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

Hillary Clinton’s Senior Economic Policy advisor, Brian Deese, held a roundtable with UNH research scientists and UNH Office of Sustainability faculty yesterday to discuss Clinton’s climate change policy and plan.

The UNH researchers were pleased at Clinton’s promise to restore the integrity of science.  She will ensure that scientists will be free to conduct scientific research independent of politics and that “there will be no oil lobbyist flunky rewriting climate change reports in her administration.”

The UNH staff explained that the research would need to be conducted in an Apollo-like program for clean energy.  It is not uncommon to hear about an Apollo program for energy from the candidates, but Clinton backs up her claims with specifics about the program.  She would create a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund to finance this scientific research program paid for by removing subsidies from the oil companies.

One technology of concern among the roundtable attendees was coal.  Deese explained that Clinton would prohibit new coal-fired power plants from going on-line unless every other possible way to meet electric demand and increased efficiency had been exhausted.

There seemed to be only minimal concern among the scientists about Clinton’s actual policies, but there was deep frustration that Clinton and the other candidates are not grasping the scientific urgency of this issue because they are not making climate change a national priority in their campaigns.  Clinton’s climate change plan seemed to be just another of Clinton’s many ‘plans,’ on par with her social security plan and immigration plan.

The media should take some of the blame for this by not raising climate change in debates and national interviews, but the candidates could always initiate the issue themselves.  Researcher Cameron Wake stated that there is ample opportunity to talk beyond the dark and gloomy aspects of climate change.  The issue will move into the mainstream when the candidates discuss the many success stories reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the business, corporate, and individual levels.

Deese listened intently throughout the roundtable, and hopefully Clinton begins to bring up climate change on the national stage.