The Political Climate: an ongoing commentary on the NH Primary and Climate Change

“Go north: have fun, and help out.”  This editorial in the Union Leader–basically a plea to head north to support the businesses that are suffering due to a warm winter season–sends a stronger message than the obvious Granite State comaraderie.  Instead, it is similar to a message sent by North Country folks in January when they applied for low-interest federal loans on account of the warm weather.  The impacts of global warming on the NH economy will be a true disaster, and if the effects continue as projected “North Country businesses can do little but pray for snow and the customers it brings.”

This report on winter recreation and global warming in NH  provides economic projections based on historical climate data and several winter recreation economic indicators.  Cold, snowy winters tend to bring more visitors and generate more economic activity where “warm, slushy winters mean 6,000 fewer jobs, a loss of 4% of North Country winter employment.”  December 2006 was recorded as the warmest December on record and if you look out your window it will come as no surprise that this winter season has had some of the lowest snowfalls on record.  If this trend continues, as it is expected to, the Union Leader might need to turn that editorial into a daily column.

Forget the physical contest, the new “Rebel Billionaire” will be a true reality competition but this time determined by wit.  The prize is big–$25 million–and the challenge, well, it’s simple: save planet earth from the impending threats of global warming.  Easy.  According to this story from the Associated Press, Sir Richard Branson, Virgin group chairman and global warming activist, announced today that he would give a $25 million prize to the first scientist who comes up with a way to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.  Branson explains, “man created the problem, therefore man should solve the problem.”  Here’s an idea, let’s plant trees…show me the money!

Yesterday NH Democratic Chairman Kathy Sullivan and Republican Chairman Fergus Cullen announced that the nationwide scramble to move state presidential primaries earlier is only helping NH and hurting everyone else.  Kathy Sullivan explains “everything like this that happens is just making NH more important.  The more states that move up , the more important we become and, ironically, the less important they become because there will be so many of them.”  As of right now if the NH Primary is to be held on January 16th, which has not officially been determined, then there could be up to 16 states holding primaries or caucuses in the two weeks following.  (Read the entire story from the Union Leader here.)

Also, here’s an interesting piece in the Nashua Telegraph.  According to the writer “the world is flat,” which makes this whole “global warming” thing even more absurd because we all should know “our earth is not a globe.”  If you can see through to the sarcasm–so thick that it’s hard to detect–you might get a good laugh:

Who would any sensible ordinary person believe?

A talk-show host or a couple of thousand climate change scientists from 113 countries?

…hmm.  it’s a hard one!

Why, a talk-show host, of course!

Maybe this conversation between John Stewart and Steven Colbert will help clarify things.

On Wednesday White House Spokesman Tony Snow announced that the US has done a better job at reducing carbon emissions than the European Union.  Snow pointed to figures from the International Energy Agency that showed between 2000 and 2004 the carbon dioxide emissions increased by 1.7% in the US and by 5% in the European Union–and where exactly did these figures come from?  “I would point out that…there is a carbon cap system in place in Europe, we are doing a better job of reducing emissions here.”  Well, the US does contribute a quarter of the net total of carbon emissions worldwide, which makes it only common sense that the US take the lead on climate change action.  According to Snow the Bush administration has pursued the “most aggressive program of research and technology ever”…I guess most of us have been kept in the dark.  (Read the Reuters article here.)

China is happy to pass the buck to developed countries like the US need to take the lead in fighting global warming.  Jiang Yu, spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, said “it must be pointed out that climate change has been caused by the long-term historic emissions of developed countries and their high per capita emissions.”  China, projected to surpass the US in carbon dioxide emissions by 2009, is expected to release a global warming plan later this year.  Qin Dahe, chief of the China Meteorological Administration, explained “President Hu Jintao has said that climate change is not just an environmental issue but also a development issue, ultimately a development issue.”  (Read the New York Times article here.)

On a different note, the first two presidential primary debates have been scheduled for next October.  The Republican primary debate will be held on Sunday October 14th in Manchester and the Democratic debates will be held on the 21st.  The New Hampshire Union Leader, ABC News and WMUR-TV will all participate in the production of the debates.

Today the Washington Post ran “In Campaign 2008, Candidates Starting Earlier, Spending More.”  The article estimates that in order for a campaign to be a success in the 2008 race a candidate potentially will have to spend a billion dollars, which would be a first-ever in presidential campaigning.  Already Sen. John McCain has spent over $375,000 laying out his campaign foundation in New Hampshire and Iowa, and Sen. John Edwards has already overshot his $100,000 internet budget by $400,000.

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise considering the number of candidate visits the Granite State has seen in the last few weeks.  The Associated Press reports that on February 13th Mitt Romney is expected to officially announce his candidacy for President in Michigan, his hometown state.  Immediately after his announcement he is expected to visit Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire and then be back in Massachusetts by the 15th.  And he’s scheduled to be back in the state a month later.  Barack Obama will make his second trip in two months to New Hampshire early next week, and Sen. Hillary Clinton is due in the state next Monday, only to return a month later.  I wonder if these candidates are offsetting their carbon emissions?  (Find out more about the candidate schedules at our presidential candidate calendar.)