McCain calls for only 60 percent reductions when climate experts warn we need at least 80, and that may not be enough.  So we'll only have 100 million refugees instead of 200 million?  We'll only lose half the coastal urban areas in the US?  McCain's plan also allows offsets, which concerns me.  And he just can't be trusted to protect the environment. Within one week of this climate speech, McCain has also promised to appoint more right wing justices like Roberts and Alito, which would place our most basic environmental laws in jeopardy.  He has a career LCV voting score of under 30 percent.  You want to know what a President will do, look at what he did as a Senator.  McCain may have moments, but his overall record gives no cause for comfort.  

Good campaign ploy, especially at this point in the game. Nobody takes him serious, he will not be another environmnentalist in the order of Teddy Roosevelt.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Democrats have been in the majority for 2 years in Congress and have yet to do anything.

Why hasn't Hillary or Obama proposed (or enacted) anything?

Take any government classes recently?

It's hard to do somethin' when the prez will veto and ya don't have a 2/3 majority override.

Majority is one thing, 2/3 majority is quite another.

And I'm pretty sure that both Hillary and Obama signed onto several bills aimed at gettin' the renewables credits passed.

And I think they both signed the bill that would've made all utilities get a good portion of their energy from renewables by 2020.

But the prez threatened veto, and it was chiseled down to just new MPG standards.

Which he then used an excuse to deny Califonia and the other states waivers which would've allowed 'em to enact stricter MPG and emissions regulations of their own.

In short, blame the prez, not the Dems.

Hopefully this ploy to sway independents and moderates will awaken the democrats.  If the republicans are taking the environment even somewhat seriously, the dems sure as hell better one-up them.

Rarely though. No "pretty sure" talk please. I looks AWFUL if it is not true. It allows the opponents to score high and feel good. Embarrassing.

If Democrats do well, know it well before you post it. Making assumptions does not help. On the contrary, it allows politicians to get away with crap just because they belong to a certain party and those who vote for them do not check.

The only ways to make points is by knowing more or by having more power in other areas.

Karsten

Re "name that bill" "I agree" -- the two posts above.  Anyone who wants an objective way to compare Senator McCain's overall environmental record to Clinton's and Obama's would do well to look at their LCV scorecards over the years, and the description of the many dozens of bills voted on.  www.lcv.org It takes some effort to look up past years, but Senator McCain is quickly exposed.  He is no environmentalist.  Both Obama and Clinton have excellent environmental records, and neither of them would appoint the right-wing (read: anti-environmental) justices that McCain recently promised.

Clinton's voted for Lieberman-Warner in committee. S.2191. the bill has yet to reach the President, but you can be sure the White House is watching it closely to see if it is acceptable to their prime constituency, the oil and gas industry.

Clinton has introduced one piece of legislation that can be related to climate change in the last two years:

S.1059
Title: A bill to amend the Energy Conservation and Production Act to improve Federal building energy efficiency standards, and for other purposes.

Obama has introduced the following legislation that might have some bearing on climate change in the last two years:

S.133
Title: A bill to promote the national security and stability of the economy of the United States by reducing the dependence of the United States on oil through the use of alternative fuels and new technology, and for other purposes.

S.767
Title: A bill to increase fuel economy standards for automobiles and for other purposes.

S.768
Title: A bill to increase fuel economy standards for automobiles and for other purposes.

S.2202
Title: A bill to amend the Clean Air Act to increase the renewable content of gasoline, and for other purposes.

McCain of course introduced S.280 (McCain-Lieberman) and:

S.1900
Title: A bill to authorize appropriations for the United States Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution.

Much better than "I think...", "I am pretty sure..." etc. regarding legislative records of politicians.

With this no one can say "Name that bill...!" and have a valid argument while pointing out the other person's erroneous assumptions.

Thanks.

Karsten

Before we get all excited about McCain's position here, let's remember that a cap and trade law is only as good as the administration that is defining it and enforcing it.  

The law would require that a cap, a limit, be set on how much CO2 can be emitted from large utilities that produce electricity.

Who sets that amount, the amount of the cap? That will be a huge issue. How long after they set the first cap, will they revise the cap to lower the emissions further?  
Even with a cap and trade law, European greenhouse gas emissions rose 1.1% last year partly because caps were set so low.

McCain says in his interview previously posted here that we would lower the emissions slowly. How slowly?!?  A cap and trade law can easily turn into an officially legislated barrier to timely steps against global warming.

 Delay has been the tactic of the Wall Street fossil fuel Republican consortium that has opposed national action that would have reduced the global warming in a timely way. We need to be sure we are not putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop

Who do we trust to take strong action to rein in the fossil fuel companies, to set emissions standards that actually reduce the amount of carbon dioxide instead of letting it increase freely, as has happened during the last eight years.

Do we trust the party that allows fossil fuel corporations to write energy law? Do we trust the party that has kept the Environmental Protection Agency from publishing scientific findings about global warming; and that changed conclusions on reports about the climate  to make it look like the situation does not require action? Do we trust the party that promised eight years ago to cap emissions from power plants and then did nothing? Do we trust the party that filled civil service positions around the country with people who had demonstrated ultra-conservative allegiance?  Do we trust the party that has for decades been claiming that global warming is a liberal hoax?

Is this the party that we want to have advising our President on how to set caps on greenhouse gas emissions?  Let's not be fooled by rhetoric, especially from the same group that gave us compassionate conservativism and lowered the living standard for the least affluent members of our society, that gave us a war on terror which substantially increased the strength and numbers of the terrorist organizations, that gave us lower taxes but shrank the value of the dollars so everything costs more!