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

Three campaigns visited the Granite State this weekend and were greeted with perfect summer weather and questions about global warming.  Our review of their positions begins with Senator Chris Dodd.  At a stop in Amherst on Saturday, he discussed the Iraq war and global warming.  He connected the war to our energy policy, explaining that the issue of energy independence is a national security issue.  He then moved on to clarify his plan.  He discussed the problem of price gaps between renewables and non-renewables and stressed the importance of implementing a tax on carbon and a system of cap and trade to close that price gap.  He asked the audience why citizens would pay $300 billion on foreign oil, but not $50 billion to fast track renewable technologies.  After the speech he personally lauded the work of the Carbon Coalition, and we thank him for his acknowledgement.

Also in the state was Rep. Tom Tancredo, who spoke in Littleton to the Union Methodist Church.  Tancredo acknowledged that global warming is occurring and stressed that something must be done even if humans are not the cause.  In his speech he stated:

“Research is not conclusive on either side of the issue.  Is it natural?  Most evidence does not substantiate that it comes from human activity(???), but we do need to move away from petroleum based products for security reasons.  We’re giving billions of dollars to nations who are figuring out ways to kill us!  I believe that nuclear energy is the answer, and we need to move quickly to reduce carbons in our atmosphere.” (for more go here)

The third candidate in the state this weekend was Sen. Barak Obama.  Obama was in the WMUR studios as part of the ‘conservation with the candidates’ series and at the New Hampshire Technical College.  He addressed global warming at both events.  We thanked Obama for clarifying his position on liquefied coal in our June 14th blog.  He talked about last Friday’s Senate vote concerning fuel efficiency standards.  He noted that the bill was progress, but that he did not think they had finished the job.  He explained that he tried to include an additional 4% increase on efficiency every year (more on the WMUR conversation here).  He was upset about the provisions that failed “in the face of furious lobbying” from the oil industry.  In the end Obama stated that America did not get the, “long lasting solution that America needs to break its dependency on foreign oil” (full transcript here).