Do you recognize climate change as the single greatest socio-political disaster in our midst? Do you think this country can afford to waste any time and any energy before tackling this issue? And if yes and no respectively, where are you putting your votes and your money in this primary race?
On last week's Real Time with Bill Maher John Edwards gave a very smooth, context-rich interview. While Barack Obama's stumping also tends to go point by point, I've noticed the style is more right-brained, "big picture" oriented in nature than Edward's, and could explain to some degree the Edwards-Obama divide on Daily Kos. Not only is Edwards more detailed as a public speaker (which is a skill but not necessarily the end-all be all of campaigning) he continually drops references that politicos will recognize targeted at the weaknesses Clinton and Obama: Obama on the other hand needs to work on his offense.
If Clinton and Obama are smooth, John Edwards is slick and doesn't share their occasional awkwardness. Impressive:
Even Maher wasn't his usual nutty self, and makes excellent points. Over 20% of the Arctic ice has vanished, accelerating the absorption of solar energy and basically setting the planet for hot. There are other problems of course, the buckling oceans and dying Amazon, but this was an excellent, tight interview.
Edwards takes climate change seriously. From an environmentalist perspective, I criticized his record. As an American Indian, his record on Yucca Mountain troubles me, as I was troubled by those Democrats who left the G'wichin cold during the ANWR francas. But I have no doubt that while environmental issues would have a mixed record under an Edwards administration, climate change would be of major concern and we could look forward to work actually being done. (Edwards' foremost issue seems to be poverty and class divide)
The issue of ethanol is a chronic headache. There are so many flat out lies in our discourse about energy and climate change and they've confused subjects like ethanol, which Edwards points out is something of a means, not an end. I'm not enthusiastic about ethanol because it a) drives up food prices, when North Americans are already finding themselves at the whim of food inflation, b) is a primary destructor of Brazil's Amazon, even though Edwards is talking about domestic ethanol production. And then c) ethanol is only so sufficient as to work in conjuction with numerous other innovations, and Maher was right to criticize it.
While oil dependency is a problem, This absurd rattling on both sides about foreign oil is nativist and racist. Most of our oil of course doesn't come from Arabs (note that Algeria is primarily Berber and not Arab) and Saudi Arabia's share is probably at peak but it makes for political waves. Using the market via ethanol for our energy future is so much hassle when we could instead use efficiency.
You can't address energy without talking about development, and no presidential candidate has really done that to my knowledge.
Do you really think we can plan for 10 to 40 years in the future without changing the physical and market infrastructure that dictate people drive solo in big cars from long distances to work et cet? You think this can all just be converted to solar, wind and we can be a nation of highways through the center of our communities along with other outdated models? It's much easier to use something that is definate--infrastructure change--and organize it around market and environmental efficiency--e.g. sustainable development.
Any presidential candidate should embrace this, as this is not only right but politically expedient (developers and real estate business are something like 10% of US billionaires). Pioneering work is being done to develop greener, dense urban commercial and mixed use (commercial-residential) building that is autonomous, harvesting its own resources including energy. Rapid progress is being made towards buildings that use half to almost no grid electricity, even some that put power back into the grid. And we're talking huge. We're talking the difference between the work done in more sustainably-oriented communities like Portland by Gerding/Edlen and that of Miami's foremost developer Jorge Perez, who built every manner of wasteful building he could get a contract for and sent his business to Cancun when the bust (there was no one to buy much of the inventory) hit.
Where are the federal tax and permit and subsidy advantages for developers to go green, and fill our wasted space with egalitarian consumer, residential and business choices? There are obviously some but greener technologies are still rather fresh and cost prohibitive on development for large scale impact. There's not enough incentive for cutting through the waste. It's really capitalism on its head if you're a "free market" type!
At any rate, Edwards showed he is not pandering like Senator Clinton, who seems to subscribe to a menu view of issues rather than a continuum having any coherent process. Dodd and Kucinich of course have been very adament about climate change and I believe Barack Obama would also deal with this.
But to what extent would Clinton, (and she seems by far to be the worst) even if she is sincere and not pandering to us about climate change be able to do anything when she cannot show any backbone on Iraq or Iran? She is going to inherit a trillion dollar catastrophe which she shows no sign of abating and we're to believe she will immediately tackle our impending planetary doom on day one?
So you see, vigilance about Iraq by the more dovish kossacks, and criticism of scandals or issues that might be petty coming from the beltway talkshow hosts is not meant to be petty by many kossacks: it shows that there can be a serious drain on a candidate's ability to actually devote the due respect to the many crisis a Democratic successor to Bush will face.
I believe Edwards would address this issue, but I haven't seen evidence to favor him over Obama on climate change yet, (I've also stated my preffered candidate is Dodd before) and at any rate, they both have shown a remarkable integrity towards the blogosphere in an age of politicians and pundits who ignore the educated and favor the mob and the pep rally. I have nagging doubts about Clinton's sincerity about dealing with the very difficult times ahead. Barring such a bad case, the world could greatly benefit from a Democratic president, especially one as direct and bold as Edwards.