Where in the World Is John McCain?

Portland, OR -- You could design a takeoff on Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego while trying to sort out where Senator McCain really stands on energy and global warming issues as he moves towards his general-election showdown with Obama/Clinton.

A couple of weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal asked me if we had decided to endorse a candidate in the Presidential election, and I said, "No, because all three candidates still have the opportunity to show real environmental leadership." Note the word "opportunity." If you read this morning's Journal,  you would think that Senator McCain had risen to the challenge and was trying to demonstrate the true environmental leadership he has often talked about, but rarely shown. (Lifetime League of Conservation Voters rating: 24 percent.)

The Journal story is headlined "McCain Woos Democrats on Environment," and prominently features my offer to McCain to step up to the plate by saying that the Club "might not endorse" and could easily leave readers thinking that McCain was almost indistinguishable from Clinton and Obama. The article has McCain quoting Bruce Babbitt as a big fan of his environmental record. The paper also notes that I summed up McCain's record as being better than that of the average Republican senator's but dramatically worse than those of such Republican governors as Crist of Florida and Schwarzenegger of California.

But it's a bit hard to reconcile the profile McCain hopes to project with McCain's statement last week that the federal government ought to bribe states like California and Florida to open up their coastal waters to the oil industry by offering them richer royalty payments.

And if you look at McCain's own advertisements, his strategy looks a lot like something Dick Morris might have designed to triangulate Bill Clinton back in 1992. This ad, "A Better Way," for example, might serve as a textbook for triangulators. The voice-over says (about the climate crisis) that "One extreme says high taxes and crippling regulations are the answer. Another denies the problem even exists. There's a better way...."

Presumably McCain will claim in the fall that it's Obama and Clinton who favor those "high taxes." Right off the bat, Clinton and Obama pointed out the irony that McCain delivered his speech today at a wind-turbine manufacturer that has been telling Congress that it would be laying off workers because of the failure to renew the renewable-energy tax credits -- a failure that resulted in part from McCain's absence from the Senate on two critical votes to renew them, each of which failed by one vote.

What's really going on here is that McCain is once again trying to talk the talk without walking the walk. If you look at the three key ingredients in solving global warming, he's absolutely terrible on two (encouraging renewable energy and cleaning up the coal and oil industries) and stuck in the past on the third -- by setting outdated limits on how much carbon dioxide we will emit. The science on climate change has evolved alarmingly in the past five years. McCain's ad concedes this, saying, "climate change wreaks havoc with deadly weather." But McCain's proposed global warming bill remains where it was in 2003. Back then, introducing it did represent real early leadership -- but that early leadership appears to have stalled out badly as the senator gets closer to the White House.

Today's media blitz does show that McCain wants voters to think he's still leading. Unfortunately, reading the fine print strongly suggests that he's blinking.

Comments

[JS]

What a shock. A Republican comes out with a realistic program for reducing CO2 emissions... and the Sierra Club attacks him for it. The Sierra Club has become "company men" for the Democratic party, much to the detriment of the environment.

[Navigator]

Yes, that is what they do. That is why you now see people turning a way from the radical environmental movement and calling into question whether global warming is really man made. It's about power, not the earth.

[Curious George]

Carl is just posturing to impress his political buddies.

[BLD]

John McCain said he would not "let eight years go by" before he did something about carbon emissions. Will he let 7 1/2 years go by? The idea that he will suddently see the environmental position is absurd and will only embolden Republicans to think that they can fool the electorate again, especially if the Sierra Club seems to waver. I'm very disappointed in this response. If the WSJ was so deceptive, Mr. Pope needs to write an Op-Ed piece in the paper, not this obscure response.

[Clarity]

McCain is not stepping up to the plate to protect our environment, plain and simple. He may profess his sincerety to protect ANWR from assault, but that is about all I've seen from him as far as not wanting to align himself with the same old worn out Republican rhetoric of this last loser administration.

[Eric V]

OBAMA = COAL

DON'T BE FOOLED.

[Eric V]

McCain is greener than Obama

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/us/politics/13mccain.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

[Eric V]

Don't be fooled. Obama supporter George Soros is one of Halliburtons biggest shahreholders - but let's ignore that, okay?

[Polar Bear]

George Bush puts the polar bear on the endangered list, something Clinton, king of the arsenic water, never did.

[Thisisahoax]

What signs do we have the polar bears are in danger? They were around when the last warming of the earth was happening and they are still here today and that warming was much hotter than what is predicted to come. Not to mention the scientist have put a hold on global warming for the next ten years because it is actually getting cooler now. I guess all the "Greenies" did their job! This is all a big plot to get all of Americans money. If you did some reasearch you will see that the people that came up with the Sierra Club is all backed by big banking share holders. Just another scam to get everyones money. Ever heard of Lucifers Trust? This organization was founded by it. Just Google Lucifers Trust and you will see. Have a Good Day!

