<em>WSJ</em>: McCain = Obama = Clinton? | Gristmill: The environmental news blog

WSJ: McCain = Obama = Clinton?

Conventional wisdom declares all candidates equally green

Posted by Adam Stein (Guest Contributor) at 1:32 PM on 14 Mar 2008

Read more about: politics | presidential race 08

The Wall Street Journal blogs from the ongoing ECO:nomics conference:

The conventional wisdom among the boys on the bus -- including us -- has been that there's essentially no difference among the three presidential contenders on climate-change policy.

Really? I know I live in a bubble, but ... really?

Since there are some rather obvious climate policy differences between the candidates, I'm taking this to mean one of several things:

Conventional wisdom relegates the apparent differences between the candidates to the level of rhetoric, not policy. McCain says nice things about nuclear; Obama hearts ethanol; Clinton wants utilities to behave. All of this is just, in the WSJ's words, so much "hot air."
Or maybe conventional wisdom holds that the policy differences are so hopelessly wonky as to be irrelevant. Broadly speaking, all three candidates want cap-and-trade, and that's what counts. Airy details around allowance allocations are of concern only to environmentalists and congresscritters.
Or maybe the conventional wisdom truly doesn't understand that the candidates differ in any meaningful way on climate policy.

None of these interpretations is particularly heartening, although at least there's a logic to No. 1 and 2. No. 3 is just depressing. In any case, bear in mind that the WSJ reporting on energy issues is generally quite good, so when these reporters casually toss off the opinion that the candidates are indistinguishable, you start to gain some insight into why this issue gets so little play.

(As an aside: I'm a fan of the recent trend in blogs by journalists for just this sort of thing. These sorts of offhand, loosely structured observations would rarely make it into a feature story, and they're damned interesting.)

For story: WSJ: McCain = Obama = Clinton?
4 Comments | Post a Comment

They have a point. All three are cowards.

When it comes down to it the publicly offered policies of all three candidates on climate change amount to "more of the same with a pretty band-aid."

It doesn't have a chance in hell of working as policy.

Where's the massive conservation financing and subsidy package that would wean our buildings off of coal-fired electricity and natural gas heating and hot water? Where's the no-coal policy since "clean-coal" is a blatant fraud. Where are the hard-line CAFE standards Senators?

Since not one of them has attempted to filibuster anything to get some real change in the budget I would say all three are full of crap.

That said I would posit that Obama has a slight edge only because he is younger and less beholden to a huge train of old politcal favors that must be cashed in.

We can only hope that whatever science team briefs the next President once in office has the heuvos to tell the officeholder the ugly truth.

Put the Carbon Back

by Pangolin at 2:00 PM on 14 Mar 2008

Adam,

I was at the session and will try to get a post up on it over the weekend.

Suffice to say, they are not all three the same, and the session made the differences very clear. It was a fascinating panel. More later, gotta go get on a plane.

grist.org

by David Roberts at 2:35 PM on 14 Mar 2008

All 3 identical from wealthy point of view

All three have programs based upon the premise that GHG-generation should be allocated based upon wealth. With cap and trade, whether fully auctioned or not, wealthy individuals have no constraints on their carbon footprints. This creates a certain high social status for those who are being the most destructive. (If only the rich can afford to do it, then everyone wants to do it.)

Notice we did not use cap and trade for scarce resources (wheat, sugar, gasoline, rubber) during WWII. If we had, this site would probably be in German or Kanji. If we are going to pull together and avert the worst of climate change, we need to use quotas, not cap and trade or other market mechanisms.

Proper carbon-footprint quotas would not only give us a fighting chance to avert the worst of climate change, they would also rejuvenate our manufacturing base by making products produced by overseas slaves too "carbon expensive" to purchase (China is mostly coal-driven + transportation).

Cap and trade programs for GHG are just pandering to the wealthy class.

by human power at 1:54 PM on 15 Mar 2008

Obama suports smart growth, mass transit, cycling

Obama suports smart growth, mass transit and cycling which are the best solutions for our energy problems which will also improve people's health.

From http://www.barackobama.com/issues/pdf/EnergyFactSheet.pdf ...

Build More Livable and Sustainable Communities:
- Reform Federal Transportation Funding: Barack Obama will re-evaluate the transportation funding
process to ensure that smart growth considerations are taken into account and he will also re-commit
federal resources to public mass transportation projects across the country.
- Require States to Plan for Energy Conservation: Barack Obama will require governors and local
leaders in our metropolitan areas to make "energy conservation" a required part of their planning for
the expenditure of federal transportation funds.

by racc at 2:02 PM on 15 Mar 2008

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