Obama vs. McCain on energy and climate change
I decided to evaluate Obama’s and McCain’s proposals for confronting the twin crises of energy scarcity/dependence and climate change. I developed the following grid, based on information provided by the two candidates on their respective web pages devoted to these issues (you can see Obama’s page here, and McCain’s pages here and here.)
(The government report referenced above regarding offshore resources can be found here.)
Bottom line: overall, Obama’s plan beats McCain’s hands down when it comes to aggressiveness and vision. These crises require a national resolve and commitment akin to the Manhattan Project or the Apollo program in order to relieve our oil dependence and prevent a climate catastrophe. We should be throwing everything and the kitchen sink at these problems–government funding, tax incentives, education, efficiency improvements, and every other tool in the book. Both candidates kind of pick and choose, but at the end of the day Obama’s plan shows more of a commitment to resolving these problems than McCain’s.
McCain’s emphasis on developing “clean coal” technology is particularly disappointing. Coal can never truly be clean from an emissions perspective until we develop sound ways to sequester the carbon dioxide emitting from these plants, and we are a long ways off from doing that in a cost-effective and reliable manner.
However, McCain’s plan fills some notable gaps in Obama’s–most notably in pushing for the large-scale development of nuclear power as a cleaner alternative to coal. Nuclear has its problems too, but at least it doesn’t worsen the carbon emissions problem as we ramp up production of renewable energy.
I also oppose continuing subsidies for corn-based ethanol, which Obama favors but McCain does not. We have to stop putting food into our gas tanks as quickly as possible or we will continue to exacerbate food shortages around the world. Cellulosic ethanol is just around the corner, but we need to push very hard right now to make that a viable alternative to corn.
Overall, Obama has it right on these crises–but he would do well to pick up a few elements of McCain’s plan so as to truly commit America to literally saving the world from these pernicious problems that are wrecking our planet, economy, and national security.
Sphere: Related ContentTags: 2008-election, Energy, global-warming, mccain, obama, renewable-energy
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