The environmental policies of the US presidential canditates
The election of the President of the United States of America is the most important event that will take place this year.
The United States is the world’s most powerful and influential country. Its leader, subject to the checks and balances of the United States Constitution provides leadership. Although the President cannot put all of his ideas into law, he (or she) will be able to direct policy which will not only affect Americans but also affect the whole world.
In environmental terms, America is a massive polluter and a massive emitted of greenhouse gases. The present President, Mr Bush, took many years before he was convinced that climate change was caused by human activity, and at one stage seemed to doubt whether climate change existed at all. It now seems that he is convinced by the scientific arguments but in the mean time the world has lost eight years of American leadership on climate change. Those eight wasted years may be very important to the whole planet. They were a wasted opportunity.
I saw the third debate between Mr Obama and Mr McCain; I thought that they both spoke well. Of course, they have to speak in generalities and not only answer the points that are being made against them, but also provide the electorate in America with an insight as to how they will tackle the problems that are being faced. I was interested what each candidate said about the environment, directly or indirectly.
Mr McCain explained his idea of making America more energy independent. It involves nuclear power, wind, tide solar natural gas and off shore oil drilling, which he said Mr Obama has opposed. Mr McCain thought that the US could eliminate its dependence upon oil from the Middle East and Venezuela – he described Canadian oil as being “fine” but he was clearly not talking about the environmental impact of Canadian tar sourced oil.
Mr McCain’s plan was to build 45 new nuclear power plants and use renewables and by combining both he expected to eliminate foreign oil dependency in seven to ten years. He did not see storage of spent nuclear fuel as a problem.
Mr Obama thought that ten years was about the right time frame for eliminating dependence upon oil from the Middle East and Venezuela. He saw the problem as the US “borrowing” $700 billion and sending the money to the Middle East for oil payment. He felt that there was a problem with oil companies that had oil fields which they were not exploiting, but as the US has only 3% of the world’s oil reserves and uses 25% of the world’s oil, there is a gap. He also thought that the US needs more solar, wind, biodiesel and geothermal energy. He made a very interesting point about the end for fuel efficient cars, saying that the US lagged behind the world in developing them. Energy efficient transportation will be one of his priorities.
Of course when Americans go to their voting station in November there will be many issues that they will be voting on. The economy will probably be the prime factor, and then the other issues such as abortion foreign policy and the environment will probably enable some voters to make a decision if all other things seem equal.
It is very hard to judge between the two presidential candidates when it comes to what they have said about the environment. For me, and of course I have no vote in the US, Mr Obama seems to have the better environmental credentials. He distrusts nuclear energy and that is a good starting point. He not only wants to increase renewable energy (as does Mr McCain) but when he talked about making road transportation a priority he hit one very important nail directly on the head.
In order to preserve the environment for our children and our grandchildren we have to modify the way we live and in particular the excesses that we all indulge in. It is excessive and unreasonable for any country to use cars which guzzle gas when we now know the problems to our future that this behaviour creates. Addressing this with more fuel efficient cars is terribly important not just for America but also for the whole world.
This will be one of the many changes in our lives that will have to happen if we are to reduce the adverse impact of climate change and secure our future. There are others, but for Americans whose cars are absolutely essential to their way of life, having regard to the design of their cities and towns and now available in terms of public transportation, smaller slower cars will provide many benefits.
Americans will vote for their new President soon. Whoever it is, I suspect that when either Mr McCain or Mr Obama is in office, the advice that is given and the environmental problems that will arise during their Presidency will make what they say now about the environment look very meek and nowhere near enough to cope with the problem itself.
posted by: Robert Kyriakides Genersys Ireland
This post was written by Greenme