No Climate for Old Men: Why John McCain isn't the Candidate to Stop Global Warming

McCain's astonishing doubletalk on climate in the Florida GOP debate -- denying that a cap and trade system is a mandate -- made me start rethinking what a McCain presidency would mean for the fight to prevent catastrophic global warming. The more I researched McCain's views, the more I talked to others, the more I felt forced to change my previous view.

Salon has just published my long analysis, which concludes that while he would be vastly superior to Bush on climate,

... a President McCain would not be the climate leader that America and the world requires. He is a conservative who happens to be on the only intellectually defensible side of the climate change debate. But he is still a conservative, and the vast majority of the solutions to global warming are progressive in nature -- they require strong government action, including major federal efforts to spur clean technology.

Of course, as I argue in my book, it is precisely because they know that the solutions to global warming are mostly progressive in nature that most conservatives are so close-minded on the subject. My basic argument is:

As increasingly desperate climate scientists have been telling us, the effects of global warming are occurring faster than anyone had thought possible.

The next president must make reducing GHG emissions a central focus of his or her administration if we want to avoid the worst impacts of global warming: catastrophic sea level rise, widespread drought and desertification, and loss of up to 70 percent of all species.

While McCain may understand the scale of the climate problem, he does not appear to understand the scale of the solution. He understands the country needs to put in place a mandatory cap on GHG emissions and a trading system to energize American innovation. But in a recent Republican debate, he denied that a cap and trade system is a mandate, even though it would arguably be the most far-reaching government mandate ever legislated.

Moreover, like most conservatives, he doesn't understand or accept the critical role government must play to make that system succeed. Besides initiating a cap-and-trade system, the next president must:

1. Appoint judges who won't gut climate change efforts.

2. Appoint leaders and staff of key federal agencies who take climate change seriously and believe in the necessary solutions.

3. Embrace an aggressive and broad-based technology deployment strategy to keep the cost of the cap and trade system as low as possible.

4. Lead a change in utility regulations to encourage, rather than discourage, energy efficiency and clean energy.

5. Offer strong public advocacy to reverse the years of muzzling and misinformation of the Bush administration.

As I explain in the piece, McCain is unlikely to do any one of those things, let alone all of them.

Comments

[ImagesAndAdjectives]

The biggest problem with McCain is that he's going to do what the Bush Administration has done in the last 6 years: focus on terrorism as our biggest threat, instead of focusing on climate change as our biggest threat.

In the words of Bill Clinton, no country has ever been destroyed by terrorism, and it's not about to start happening now. However, 98% of life on earth has been destroyed by rapid climate change in the past. There's no denying that, while it's tragic that so many died on 9-11, it's also tragic when entire cities are wiped out by category 5 hurricanes, by wildfires that rage across hundreds of square miles, by floods that displace thousands, the list goes on...

If we don't start focusing on how to change our paradigm about the definition of national security and what is truly an important issue, all we'll be doing by these small and slow policy changes is "duct-taping" a falling building while we go about conducing business-as-usual.

McCain is definitely the wrong choice if you believe that we need to act quickly and swiftly to ensure that our children won't spend their lives suffering in a planetary crisis. WE've already wasted 8 years.

Let's not waste another day.

Vote for Barack Obama.

[francoise]

What amazes me is how backward Americans are on the global warming stuff.

It's really weird to read you guys who still ignore the scientific realities.

In Europe we're only discussing to try and find solutions. Nobody doubts the reality. We've moved on.

But then, so many Americans still buy into this Creationism BS and ignore evolution.

I'm always amazed to realize how many TVs you own and how little you know. Perhaps you should read books.

[Norpag]

The reality is that the earth is cooling not warming - you are the one ignoring the data see my previous post.

[SamThornton]

You are misstating CRU's findings. They note on their website, for example, that 17 of the hottest years on record have occurred in the last 20 years.

Here's a link to their Climate Change Myths page that rebuts your claims: http://tinyurl.com/2g4cq8

[MGhamma]

Wow norpag, the lies and distortions by you skeptics are becoming more obvious, desperate and pathetic by the day. I'd laugh if it was funny, but it's just so ridiclulous.

[Norpag]

When will Mr Romm and the rest of the warming fraternity join the real world and acknowledge that the earth is cooling not warming. The latest data from Britains CRU show that 2007 was on average .143 degrees cooler than 1998.
Warmers will say that 1998 was unusual but 2007 was cooler than 2006,2005,2004 2003 2002 and 2001. In the last 10 years there has been no net warming.In that time CO2 rose by 5% while earth cooled. It is also of interest to note that Dec 2007 was cooler than Dec 1987 - 20 years of no net cooling while CO2 rose 10%. The IPCC - Al gore AGW paradigm is flawed to the point of fraudulence.Solar studies indicate that a 20 - 40 year cooling trend may well be underway. A cooling climate is a much greater threat to food production than warming. We may well need to increase CO2 emissions to boost crop production in the least environmentally harmful way.

