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

Yesterday’s GOP debate moderator Carolyn Washburn asked the candidates to raise their hands if they believe climate change is a serious threat and caused by human activity.  Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and Rudy Giuliani were the only four candidates to raise their hands.

“I’m not doing hand shows today,” Fred Thompson objected and said that he needed a minute to explain.

McCain quickly jumped in:

“Let me put it to you this way: Suppose that climate change is not real and all we do is adopt green technologies which our economy and our technology is perfectly cable of. Then all we’ve done is given our kids a cleaner world.  But suppose they’re wrong and climate change is real and we’ve done nothing. What kind of a planet are we going to pass on to the next generation of Americans?  It is real.  We can do it with cap-and-trade, with capitalist and free enterprise motivation.”

Giuliani weighed in on the science:

“Climate change is real. It’s happening. I believe human beings are contributing to it and the way to deal with it is through energy independence…and I think that our party should embrace this as an issue for us.”

Romney was eager to jump in and share what has become his global warming catch phrase:

“At the same time, we call it global warming, not America warming, so let’s not put a burden on us alone and have the rest of the world skate by without having to participate in this effort. It’s a global effort.”

Climate change finally provided the defining moment of a national debate and it is clear that some of the leading Republican candidates were eager to talk about this issue on the national stage.

Watch the video.

Today, the final installment of the Iowa/New Hampshire Exchange was entirely dedicated to how environmental issues are playing in the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary.  Professor and New Hampshire political celebrity Dante Scala gave a nice little shout-out to the Carbon Coalition website at the beginning of the program.

Listen to today’s Iowa/NH Exchange.

A letter from today’s Keene Sentinel is right on:

“As we approach the end of what could be called the nation’s toughest job interview, there are still many more questions to be asked of our presidential hopefuls.

In these final weeks before the primary, it is of the upmost importance to continue to question the candidates about their plans to address climate change.

Not to diminish the importance of issues such as Iraq and health care, but climate change is equally if not more critical.

To quote Tim Flannery, internationally renowned scientist and explorer as he writes about climate change, ‘In the years to come this issue will dwarf all the others combined.  It will become the only issue.’

How could he infer that problems such as health care or the war in Iraq could be forced a back seat to global warming?

Perhaps it’s because our climate is warming much faster than models had predicted just a few years ago, an acceleration that is pushing the problem ever further from our control.  And if humans are allowed to continue to court disaster with the Earth’s thermostat, it won’t be long before our nation finds itself overburdened with merely trying to deal with the consequences, leaving little time and resources for the myriad other issue important to the safety and well-being of America.

Here in New Hampshire we have a unique opportunity and responsibility to keep the candidate’s toes to the coals on this issue.

So, please, when you are out there at an event, make it a point to ask the candidates for more specifics, and ask harder questions about their plans to address climate change.

And if your favorite candidate has not yet developed a comprehensive plan of action, then insist that they draw one up and share it with you.

Rachel Courtney, Dublin.”

Well Put Rachel.

A large crowd gathered outside of the Obama and Oprah event in Manchester to demonstrate their concern about climate change.  Santa, Frosty, a few polar bears and a number of NH voters greeted over 8,000 as they filed inside the Verizon Center.  The enthusiasm outside made up for the lack of global warming discussion during the event.