is in favor of the return to the Moon, but not NASA’s plan. The reasons vary - many don’t want a Federal space transportation system to replace the Shuttle; they want NASA to encourage a private system that can be used for other purposes (launching environment satellites, etc).

Many are worried about particular technical, schedule, or budget issues with the current plan. One controversy is that Bush’s plan included a funding ramp-up to pay for the expensive government rockets, but that funding never appeared (cause: both Bush and the new Democratic Congress).

NASA environment satellite funding has fallen under Bush and the RtM program. NOAA’s NPOESS weather/environment satellites have had tremendous cost overruns during this time. NASA aeronautical research funding has decreased considerably in recent years. Some supporters want NASA to do research on fuel-efficient planes, etc.

Advocates of commercial space want NASA/NOAA to use reusable private suborbital rockets/spaceplanes now being built for various R&D purposes, many related to climate/environment concerns (environment satellite instrument calibration, testing satellite instruments in suborbital space before orbital launch, Earth remote sensing from suborbital rockets, mid-atmospheric sampling, etc). They also want these agencies to use commercial data purchases or similar mechanisms more heavily rather than expensively building every last environment satellite in-house or through cost-plus contractors. (SeaWiFS is an example where a government instrument was put on a commercial satellite). Neither candidate has said much about commercial space or government use of commercial space.

I’m not a Democrat but I recognize many on this forum are. You may be interested in www.spacedemocrats.org. They’re pushing for space policies that contribute to solving energy/climate problems, encouraging private space, and cheap access to space.