81 percent of Americans agree that the United Statesneeds to take the lead in controlling greenhouse gas emissions according to recent a Harris Poll survey. The Democratic candidates for president have recognized this consensus by developing plans to fight global warming that include well defined goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But the Republican candidates for president have taken the opposite approach, providing few specific details about their respective positions on this issue.
In preparing the following summary the author consulted a guide to the presidential candidates' positions on global warming published by the League of Conservation Voters. The individual campaign websites of each of the Republican candidates were also studied.
Rudy Guiliani
The former Mayor of New York Cityhas not articulated any position on the issue of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the League of Conservation Voters. Guiliani's campaign website lists the candidate's positions on 12 key issues. Neither global warming nor the environment made the cut.
Mike Huckabee
Huckabee supports a cap on emissions, but has not provided any specific goals or targets related to emissions reduction. The environment is not listed as an issue on his campaign website. Neither is global warming.
Duncan Hunter
Hunter has not provided any position on the issue of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the League of Conservation Voters. The environment is not listed as an issue on his campaign website, nor is global warming.
John McCain
Senator McCain is the author of a bill that calls for a 65 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to the League of Conservation Voters. A section of McCain's campaign website explains that the Senator supports "limiting carbon emissions by harnessing market forces that will bring advanced technologies, like nuclear power, to the market faster."
Ron Paul
Apparently, Ron Paul's "revolution" will not include action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Paul has not specified a position on emissions, according to the League of Conservation Voters. His campaign website does list the environment as an issue, but makes no mention of global warming.
Mitt Romney
According to the League of Conservation Voters, Romney has stated that he would consider placing caps on emissions, but only if similar caps were enacted globally. The environment and global warming did not make the list of issues discussed on Romney's campaign website.
Fred Thompson
Thompson's position on carbon emissions is described as follows on his campaign website: "And while we don't know forcertain how or why climate change is occurring, it makes sense to takereasonable steps to reduce CO2 emissions without harming our economy." Thompson has not set any specific targets or goals for emissions reduction. Thompson does not include the environment and global warming in the issues section of his campaign website.
What do you think of the Republicans' positions on the issue of greenhouse gas emissions? Should the Republican candidates be more focused on the environment in general?
Our World is published weekly to Gather Essentials: Politics and/or Gather Essentials: News and is written by David Anderson. David is a political correspondent for Gather. David is also a political science graduatestudent. The column focuses on environmental politics. You can see past editions of the Our World by clicking here.
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Comments: 44
George: " Paul has the best stance on this issue."
A green tax is not what Ron Paul advocates, George. Instead, Paul wants to hand everything over to lawyers, suggesting that people could try their luck by starting legal cases against polluting companies, which as we all know have grown strong under many years of government support and protection, and which seek to buy further support from the politicians who also appoint the judges that will determine the outcome of such cases. At best, it's just a further stalling tactic, designed to avoid taking effective action.
1. Eliminate income tax and the IRS. Replace with a 23% sales tax. Sales taxes are about the most regressive form of taxation since lower income people have to spend most of their income just to live. Plus, tax experts say that 23% is waaay to low. It would have to be closer to 50% to replace income taxes.
2. Abolish Social Security. That's what I paid into for 50 years, and it's what I live on.
3. Pass a law making abortion illegal in the United States. This sounds like something the Taliban would do.
He has also made many comments in support of teaching Christian religion in public schools.
Fortunately, I don't think he is electable because of these positions.
that being said, I am not sure we can stop global warming, esp since allot of it is becouse of cycles going on in the big bright burning ball a gas called the SUN...
just as in Glenn Becks "An Inconvenient Book..."
number one on the New York Times Best seller list...
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977210182&nav=Namespace
Now it is up to the voters to hold both Republicans and Democrats accountable for this.
Sure, class action suits never work...They didn't make John Edwards a millionaire or cost the cigarette companies millions. Law suits never solve anything...
As I said, Tim, at best, it's just a further stalling tactic, designed to avoid taking effective action.
