Last night the Sierra Club hosted a nationwide conference call for any of its more than 700,000 members to call in to hear what the presidential candidates plan to do to fight global warming and put us on a path to a clean energy future. Only the Clinton and Obama campaigns accepted. (Note this was the day after Edwards New Orleans announcement. The Repubs were also invited).
I'm not going to go into great detail about their specific global warming plans because you can go to their websites for that, but I think how differently they responded is somewhat telling.
I should add here that I don't intend for this to be a candidate flame-throwing diary. I'm an Edwards supporter and will still vote for him in the Feb. 5 Tennessee primary, assuming he's still on the ballot.
But I am an environmentalist and think how we address the global warming challenge is the most important issue for every living being on the planet. I'm sorry that it's not gotten much attention so far in the campaign
The call was not long, less than an hour I think. The moderators were the volunteer chair of the Club's national political committee and the staff political director. They started out by saying that there would be a brief statement by each campaign, followed by a couple questions to a spokesperson chosen by each campaign. The questions asked were screened from questions previously submitted by Sierra members nationwide
Neither candidate chose to be on the call personally. But Clinton recorded a message thanking the Sierra Club for the role it plays in environmental protection, said she had enjoyed working with them in the past and then spelled out certain specifics from her global warming plan, including (if I'm remembering correctly), among others: raising CAFE standards to 55 mpg by 2030.
The Clinton spokesperson for taking questions on the call was Carol Browner, head of EPA in Bill Clinton's administration. She said that a Hillary Clinton administration would do a lot administratively, through all agencies of government to address global warming, including immediately having EPA reverse the California emissions decision
Instead of a statement by Obama, we heard one of his ads. His question handler on the call was an Illinois lawyer who was introduced by the Sierra volunteer committee chair as a very good friend of the Sierra Club and the environment, who had handled a couple cases for the Club in the past. Unfortunately, the spokesperson allowed himself to be thrown off-course in answering questions so that the only clear impression I had was that the Obama campaign thinks it's important in doing anything on global warming that they be able to reach across the aisle to be able come to a compromise with the other side.
That's all I have on this now. Go to their websites and see their plans for yourselves. (You might also go to Edwards website to see his global warming plan, which I think is the best, thus the Friends of the Earth endorsement).
Without Edwards in the race we need to push all candidates further toward what Edwards was proposing - whether they accomplish this through executive force and reformation of federal agencies or through the give and take of legislation.