In stark contrast with Senator Barack Obama’s energy policy, which he described last night calling for millions of new green jobs, improved national security, and reduced global warming pollution, John McCain today announced that his running mate, Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, doesn’t believe in anthropogenic climate change or evolution. Combine all of this with the fact that Ms. Palin’s husband works for British Petroleum drilling in North Alaska, that she doesn’t believe that climate change science is clear or that the changes are caused by mankind’s greenhouse gas emissions and the fact that she wants to drill in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to guarantee our energy security rather than pursuing renewable energies, and you’ve got one of the worst climate candidates yet! Even John McCain has spoken vocally to protect ANWR, so his selection of one of the nation’s biggest supporters for drilling there has been a major blow,
She actively campaigned against the petition to get the polar bear included on the Endangered Species List, and sued the Secretary of the Interior when that decision was made, saying that the climate change models cited by scientists and environmentalists that predict melting of Arctic ice due to climate change are “unreliable.”
When asked in a Newsmax interview, what was her take on global warming and how it is affecting the United States, Sarah Palin said, “A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.” What? Where has she been!?!
“Ms. Palin has made it clear through her actions that she is unwilling to do even as much as the Bush administration to address the impacts of global warming,” said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund. Now that’s saying something if she isn’t even willing to do as much as Bush! Meanwhile, League of Conservation Voters President, Gene Karpinski, has said, “Unfortunately, with her support for drilling in the Arctic Refuge and off our coasts, Governor Palin will simply continue the failed policies of the Bush-Cheney administration and their Big Oil friends - policies that could make us even more dependent on foreign oil.”
As Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin was very vocal with regards to her dislike of the petition to the Secretary of the Interior to list the polar bear as an endangered species. This petition (eventually successful) made it mandatory for the Environmental Protection Agency to take action to mitigate climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to protect the polar bear. Ms. Palin was actively against this move, and in her op-ed to the New York Times in January 2008, Ms. Palin said:
“In fact, there is insufficient evidence that polar bears are in danger of becoming extinct within the foreseeable future… The possible listing of a healthy species like the polar bear would be based on uncertain modeling of possible effects. The Center for Biological Diversity, which petitioned for the polar bear to be protected, wants the listing to force the government to either stop or severely limit any public or private action that produces, or even allows, the production of greenhouse gases. Such limits should be adopted through an open process in which environmental issues are weighed against economic and social needs, and where scientists debate and present information that policy makers need to make the best decisions… Americans should become involved in the issue of climate change by offering suggestions for constructive action to their state governments. But listing the polar bear as threatened is the wrong way to get to the right answer.”
In May, after the court did decide to list polar bears as endangered species, Sarah Palin filed suit, saying, ”We believe that the Service’s decision to list the polar bear was not based on the best scientific and commercial data available.” In response, Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity, the lead author of the petition that led to the listing, called the lawsuit “completely ridiculous and a waste of the court’s time… This lawsuit and her head-in-the-sand approach to global warming only helps oil companies, certainly not Alaska or the polar bear. Gov. Palin should be working for sustainable, clean energy development in Alaska instead of extinction for the polar bear.”
The Environment News Service reported on a number of interesting elements within her candidacy. For one, while Governor Palin did increase the taxes on big oil companies’ profits operating in Alaska and created a Cabinet of Climate Change in Alaska, her focus on energy independence has entirely been on drilling in American oil fields, including the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, a fact that even John McCain has spoken against. Her cabinet group is tasked with addressing climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Alaska, though she has given them no binding targets. She very superficially has proclaimed September as Energy Efficiency Month in Alaska. The proclamation encourages Alaskans to lower their costs by conserving energy and by using existing energy more efficiently.
“Conserving energy and using it more efficiently doesn’t necessarily mean you have to sacrifice your quality of life,” she said. “It’s the little things, like making sure lights, computers and appliances are turned off – and slowing down on the road, which will save money spent on gasoline.” It’s true that it is great to make small changes - to turn off lights and computers - but it is more important to turn off our coal plants and off our drills into pristine natural refuges, at least in my book.
Lastly, her personal ties to the oil industry are at least as tight as those of George Bush - she’s married to them! Her husband works for British Petroleum, drilling in the northern areas of Alaska. I don’t think we can hold individuals accountable for their spouses mistakes (Hillary? Bill?), but Gov. Palin is currently embroiled in a scandal regarding her personal ethics, which makes me question what she will do for her family. She is being investigated for the allegation that Palin fired Alaska’s public safety commissioner because he would not fire Mike Wooten, an Alaskan state trooper who also happens to be Gov, Palin’s ex brother in law, after a messy divorce from Palin’s sister.
On the plus side, she and McCain still do have no chance for election overall. However, John McCain’s energy stance, at least, in more progressive than that of his new running mate. A Salon article in late 2007 described John McCain’s energy policy in great detail, interviewing him about 80 percent by 2050 and international carbon targets. It begins by saying:
John McCain likes to project a tough-guy stance on the issues, and global warming is no exception. “Americans solve problems. We don’t run from them,” he’s quoted as saying on the environment page of his Web site, which goes on to argue that “ignoring the problem reflects a ‘liberal, live for today’ attitude unworthy of our great country.”McCain has earned the right to put his own conservative spin on the fight against climate change. The first high-profile Republican to start talking seriously about the issue, he has called President Bush’s approach to global warming “disgraceful.” He cosponsored the first Senate bill calling for mandatory greenhouse-gas reductions, the 2003 McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act, and has pushed a number of versions of the bill in years since.