[Norpag]

I obviously meant to say 20 years of no net warming in the above post. - Sorry.

[Pquilson]

Finally! Some intelligence on this board! I get very tired reading the same old emotionally charged propaganda-religion regarding Global Warming. Oops! Make that Climate change. Could the change in terminology be because the Warming folks - aka Gore and his ilk - can not prove their hypothesis?

[MGhamma]

"Emotionally charged propaganda-religion"??? Have you 'skeptics' sat back and listened to yourselves? Stark raving hysterical ranting would be an understatement. Now I am ROFLMAO!!!

[SamuelBerry08]

Why don't you give McCain more credit for his sponsorship of the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship bill? His support of that legislation has already gotten him into trouble with his own party. I believe that McCain has the courage, and the inclination, to address climate change. I just wish he would realize that the Iraq war is a needless waste of our resources.

[jdm58]

So Joseph, who do YOU support?

[radicalcentrist44]

Quick question: How do you stop China from using coal to keep their industrial machine going?

[SamuelBerry08]

Why don't you give McCain more credit for his sponsorship of the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship bill? His support of this legislation has already gotten him into trouble with his own party. Personally, I think McCain has the courage, and the inclination, to address climate change. I just wish he wouldn't waste any more resources on Iraq.

[desmirl]

Even if McCain had an intent to do something about global warming, the people who surround and support him would bring his proposals to a screeching halt. The right side of the aisle looks at nothing but quarterly profits and projections. They aren't emotionally or intellectually equipped to look beyond a 90-day future.

[springsm]

I am sorry, "Myfriends" McCain is really not the guy for much of anything. His purpose is to defend Israel by bombing Iran..and I think he is dangerous because he is NOT a leader, but a follower and looking at that leading picture makes me want to 'hurl'. Our global situation environmentally is already past the point of no return. And Didn't I hear that Shell Mexico bid for and got many thousands of acres on the ocean floor to start drilling for oil. The bears,whales, seals, fish and Inuits will all be gone soon..but that gd bottom feeding great unider jackass..will sit in all his glory and his little pidgeon john..well..he will be in the roost too.

[CornellRedneck]

No president, Democrat or Republican, will ever commit political suicide by actually acting on global warming which would cause catastrophic economic harm to Americans.

We live for today, not tomorrow.

[FirstShirt]

I think you are right.

[NYCBri]

This opinion is complete nonsense. Any move toward innovation of a new technology creates jobs and opportunities. Did it cost the economy to move from horse drawn carriages to cars? No, it increased productivity. And so will alternative energy solutions.

Morevoer, global warming won't "cost the economy". Money doesn't disappear down a hole when it is spent. It is merely transferred from one person to another. The far right hysterical cry on this is due to the fact that it will end up transferring money from rich people to poor employees (for their labor and expertise) and from republicans to democrats (since it is almost entirely democrats that run green businesses / alternative energy ventures).

Similarly, this credit crisis is merely a transfer from the banks (and bank shareholders) and the unfortunate subprime borrowers to the previous owners of the properties. Those who sold their homes before housing fell made out like bandits.

[francoise]

"acting on global warming which would cause catastrophic economic harm to Americans." - CornellRedneck

Yeah, right, it worked well for you guys not to sign the Kyoto Protocoll. It worked well for your economy. As far as I can see, the American economy is currently flourishing.

Oh wait...

[radicalcentrist44]

Kyoto would have done nothing. "Developing" nations, such as China, were exempt. I want to see predictions of how global warming (if it is reall true...the issue is so political that you cannot get a straight answer and you should not listen to certain hollywood actors on this issue) would have changed if the U.S. and other nations signed this no-substance treaty.

[Rockyman]

Yes, and tomorrow may be pretty bleak. Much energy will be expended finding healthy water and food. Much energy spent on combating illnesses that will thrive in a weakened and overstressed immune-system. It may be beyond the worst science-fiction has to date portrayed.

[Pquilson]

We might live for today. Politicians live for the next election, or re-election, whichever occurs first.

[RickO]

This is why we need a president who thinks to himself, "I'm going to be around for another 40 years myself and this shit's gonna effect me too so I better do something about it".

[Pquilson]

The real question is, of course, what to do? The environmental nazis have managed to derail any sort of alternative energy. Nuclear? No. Too much waste. What is France doing with theirs? Airpower? No, kills a few birds. Coal? No. Even if we have enough for centuries, and clean technology exists. Solar? No, too expensive for the average consumer. Geothermal? Only works in Iceland. Biofuel? No. Too much corn is being redirected, making costs rise for consumers of corn and corn-related products, and it turns out to be more harmful to the environment. Hydrogen? No. Ever hear of the Hindenberg?
So, what new technology will the enviromental nazis approve? That is the real question.

[Wilburrr]

Green? McCain is as green as Mick Jaggers black painted - red door.