Climate Politics
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In presidential debate, McCain misleads on nuclear power
John McCain made his central energy pitch in Friday night’s debate. It’s a short passage, but it is remarkable for the amount of nonsense it manages to pack in. 1. This came at the culmination of a discussion about cutting spending, with McCain touting his credentials as a fiscal conservative and even boasting of a […]
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Did House Dems kill renewable tax credit extension?
Sure looks that way. I wasn’t entirely thrilled with everything in the Senate bill. But given how dreadful congressional Democrats and environmentalists are at messaging, it is surely the best anybody could hope for. The House Dems threw out elements of the tax package that were crucial to get the support of Senate Republicans and […]
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Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, again
This is brilliant in every conceivable way: Note the inclusion of verbatim passages from the actual Palin interview. It parodies itself.
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Debate: spending
Last night moderator Jim Lehrer pressed the candidates about what spending priorities they would postpone or cancel in response to the financial crisis (a bit of framing I find maddening). In the heat of the debate I was irritated with Obama for not countering the frame directly. Going back and watching, though, he did seem […]
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Question
Will McCain’s “spending freeze” include spending on nuclear power and clean coal?
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While McCain and Obama squabble …
… about who supports clean energy more, Calif. governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is pulling together a summit of community and local leaders from Europe, Australia, India, China, and all 50 states to discuss how best to battle climate change. This is part of the great undercovered story of the climate battle: national governments are largely impotent, […]
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Energy security came up frequently, but climate change only mentioned in passing
The first presidential debate between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama focused mainly on national security issues and the economic crisis/Wall Street bailout package. But energy issues came up a few times during the debate, with McCain and Obama squabbling over the details of how the country could achieve greater energy security. Grist’s David […]
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Candidates spar on who has most comprehensive vision
Obama said that we “have to have an energy policy to deal with not just Russia” but with other not-so-friendly regimes. He also said the United States should increase “domestic production, and yes, offshore drilling … but we only have 3 percent of the world’s oil .. we can’t drill our way out of the […]
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Debate: concessions
Okay, Obama tags McCain for voting against renewable energy 23 times, which is fine. But in the process he concedes offshore drilling, he concedes nuclear, he concedes clean coal. Why play on your opponents’ ground? Over and over again, Obama starts out by conceding and then backing away. It comes off as defensive. Argh.
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Debate: fact-checking
Check out ThinkProgress for some pretty amazing real-time fact-checking of this debate. And more at washingtonpost.com, Factcheck.org and Politifact.com.
