WHAT: PRESS CALL - McCain Global Warming Plan
WHEN: TODAY, Monday, May 12, 2008 at 12:00 PM EDT
WHERE: By telephone 866.682.6100, ID: McCain Global Warming Plan
WHO: Carol Browner, Principal, the Albright Group LLC, former EPA Administrator, 1993-2001
Daniel J. Weiss, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress Action Fund
The science is clear about the reality of global warming and the fact that humans are the dominant cause (see “Absolute MUST Read IPCC Report: Debate over, further delay fatal, action not costly“). But, sadly, that isn’t clear to most Republicans.
Anybody who thinks the public debate is over — anybody who thinks the Big Lie doesn’t work — should look at the latest poll results from the Pew Research Center (here):
The proportion of Americans who say that the earth is getting warmer has decreased modestly since January 2007, mostly because of a decline among Republicans.
Only 49% of Republican now even believe that the earth is warming! Thank you so much deniers, delayers, and mainstream media (see “Media enable denier spin 1: A (sort of) cold January doesn’t mean climate stopped warming” and other links at the end).
Even more worrisome is just how many people don’t believe humans are the cause of warming:
The Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP) recently completed the first of four polls it has commissioned from Harris Interactive to track public opinion about the presidential candidates and global climate change.
The results so far (here): Nearly half of the people likely to vote in the presidential election aren’t sure which of the candidates has the strongest policy. Twenty-two percent think it’s Obama; 21 percent think it’s Clinton; and 8 percent think it’s McCain. Forty-nine percent have no idea.
In other words, a big part of the voting population is waiting to be impressed. Their votes are a prize waiting to be won.
It’s not that the “don’t knows” are indifferent to the issue. The poll found that 63 percent of likely voters believe it’s important for the next president to address climate change soon after taking office. Forty-one percent believe that presidential action is “extremely” or “very” important.
(more…)
So here is the unbelievable full post yesterday from the National Review’s anti-climate-action website, Planet Gore:
The Nuclear Option [Drew Thornley]
In his Sunday interview on Meet the Press, host Tim Russert asked Sen. Barack Obama about his position on nuclear energy:Russert: In terms of climate change, global warming, you’ve talked about wind and solar and biofuels. What about nuclear? All — in all realistic assessment, don’t we need more nuclear power in order to wean ourselves off of those same fuels that are contaminating the world?
Obama: I think we do have to look at nuclear, and what we’ve got to figure out is can we store the material properly? Can we make sure that they’re secure? Can we deal with the expense? Because the problem is, is that a lot of our nuclear industry, it reinvents the wheel. Each nuclear power plant that is proposed has a new design, has — it, it has all kinds of changes, there are all sorts of cost overruns. So it has not been an effective option. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be an effective option, but we’re going to have to figure out storage and safety issues. And my attitude when it comes to energy is there’s no silver bullet. We’ve got to be — we’ve, we’ve got to look at every possible option.
Hmm . . . So does Obama feel every energy option is on the table (like, say, extracting known but currently off-limits domestic oil reserves) or just non-fossil fuel options?
First off, Obama’s comments on nukes are exceedingly well-informed, unlike, say, John McCain’s (See “McCain calls for 700+ new nuclear plants (and seven Yucca mountains) costing $4 trillion.”).
Second, what closing comment by Planet Gore could possibly be more inane?
The oil industry has borrowed the (laughable) tagline of presidential candidate John McCain? As FoxBusiness reported on Friday:
[Note to big oil: When Fox doesn’t give your spin favorable coverage, you’ve definitely become the Britney Spears of industries.]
Apparently the oil companies think that people will ignore their bloated profits once they see a chart showing earnings in “cents per dollar of sales,” claiming
In fact, first quarter 2006 earnings for oil and natural gas companies were slightly less than the average for other U.S. industries.
[Cue the violins, cut to a small starving child in Nigeria shedding a tear for the below-average earnings of the world’s fattest fat cats.]
Well, I suppose you can fool some of the people all the time. After all, straight talker McCain denies his cap & trade system is “mandatory.” And he claims his gas tax holiday will actually benefit consumers — presumably because oil companies will generously lower their prices rather than, say, simply charging people the pre-holiday price because they know people will pay that price. Yeah, that’s the ticket. And you have millions of dollars waiting for you in the Central Bank of Nigeria…
From today’s Climate Wire (subs. req’d):
Climate change may help Fla. farmers save their land
No — I’m afraid that between sea level rise, storm surges, and hurricanes, climate change won’t be saving anybody’s land in Florida.
