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

It’s a busy week for presidential candidate visits and TPC has updates on two of them today. 

Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani was in Derry this morning for a town meeting.  Unfortunately, the closest Giuliani got to talking about a plan to combat global warming was when he told an audience member from Brazil that he was from “the ethanol capital of the world.”  It’s a good thing TPC caught up with him later to get more of his thoughts on energy and climate change.   

On renewable energy, Giuliani noted “I think incentives work better than mandates, so I would give tax breaks and help – I would help the industries that create ethanol, the industries that create biofuels, the industries that do clean coal, carbon sequestration, hydro power.”  Giuliani emphasized that “All of those things have to be expanded” and that tax credits could help them enter the market.   

After sharing a short story about an impressive windmill that was producing the energy to run the Iowa State Fair yesterday, Giuliani concluded that “In ten years, we can get there.”

A FOTPC caught up with Rep. Dennis Kucinich in Concord yesterday and told us that the Democratic candidate also had some things to say about reducing carbon emissions and moving towards renewable energy.  Kucinich noted that “We need to have a policy change that moves us towards solar, and wind – green energy – and away from oil and coal.” 

Kucinich then outlined how we could transition out of the coal mining industry in a way that would protect the miners, their families and the environment.  Kucinich emphasized “I want to create a totally different transition, a green economy, create millions of new jobs doing it and then really move towards peace, because peace and sustainability are connected.  Kucinich finished by noting that his national security doctrine of strength from peace is also a stand for sustainability and “for the issues that cause our global climate to be degraded.”

Audio from Giuliani.

Audio from Kucinich.

NASA’s revision of the top ten hottest years in the U.S. does not alter the climate change debate whatsoever.  TPC usually does not waste time engaging in disputes about the legitimacy of climate change.  Oh well, we are today.  Canadian blogger Stephen Mcintyre of Climate Audit discovered a mistake in the yearly U.S. temperature calculations conducted by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Sciences.  The error was corrected and the new calculations found that 1934, not 1998, was the hottest year in America.

Global warming skeptics seized upon this error as proof of their usual charge that global warming is a hoax.  What they conveniently did not mention (it could have just been another case of acute amnesia) was that NASA’s miscalculation was fairly insignificant on a global scale.  In no way does this debunk the legitimate climate change evidence found in scientific reports like the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change.  James Hansen explained that the correction in U.S. temperatures only altered global averages by one-one-thousandth of a degree.

To quote a favorite Mitt Romney tag line: ”They don’t call it America warming, they call it global warming.” -July 2 Blog

Blogging skeptics, like Noel Sheppard of Myth Busters, were shocked to hear that “a government agency is actually participating in a fraud against the American people by withholding information crucial to a major policy issue now facing the nation.”  What a shock!

But wait, this sounds all too familiar…government withholding information from the nation…hmm.  That sounds similar to something else I heard in the news recently about how Dr. Richard Carmona, the former Surgeon General was not allowed to talk about the danger climate change poses to public health.  The past twenty years of strategic global warming denial is comprehensively outlined in a Newsweek article “Global Warming Deniers: A Well-Funded Machine.” 

Following a third place finish in this weekend’s straw poll in Iowa, Sen. Brownback was happy to come to NH this week to talk to voters about why he wants to be president.  Since NH hasn’t seen as much of the Kansas Senator lately, TPC was glad to catch up with Brownback this morning and hear his thoughts about combating global warming.

After noting that he is not for the popular cap-and-trade systems being proposed by some candidates, Brownback outlined why he thinks a market-based approach will work better to reduce carbon emissions.  Brownback explained that he thinks “a cap and trade system trap pushes carbon emitting industries to countries and places that don’t cap and trade, like China, like India, like Mexico and I think you end up increasing your carbon dioxide emissions, not decreasing.”

Stating ”I want to see us change our CO2 emissions in this atmosphere that we have.”  Brownback then explained that he has ”supported tax credits to encourage carbon trading and carbon sequestration programs” and would like to see more of that.  He also cited the lead energy bill that he supports which would expand the use of electricity in cars.  He said to do this “you’re going to need more nuclear power because nuclear is the key way that you can reduce CO2 emissions.”

Sen. Brownback finished by emphasizing that he thinks a market based approach is the best way to go and that ”It is a key problem, we’ve got to deal with it.”  Sen. Brownback has a paragraph about energy on his website but we have yet to see a comprehensive plan from him about how he will reduce greenhouse emissions and combat global warming.  We agree with the Senator that climate change is a “key problem” and think that as such, the next president must have a plan.

TPC also caught up with Sen. Obama yesterday at a town hall meeting in Nashua.  Sen. Obama noted that if we increased our fuel efficiency standards to 45 mpg, we would replace the equivalent of all the oil we import from the Persian Gulf” and asked the crowd to “imagine what that would do for our economy, for our environment, what it would do for our foreign policy.” 

Obama also noted that we need to “walk the walk” if we are going to work with China on reducing their greenhouse gas emissions as well.  While we have heard Sen. Obama talk about climate change (and say these exact lines) a number of times, he also has yet to produce a comprehensive climate change action plan.

Watch video of Brownback in Merrimack.
Audio from Obama: 1 2 3

This cycle’s first major test for the Republicans was somewhat anti-climactic, as Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and the still undeclared Fred Thompson did not formally participate.  Here are the top five from Ames Iowa:

1) Mitt Romney: 4,516 votes, 31.6%.
2) Mike Huckabee: 2,587 votes, 18.1%.
3) Sen. Sam Brownback: 2,192 votes, 15.3%.
4) Rep. Tom Tancredo: 1,961 votes, 13.7%.
5) Rep. Ron Paul: 1,305 votes, 9.1%.
Romney met the expectations, racking up 32%, nearly twice as much as the second place Mike Huckabee who received 18% of the votes.  Huckabee’s showing was a sign of the strength for his campaign.  The New York Times reported that Huckabee only bought 1,800 tickets for his voters, yet he received 2,587 votes.  At $35 a pop, campaigns like Romney’s and others paid the bill for nearly all of their voters.  Huckabee did not rent buses to bring voters in; from a transportation emissions point of view, Huckabee was the clear winner in terms of campaign greenhouse gas emissions per voter. (OK, we’re assuming all his supporters walked.)

Huckabee and the other top five straw poll finishers will be in the Granite State later this week.  Find out where on our Presidential Candidate Calendar.

We caught up with two candidates this weekend.  With the rest of the Republicans in Iowa, Sen. John McCain faced a barrage of climate change questions during this weekend’s visit.  He was given another opportunity to commit to a specific fuel efficiency standard, but he did not.  He referenced the passing of a senate bill that increased CAFE standards earlier this summer even though he did not vote ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ for the bill.  “I would like to also…sit down with the automobile companies and say, okay, look, CAFE standards are going to go up,” he replied ”but we do not want to put everybody out of business.”  It is unclear whether McCain supports raising fuel efficiency standards or if he sees it as inevitable.  McCain opposed a 40mpg standard in 2005 and supported a 35mpg standard in 2002.

We caught up with Senator Chris Dodd at a bustling Portsmouth farmers market.  He gladly accepted a ‘Stop Global Warming’ sticker, and we thanked him for endorsing the New Hampshire Climate Change Resolution.  An FOTPC also had the chance to see him in Exeter where Dodd discussed how his carbon tax would create $50 billion for R&D into renewable energy.  Dodd remains the only candidate calling for a carbon tax.