courtneyfryxell « It’s Getting Hot In Here

The first debate of the 2008 presidential season was last week in South Carolina. The Dems went head to head to head to… you get the idea. We will take a look at what the Republican presidential candidates have to say at their first debate scheduled for May 3. And the first ever question on global warming in a media sponsored presidential debate was asked. Even if they didn’t get a question about global warming, many of them confronted the issue on their own. In the 2008 primaries and in the presidential election, we have to put the heat is on these candidates to make global warming a top priority. The youth vote can swing an election, let’s show the candidates that the youth voice wants comprehensive climate change policies.

Here are some snippets and a video of all the global warming quotes from the debate courteous of the League of Conservation Voters Heat is On project. For more information on where the candidates stand, on both sides of the aisle check the site out at www.heatison.org

Brian Williams:

“Senator Biden, a quote from Tom Friedman in The New York Times: ‘Unfortunately, today’s presidential hopefuls are largely full of hot air on the climate energy issue. Not one of them is proposing anything hard.’ What would you propose for the average American that would be hard?”

Joe Biden:

“[I]t is a simple proposition. We have to make a equivalent of what Friedman was talking about, a Manhattan Project. We have to fundamentally shift the way we do it. The way we started off – Barack and I have a bill to make sure that every automobile sold in the United States is a flex-fuel automobile; every gas station in America, by the year 2009, has to have 10 percent of it’s pumps pumping E85 ethanol. We also have legislation in requiring we invest $100 million a year for the next couple of years while this president is president in order to be able to find lithium battery technology to be able to power our cars. We also have legislation talking about capping emissions. Cap them now; not wait. Cap them where they are now. Time’s running out. But you have to be willing to make multi-billion dollar investments over the next 10 years and set hard goals in order to be able to get to the point where we are no longer dependent.”

Hillary Clinton:

“[America] is ready for a new energy policy. It is ready to deal with global climate change.”

John Edwards:

“[W]e use 22 million barrels of oil a day. Twelve million of those barrels are imported. It’s the reason we have to make a bold transformation from what we are doing now. Also, on the issue of climate change, we ought to cap carbon emissions in the United States. We ought to invest in clean alternative sources of energy. We ought to invest in carbon sequestration technology, in cold technology. A billion dollars, at least, into making sure we build the most fuel efficient vehicles on the planet. We ought to ask Americans to patriotic about something other than war. To be willing to conserve.”

Bill Richardson:

“…The second day, I would plan a huge initiative on making America energy independent, with an Apollo-like program to become more reliant on renewable fuels. I’d ask the American people to sacrifice in so doing. Third, I would have a major initiative on climate change. Ninety percent reduced emissions by 2050.”

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