As to mcCain- refreshing willingness to go his own way, BUT there is the problem that many Republican voters still are so uninformed on climate change that they think it to be nonsense. So NO to mcCain too, because even if elected i doubt that he could get anything done.
For god's sake what is wrong with us?
In answer to M. Emmett Townsend's statement regarding the support for global warming and securing the border: I'm a Democrat and I support a wall on the border with Mexico. It's not only to keep illegals out but to keep others who wish to do harm to this Country out of America.
Ron Paul may be well motivated, but his plan to emasculate the government by stripping all tax revenues from it is likely to reduce the effectiveness of any future government action on this or any other issue.
I am far more interested in what a candidate will commit to doing about achieving energy independence, a far more important goal that accomplishes the same end.
In short, who gives a damn how many billions can be extorted from the first world by Al Gore's friends at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanely or Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) to build new coal fired power plants in the third world?
What I want to know is how much less Canadian, Mexican, Saudi and Venezuelan crude can we use next year, and the year after and the year after?
So many of our urgent issues require addressing the issues of corruption first.
The only candidate unswervingly focusing on corruption-reduction is Ron Paul. The other candidates are too mired in it to get near the topic. Only Obama and Paul have enough grass roots to be able to talk about it, and Obama is not specific enough to make any changes.
Now that Paul has brought massive numbers of formerly discouraged new voters into the process, I have hope that the forces of coercion will not be able to continue eroding privacy and civil liberty.
Ron Paul's campaign is all about accountability, and that includes for the environment. Sam, I like the topics you bring up, but I disagree completely about how to effectively clean the environment.
Making corporations take responsibility for their individual damage has just got to happen. We need to encourage more of the businesses Paul Hawken talks about and wallop the ones who talk in private memos about the damage they are causing until a whistleblower outs them and the lawsuits start.
Now there is a great leader, eh?
I suppose he'd also be anti-pollution, pro-health care, and a populist; as long as everyone else is.
Of course that attitude might cause some problems for him on the abortion issue. There will always be some countries that will allow abortion.
For those who don't believe we humans could be causing some global warming, they should look out a window on a hot summer day and notice how heat shimmers off of asphalt and not off the lawn.
We've spread millions of acres of asphalt over our planet. This has been an enjoyable boon to airplane glider pilots. Whenever they need altitude, all they need to do is find a parking lot, road or highway and then ride up on the thermals they create.
Here again we see that corporations, big corporations with lots of toxins to release in air and water, are the masters of these candidates because they also have lots of money to give to good little boys who will do their duty for the contributors.
So anyone who doesn't care about clean air and water, just pick one and cast your vote for him.
Like I said in an earlier article of mine, a vote for a Republican is a vote to risk our very existence.
Hopefully, even though the government has been dragging it's feet on positive energy policy, there's been a great deal of progress in private industry. Nanosolar holds the posibility of revolutionizing the solar industry, Wal-mart's decision to double it's truck fleet efficiency by 2015 may single handedly cut our oil consuption 6%, Toyota has made great progress with hybrid cars and the other car companies are following suit, GM is leading on the development of plug-in hybrids, the new boeing 787 is 20% more efficient than the previous generation of aircraft, etc.
The government is working, though. The new energy bill phases out incandecent light bulbs, which is huge, appliences' (which are allready significantly more efficent than old ones) standards are much higher, as well as many other things. There is significant hope for the future.
This is a partisan issue, despite what another partisan hack =
Al Gore = says.
Why don't you democrats stop undermining the war in Iraq and admit progress there? O yeah, because you "know" you are right. Enough of your phoney polls by the way. People of this country don't want their economy ripped to shreds for junk science.
Mark E - If this is a partisan issues why are leaders around the world taking action to fight global warming? There are no Democrats and Republicans in the foreign countries that are doing their part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Not every issue is about partisanship.
What specific "lies" has McCain told? I'm not aware of any so wonder why you would call him a liar?
And as far as being a "traitor", I recall the years he spent lying in a prison in Viet Nam and being tortured and can't imagine anyone thinking of him as a traitor. However, since you call him a traitor, what are his acts of treason?