[Polar Bear]

Help me help me. I an in danger.

[John McCain]

The Sierra Club recently endorsed Clorox. I'm confused what relevance they have now. But McCain just got hit with this one--> http://humanrightsamerica.wordpress.com/2008/05/18/mccains-youtube-problem-just-became-a-nightmare/ -- we can still change our candidate @ the convention...

[Brendan G.]

The Sierra Club is ANTI-NUCLEAR POWER.
That about does it for my supporting
them, or any political candidates they
endorse.
Why? Because nuclear power is the ONLY
alternative to fossil fuels (available with current technology) which can create
energy in large enough amounts to allow
our civilization to avoid collapsing into
a new dark age. But thanks to anti-nuke
cranks like the Sierra Club, we didn't
get started phasing out fossil fuels (which
are INFINITELY more dangerous than
nuclear due to CO2 emissions and their
limited supplies!) 30 years ago. Now its
probably too late. We're gonna end back in the Stone Age (what few of us survive, that is) by 2100 (google "James Lovelock+global warming" and READ what comes up!)
Thanks for nothing, Sierra Club (and other assorted anti-nuke crackpots.)
Oh, one more thing...
McCAIN IN '08!!!!!!

[Polar Bear]

'Threatened' Polar Bear Is Actually Flourishing

The United States Department of Interior decision last week to list polar bears as a "threatened" species is the latest prize claimed by the climate change movement.

Officials based the decision on predictions that future global warming will negatively affect polar bear populations.

What appears to be a recent gain in momentum in the global warming movement is strange considering reports that global temperatures have not risen in the past 10 years. Also, scientists with the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict temperatures will cool for at least the next 10 years.

Several experts have been quick to question the polar bear decision, saying it defies scientific evidence.

With the ruling, suggested James M. Taylor, environmental policy expert at the Heartland Institute, "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has just taken its place alongside Miss Cleo and the Psychic Friends Network in terms of a complete divorce from scientific reality. FWS apparently believes it has the clairvoyance to forecast sharp declines in polar bear populations even though temperatures for most of the past 10,000 years have been warmer than today and polar bears have flourished."

Global polar bear populations have been rising for decades, even as temperatures have recovered from the end of the Little Ice Age 100 years ago, Taylor observed.

He pointed out that "the only plausible basis for ruling polar bears as threatened is blind faith in alarmist computer models that have been no more accurate than Chicken Little's claim that the sky is falling."

Comparing alarmist computer models to the real world, he said global temperatures have not risen at all during the past decade. Before that, for 30 of the preceding years, global temperatures fell. Now even IPCC scientists are predicting global temperatures will cool for at least the next decade.

"Only by completely ignoring real-world scientific evidence and jumping head-first into the world of special interest group propaganda can one justify listing polar bears as a threatened species," Taylor concluded.

Similar indictments of the ruling came from Scott Armstrong, professor at Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Robert Ferguson, president of the Science and Public Policy Institute.

Armstrong said the decision "represents a conflict between politics and science. Polar bear populations have been increasing in recent decades, so there is no current problem. The concern is based on forecasts. However, the government forecasts used to support the decision violate basic scientific principles and thus provide no scientific support for the listing."

Ferguson pointed out that Canadians, who manage two-thirds of all polar bear populations, just reviewed their listing status and decided not to up-list the bear to a more serious status.

"Activists are attempting to politically interfere and change that reasonable and informed decision so the U.S. listing would not look extreme, unwarranted, and political, which it is," Ferguson said.

"The listing is lunacy because carbon dioxide emissions - the real target of activists - are surging worldwide, and unless all other countries cut their carbon emissions, atmospheric concentrations will continue to rise even if the entire West shuts down its emissions," he added.

From a standpoint of simple reasoning it is difficult to understand how a species which has been increasing in population for decades can suddenly be determined "threatened" by a climate change that currently seems to be stalled.

[Dagny McKinley]

Because the environment is such a huge topic in this election, of course each candidate is going to talk about what they will do to help reduce emissions, create alternative energy resources, etc. The question boils down to which candidate will actually act on their words once they get into the white house.

Dagny McKinley
www.onnotextiles.com
organic apparel

[Polar Bear]

Actually, the environment is not a big topic for most voters this year, the war and gas prices are.

[Robert Johnson]

Senator McCain has a good environmental record and should be commended for standing up to leadership in defense of the environment.

Full details on his record are here:

http://www.rep.org/McCain_enviro_record.html

The Sierra Club should show that it is non-partisan and not do an endorsement for president in this election cycle.

Robert Johnson
life member # 29923507
Loantaka Group excomm member