Where is Chuck Norris When You Need Him?
November 28th, 2007 by Carbon CoalitionTwo recent national media pieces show that people outside of New Hampshire are recognizing that the GOP candidates are all talking about climate change. ABC News ran an internet piece “The Green Gap: Republican Candidates and Climate Change,” and the Prince of Darkness himself, Robert Novak wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post titled “The False Conservative.”
The ABC piece separated John McCain from the rest of the GOP field:
“‘Most of the Republican candidates are talking about core Republican issues,’ says political analyst Stuart Rothenberg.’ They talk taxes. They talk about the size of government. They talk about national security. Those issues are what Republicans are comfortable talking about, and that’s what most Republican voters want to hear. McCain is the exception.’”
Anybody who has attended a New Hampshire town hall, read this blog, or seen last January’s polling data that found that 82% of potential Republican primary voters favor taking action now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions knows that NH Republican voters want to hear about this issue. Energy conservation, energy security, and the environment are fast becoming core Republican issues in New Hampshire.
ABC News wrapped up Huckabee’s climate position:
“Huckabee calls climate change ‘a spiritual issue.’ The Council on Foreign Relations analysis said: ‘In another interview, [he[ got more specific, saying, ‘We ought to be moving rapidly toward energy resources that don’t have a greenhouse gas effect.”
The ABC synopsis does not accurately represent Huckabee’s entire climate position. They omitted that in New Hampshire Huckabee endorsed a cap and trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and consistently urges true conservatives to conserve energy.
Robert Novak picked up on Huckabee’s endorsement of a cap and trade system and brought it up in his op-ed “The False Conservative” stating:
“Calling global warming a ‘moral issue’ mandating ‘a biblical duty’ to prevent climate change, he (Huckabee) has endorsed a cap-and-trade system that is anathema to the free market.”
To suggest that a cap and trade system is “anathema to the free market” is false. Cap and trade is a market based solution that encourages market competition. Our current energy policy is a true anathema to the free market because it provides massive subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, not allowing cleaner and more secure energy technologies to compete on a level playing field.