I would never vote for the John McCain and Sarah Palin regardless of the massive changes in her approach to energy policy and climate change that she will have to make to be elected as a vice president, but I am shocked that even McCain would select a candidate with such an awful environmental record or stance with regards to our nations’ biological, energetic, and climatic strategies. More and more voters are considering climate change as a major part of their candidate’s election platform and I think that these points will be some of the most important choices in the decision for the nation’s next president.
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Palin will be a great VP and a very good President someday in the future. She needs no speech writer does a good job speaking on her own and is just what this country needs, a woman with a good clear head to rid us of all the liberial BS.
Sooner she gets in the better!
Ms. Howe, thanks for this post. Judging from Gordon and others who might vote based on whether a candidate is likeable and “does a good job,” I suspect McCain/Palin is more electable than you think. But hopefully, a reasoned, researched article like this one will do its part in letting people know the main issue– more than gas prices, more than energy security– and how ill-informed at least one of the four candidates truly is.
Well, let’s just hope that her horrible energy record will turn more people off McCain. My main worry is that Palin is such an unknown to most people, that they aren’t even aware of her backward stance on these issues. What can we do to alert people, and make McCain’s strategy backfire?
It doesn’t matter a whole lot what the VP’s policies are. No real power. Look how much Al Gore did as veep.
Keep your friends close but your enemies closer?
I wouldn’t be surprised if despite all this McCain comes to power.
Why does nothing ever change in this country?
I’m really worried about Palin’s environmental policies. I think it is evermore important for us, as consumers, to support ‘green businesses.’ For example, http://www.simplestop.net stops your postal junk mail and benefits the environment.
Thanks for the comments! A few thoughts…
Kai, I’d argue with you that while Al Gore didn’t put climate change on the national (or international) agenda while he was VP as much as any of us would have liked, if we instead take the example of Cheney as a VP, he’s done a whole lot more damage than if he had indeed been powerless. As the National Energy Task Force itself, in the early days of the Bush Administration, indicated, Cheney did have control over numerous decisions on energy, and he chose to engage fossil fuel industries rather than youth or innovators. http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/taskforce/tfinx.asp
I clearly don’t think Bush would have signed the Kyoto Protocol if Gore had been the VP instead of Cheney, but I do think that having a VP so closely tied to oil and fossil fuels has indeed slowed down our nation’s renewable energy transition and pushed us in an even worse direction.
The Washington Post did an excellent series on his power and his role in many decisions of which we - the public - were not aware. In it, they say, “In roles that have gone largely undetected, Cheney has served as gatekeeper for Supreme Court nominees, referee of Cabinet turf disputes, arbiter of budget appeals, editor of tax proposals and regulator in chief of water flows in his native West.” Read the whole article at http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/chapter_1/
And Nick, what we can do is share the message — that Sarah Palin is NOT a replacement for Hillary Clinton and should not swing the votes of those who were so vehemently supporting Ms. Clinton. While I want a woman in the White House just as much as the next feminist, I want a woman who will show the doubting America that a great female leader can take our nation in an incredible direction. I’m not saying that Hillary was this, necessarily, but simply saying that a woman who is pro-life, prodrilling in ANWR and doesn’t believe in anthroporgenic climate change or in teaching evolution should not be President regardless of her sex. Furthermore, I think we can spread the message that while Sarah Palin is unknown, her stance on energy policy should not be.
Gordon, I think the country needs a lot more than a woman with a clear head, and needs leaders who see the potential of an America with a clean economy and see the drain that climate change and energy dependence are having and will have on our country. I think we need visionary leaders for change.
Also, for better or worse, I’m just adding a few thoughts on why McCain clearly didnt’ screen his VP choice quite as much as Republicans would have liked. Or, perhaps, why he just believe that opposites complement (if not attract). Why else would he have picked a candidate with a pregnant single teenage daughter (that’s no problem to me, but a problem to a whole lot of conservative Americans, who have seen Juno or no), who disagreed fundamentally with his stance on energy policy, and who has historically supported bills with federal earmarks, something that McCain is campaigning strongly against. In a great article - http://newsminer.com/news/2008/aug/31/sarah-palin-supported-ketchikan-bridge-nowhere-dur/ - Dermot Cole writes “McCain has promised to veto any bill sent to him by Congress with any earmarks. In July, the Associated Press reported that McCain wants to cut all earmarks and billions more to ‘punish lawmakers for past earmarks’.” Yet in 2005, Sarah Palin supported the move to push for $400 million in earmarks for the construction of the infamous Ketchikan bridge.
I’m terrified to say I may agree with Mr. Williams… McCain and Palin may be more electable than I hope, but I am also incredibly optimistic that America is ready for change and ready to be lead to a strong, clean, and independent economy — with Barack Obama.
If Palin is elected to be vice president of the USA wat will happen to the rest of the endangered species? Polar bears are a beautiful animal and the only reason she’s fighting so hard is so she can shoot one. she should NOT be in the white house!!!
I think Palins idea of exploiting oil resources in Alaska an Offshore could well be damaging to US jobs. High fuel prices has actually forced some companies to rethink where they manufacture their products.
The costs of importing goods from China, India etc. over the last 8 years or so has tripled, as a result companies like IKEA have moved manufacturing closer to the point where the products are sold/needed. Jobs that had previously lost in some American towns have returned in order to cut costs. This of course is a fundamental business behaviour encouraged by the broad environmental movement. Work local, produce local etc. All of which cuts emissions.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7611960.stm