McCain appeals to independents with environment pitch

(CNN) -- Kicking off a week-long push seen as outreach to independent and Democratic voters in crucial swing states, John McCain on Monday will deliver a speech outlining his vision for combating global warming.

"We stand warned by serious and credible scientists across the world that time is short and the dangers are great," McCain will say in Portland, Oregon, according to prepared remarks. "The most relevant question now is whether our own government is equal to the challenge."

McCain's commitment to fight global warming puts him at odds with some Republicans in Congress and with the Bush administration, which has not made climate change a top priority.

McCain's stance on carbon emissions places him closer on the environmental spectrum to Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

In his speech, the Arizona senator will propose capping carbon emissions incrementally, with the goal of returning to 1990 emission levels by the year 2020 using a cap-and-trade program.

There are several basic ways to set up a cap and trade system: (I’ll use very simplified examples, there are thousands of tiny details and loopholes in the actual rules.)

Cap and Trade: In a cap and trade system, companies tell the government how much they have polluted in the past and the government gives them credits for free. The credits are good for a year. For example, if a refinery has emitted 100 tons per year in the past, they will get 100 credits as a starting point for 2008. When the credits expire at the end of the year, the government will hand out more credits, but instead of 100 credits, they will only give the refinery 90. The refinery can decide whether to upgrade their equipment to keep their emissions under 90 tons/year, or they can buy credits from someone else in the same the regional area who has already upgraded and has extra credits to sell. The entire system is limited to the geographic region with the pollution problems. The government keeps everyone honest by making them report their actual emissions and show that they polluted less than their credit limit. This system is used in Texas and other places for NOX (oxides of nitrogen), and it’s not bad. It isn’t perfect, but if there is a real pollution problem, it’s the best way to go. Of course, CO2 isn’t a pollution problem in my opinion.

Cap and Auction: In a cap and auction system, the government offers the credits for sale to the public rather than giving them out for free. The government keeps the money of course. The cap and auction systems I’ve heard about won’t be regional or limited to just industry. So another problem is that Sierra Club or Earth First or George Soros or China can buy the credits and take them off the market and drive the costs up much faster. I think it would create a situation where it would be impossible for companies to comply, it would end up in court, and it just wouldn’t work. I don’t know if this is actually being done anywhere, but I’ve heard it being talked about as a greenhouse gas cap and trade system. It would be very bad.

Carbon Offset: The stupid Al Gore carbon offset system doesn’t deal with ACTUAL emissions reductions, instead, the credits are for projects that offset other emissions. For example, credits would be given for building a wind turbine, which would theoretically replace 1/1000th of a coal plant. The problem is that the coal plant keeps on polluting just like before and there are no verifiable actual reductions in emissions. Carbon offsets are sort of like building a brand spanking new house with all “green” products, and saying you are reducing your footprint on the earth (even though you obviously would have polluted even less if you had just stayed in your old house). And some of the projects aren’t even really projects: My favorite is the “avoided deforestation” projects. The carbon offset system is just a scam.

There are a lot of variations, but I don’t think most people understand the differences between the systems, and I think politicians might try to sell cap and auction like it’s cap and trade because they will rake in the money to the government. We need to be watching them.

Although I’m not a big fan of McCains, I love the fact that he has embraced Global Warming and thus has removed it as an issue for the democrats.

By that logic, McCain should also "embrace" socialized medicine, higher taxes, surrender in Iraq, restrictions on unapproved political speech, and all the rest of the leftist programme. Of course, in addition to removing these disastrous plans as "issues for the democrats," such tactics also remove any remaining incentive for conservatives to support him.

Why not try telling the truth? Global warming is a leftist scare scam designed to terrify the public into accepting massive new socialist wealth transfers and political controls. In fact, the planet has been cooling since 1998, refuting the models upon which the warming theories rely, and that cooling trend is now sharply accelerating. A real leader would marshall the evidence to educate the public rather than pandering and ceding ground to the liars.

When the majority of Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that Global Warming is real and probably man-made, it becomes a losing topic to argue otherwise.

Imagine in the first debate a question for senator McCain that goes like this, “The latest Newsweek poll reveals that most Americans believe that Global Warming is a real problem and that the US isn’t doing enough to solve the problem. What is your solution?”

The good news is that McCain has effectively neutralized this issue. It probably won’t come up and if it does McCain will be ready with an answer that will appeal to the brainwashed independants.

Sometimes in baseball, a team will give up an out in order to score a run.

McCain is willing to ‘give up an out’ in order to get the conversation back to topics where he scores with the American people: National security, taxes/economy, backed by a lifetime of service/experiance.

When the majority of Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that Global Warming is real and probably man-made, it becomes a losing topic to argue otherwise.

That is a plausible stance.

Unfortunately, it is also a prescription for surrendering issue after issue, until nothing of importance remains.

Imagine that in 2004 the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had adopted the approach you recommend. "We know that John Kerry's 1971 statements about US war crimes in Vietnam were vastly overstated and did great harm to veterans, but most people are persuaded that what he said was true. It's probably best just to leave the topic alone."

Instead, they opted to attack the Left's Big Lie about Vietnam directly, with evidence and with eyewitness testimony. And they won.

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