Posted on 05/12/2008 5:26:19 AM PDT by webschooner
PHOENIX (AP) - Republican John McCain, reaching out to both independents and green-minded social conservatives, argues that global warming is undeniable and the country must take steps to bring it under control while adhering to free-market principles.
In remarks prepared for delivery Monday at a Portland, Ore., wind turbine manufacturer, the presidential contender says expanded nuclear power must be considered to reduce carbon-fuel emissions. He also sets a goal that by 2050, the country will reduce carbon emissions to a level 60 percent below that emitted in 1990.
"For all of the last century, the profit motive basically led in one direction - toward machines, methods and industries that used oil and gas," said McCain. "Enormous good came from that industrial growth, and we are all the beneficiaries of the national prosperity it built. But there were costs we weren't counting, and often hardly noticed. And these terrible costs have added up now, in the atmosphere, in the oceans and all across the natural world."
The Arizona senator promised to challenge China and India, two economic rivals who are fueling their challenge to U.S. market supremacy with heavily polluting fuels such as coal, gas and oil.
"For all of its historical disregard of environmental standards, it cannot have escaped the attention of the Chinese regime that China's skies are dangerously polluted, its beautiful rivers are dying, its grasslands vanishing, its coastlines receding and its own glaciers melting," said McCain.
He also took a swipe at President Bush, who balked at the beginning of its term at signing the Kyoto global warming protocols. McCain said he would return to the negotiating table.
"I will not shirk the mantle of leadership that the United States bears. I will not permit eight long years to pass without serious action on serious challenges. I will not accept the same dead-end of failed diplomacy that claimed Kyoto. The United States will lead and will lead with a different approach - an approach that speaks to the interests and obligations of every nation," he said.
The language highlighted the political stakes for McCain, his party's presumed nominee. His visit to Oregon came just days after the two leading Democratic contenders, Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, campaigned in the state.
Oregon is among the expected general election battlegrounds, and its Columbia and Hood rivers are playgrounds for many outdoorsmen and environmentalists.
Global warming also stands with abortion rights and an array of social causes as important issues to the evangelicals and Christian conservatives whom McCain hopes will bolster his political base this fall.
McCain has long expressed a belief in global warming, arguing that even if he is wrong, acting as if the planet's temperature were increasing would only benefit the environment if scientists subsequently proved he was mistaken.
McCain traveled to the Pacific Northwest from Arizona, where he and his family spent Mother's Day.
In his speech, he highlighted his personal experiences viewing evidence of glacial recession. He also cited evidence of a shift in animal migration patterns.
"You would think that if the polar bears, walruses, and sea birds have the good sense to respond to new conditions and new dangers, then humanity can respond as well," he said.
McCain's major solution is to implement a cap-and-trade program on carbon-fuel emissions, like a similar program in the Clean Air Act that was used to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions that triggered acid rain.
Industries would be given emission targets, and those coming in under their limit could sell their surplus polluting capacity to companies unable to meet their target.
McCain wants the country to return to 2005 emission levels by 2012; 1990 levels by 2020; and to a level sixty percent below that by 2050.
"As never before, the market would reward any person or company that seeks to invent, improve, or acquire alternatives to carbon-based energy," he said. "More likely, however, there will be some companies that need extra emissions rights, and they will be able to buy them. The system to meet these targets and timetables will give these companies extra time to adapt - and that is good economic policy."
Really? That puts them at odds with the vast majority of Americans who don't place global warming as one of their major concerns.
How I am ever going to bring myself to pull the lever for this guy.
Even if you can find a way to do it, will you be able to look at youself in the mirror afterward?
McCain voted against drilling in ANWAR. He thinks of himself, like Newt, as a green conservative.
I’m not voting for either one.
Just reported on Laura Ingram.
A kid in a penquin suit converted McCain to go green
All these pols are in on the “cap and trade scam”, include McCain, and stand to make a ton of money.
Most of them couldn’t give a damn whether GW is happening or not or who it is caused by.
This will be the biggest boondoggle for the taxpayer ever by the elite political class on both sides of the aisle.
And they WILL get it passed. Too many elites stand to make a ton of money.
“McCain has long expressed a belief in global warming, arguing that even if he is wrong, acting as if the planet’s temperature were increasing would only benefit the environment if scientists subsequently proved he was mistaken.”
Sheer insanity.
I’m sorry that McCain is such an idiot, but at least he wants to look into atomic energy and make China, etc. go along.
Don’t you get it there is almost NO difference?
Yes, the Bush Administration has been really STUPID not to take credit for 8 years of global cooling!
You and me both.
Yet we are in the coldest spring, and after the wettest winter in recent memory..
ya know if this guy spent as much time on getting America off our dependence on foreign oil as he does on “global warming?”; he’d be doing something a heck of a lot more constructive!!!
He isn’t even the lesser of the evils, he’s lockstep with them.
This will haunt him.
McCain is starting to look more and more like he may not be the lesser of two evils.
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