What Climate Wire meant, of course, was that action on climate change might provide income to farmers and forresters in Florida — as is clear from their source, Orlando Sentinel, which has a better headline, “Florida farmers, foresters could profit from the global-warming fight, a study finds.”
They titled their piece, “Bush rhetoric on energy strays from the facts.” Some people might call that making stuff up, but who can complain about a story that begins:
President Bush put politics ahead of the facts Tuesday as he sought to blame Congress for high energy prices, saying foreign suppliers are pumping just about all the oil they can and accusing lawmakers of blocking new refineries.
Bush renewed his call for drilling in an Arctic wildlife refuge, but his own Energy Department says that would have little impact on gasoline prices.
And then goes on to compare Bush’s “spin” with the facts. Kudos to AP’s H. Josef Hebert, who has been at this game a long time.
[Another post by Ken Levenson.]
UPDATE: Links should be fixed — very weird glitch!
If you’ve recovered from your hangover you may recall that the President made a “major” speech on global warming last week. While it was frighteningly predictable in content or lack thereof, some of the reactions were eye opening. Let’s start with
The Bush Administration itself: Because if anyone can understand what the President is saying, they can:
Bush’s chief adviser on climate change, Jim Connaughton, defended the U.S. position. “It was a speech directed at domestic audiences,” he said of the president’s address. Bush’s aides said it was aimed at heading off a “train wreck” of varying emissions legislation in the U.S. Congress.
For a domestic audience? While the Paris conference he set up is underway? The Administration cares even less about international opinion than they do that of Americans. Perhaps obvious but you’d think with American’s approval at below 30% he’d try to find refuge somewhere other than the Saudi Royal Family.
And what’s this about heading off a legislative train wreck? Of course there is the Lieberman-Warner Bill - named for the well known lefties John Warner Republican of Virginia and Joseph Lieberman Independent of Connecticut - seeking more than a 50% cut in US GHG emissions by 2050. Is there another climate/energy bill seriously contending for passage? Where’s the potential train wreck? Oh, right Bush doesn’t want ANY meaningful legislation. Another Bush alternate reality foisted upon us. A potential “first step” transfigured into train wreck (read temper tantrum)- these guys have no shame. Because if you don’t take a first step there can be no second step … brilliant.
New York Times Hydra starting with the Editorial Page: Nada. Really, for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 days. Then on the 6th day, Earth Day, the editorial page weighed in, concluding:
It is hard to find anything redeeming in this speech, though it contains two obvious truths: This president has no intention of addressing climate change. The next president will have no choice but to do better.
We waited six days for this? “DO BETTER.”!? “Do better” is a suicide pact. I wonder if anyone’s told them the planet’s on fire? Andrew, when you’re done blogging on the plankton please yell upstairs to the editorial desk - would ya? If they don’t know what the heck is going on maybe it’s not surprising the public isn’t so informed either.
Over my (relatively mild) objection, the copyeditor of the Salon piece on renaming Earth Day (here) changed one letter in the final paragraph:
We have fiddled like Nero for far too long to save the whole earth or all of its species. Now we need a World War II scale effort just to cut our losses and save what matters most. So let’s call it Triage Day. And if worst comes to worst, at least future generations won’t have to change the name again.
I had sent in “if worse comes to worst.” Salon said they were following their style book. Fine. Can’t argue with that. But I had looked it up online at The Columbia Guide to Standard American English, which says (quite reasonably, I think):
Although NBC was given some stiff competition by Slate and the Washington Post, the judge’s choice for the worst Triage Earth Day week story was unanimous: Dateline NBC.
Sunday night millions of people were watching what seem to be a reasonable hour of television devoted to environmental issues, ending with a fascinating, if not terribly original, story about the melting of the Bolivian glaciers and its likely impact on that country. And then they got to this amazing exchange:
Pathetic!
Here is the transcript:
RSS - 1322 Readers
Climate Progress selected as one of Time Magazine's Fifteen Favorite Websites for the Environment