(part the first/ part the second) Let me summarize:
Obama is stuck in a peculiar political moment. In substantive terms, he knows that our dire climate and energy situation requires huge and possibly wrenching changes to drive the country away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy and efficiency. He has proposed climate and energy plans that, while short of what will ultimately be necessary, are substantially more ambitious than any in presidential history, more ambitious than even some of his supporters seem to realize.
To provide moderate cover for that green agenda, and as part of the attempt to flip a few key red states, Obama is dropping all kinds of dirty-energy buzzwords. But a close look at the language he uses reveals that his support for things like nuclear and "clean coal" is framed in conditional terms that, if taken seriously, pose high and possibly insuperable barriers to those technologies becoming market competitive.
If you oppose nuclear power because it cannot solve the problems of "public right-to-know, security of nuclear fuel and waste, waste storage, and proliferation" in a cost-effective way, then there's no reason to object to a politician saying he'll support nuclear if and only if it can solve those problems. Based on what you believe, that's tantamount to opposition.
The key gambit is to focus on performance standards -- results -- rather than joining any tribe or cheering any team. The empirical, pragmatic approach is substantively correct and keeps Obama out of the culture-war fights over individual technologies. It has environmentalists attacking him from the left, which serves to make him look more moderate to the rest of the political world. It has given him plausible deniability in the face of Republican attacks -- their "Dr. No" gambit didn't stick. It has given him an "all of the above" pitch that appeals to low-information voters. Meanwhile he's planning to implement strong emission standards and make hundreds of billions in green investments.
Pretty damn savvy, if you ask me.
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Comments
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KenG Posted 3:52 am
20 Oct 2008
It's a shame Abe Lincoln isn't with us now. We're about to get a lesson in how many of the people you can please how much of the time.
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David Roberts Posted 4:01 am
20 Oct 2008
So yeah, it's a leap of faith to assume he's playing them rather than playing greens, but it's not without evidence.
grist.org
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Ted Nace Posted 4:20 am
20 Oct 2008
But it's important not to overstate how long this approach can work. Obama has to become an educator and push the whole national debate to a higher level.
If Obama stays too long within industry's framing of things (i.e. that "clean coal" is an actual near-term solution, which it isn't), then he risks falling into a big trap when industry comes back with: "OK, we'll show you the 'clean coal,' but you have to give us the big subsidy money for all our projects." Before that happens, Obama needs to shift gears--quickly.
Basically, Obama has to start painting on a bigger canvas where "clean coal" is positioned more in the background of "things that are in the R&D stage and might happen in subsequent decades." He has to say -- (1) the climate crisis is dire, (2) we have to make a huge transformational shift in our infrastructure, (3) this should be approached as an infrastructure issue on the scale of the moon race, the interstate highway system, etc., (4) this big new infrastructure project requires us to retire our existing coal fleet, which is actually getting quite old, (5) this infrastructure project will solve the climate crisis, but it will also help our economic recession and our security issues.
With regard to clean coal, Obama needs to start distinguishing between things that are ready to roll now (efficiency, wind, solar), and things that will not be ready for prime time until after his administration ("clean coal," 4th generation nuclear, enhanced geothermal).
This way, he continues to give lip service to clean coal and nuclear, but establishes the principle that a distiction needs to be made between rolling out some big new infrastructure (bigger expenditures) and doing R&D on possible steps for the coming decades (smaller expenditures).
As for the politics of coal, Obama needs to state repeatedly that an underlying principle of the new energy infrastructure transformation is that coal industry workers will not be the sacrificial lamb.
Help build coalSwarm-- a shared informational resource on coal and alternatives to coal.
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David Roberts Posted 4:34 am
20 Oct 2008
Frankly, I don't even mind if he subsidizes the construction of a few "clean coal" demonstration projects. Those are one-off expenses and, if you ask me, overwhelmingly like to show that costs are higher than anyone is predicting. The real fight is to resist the push for ongoing subsidies -- resist the notion that we "have to" keep using coal, and thus that we have to keep subsidizing it (or, conversely, that we have to put a bunch of loopholes in our carbon regs).
Honestly, by the time the demonstration projects are built, the whole debate is likely to be moot -- R&E will be taking off. I suspect Obama's simply trying to neuter the debate until circumstances settle it.
grist.org
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Biodiversivist Posted 4:41 am
20 Oct 2008
...to talk intelligently about the actions an intelligent president might take. This is going to be interesting.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Biodiversivist Posted 4:46 am
20 Oct 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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edarnold41 Posted 7:42 am
21 Oct 2008
If anyone still believes in the Senator as an idealistic savior, research his current positive 'position' on the Second Amendment, compared with his record in Illinois and in the US Senate of supporting every gun-banning bill that his party put before him.
If you haven't been happy with what the Democrats have done for the environment in the past, don't expect anything different with Obama in the White House. He was created by the Party, and he is their property.
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