On Energy & The Environment Joe Biden and Sarah Palin Probably Have to Agree to Disagree
by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY on 10. 3.08
In case you missed it last night, embedded above is the entire debate between vice-presidential hopefuls Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. As I did with the presidential nomination acceptance speeches of Obama and McCain, for those without the time or inclination to watch the entire thing, here are the relevant passages in regards to environmental and energy issues with some brief remarks about the positions of the candidates. Without further ado, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin head to head:
Palin: Energy Independence Key to America’s Future
When we talk about energy, we have to consider the need to do all that we can to allow this nation to become energy independent.It's a nonsensical position that we are in when we have domestic supplies of energy all over this great land. And East Coast politicians who don't allow energy-producing states like Alaska to produce these, to tap into them, and instead we're relying on foreign countries to produce for us.
We're circulating about $700 billion a year into foreign countries, some who do not like America —they certainly don't have our best interests at heart—instead of those dollars circulating here, creating tens of thousands of jobs and allowing domestic supplies of energy to be tapped into and start flowing into these very, very hungry markets.
Energy independence is the key to this nation's future, to our economic future, and to our national security. So when we talk about energy plans, it's not just about who got a tax break and who didn't. And we're not giving oil companies tax breaks, but it's about a heck of a lot more than that.
Energy independence is the key to America's future.
Palin clearly enjoys talking about energy policy, but her energy policy doesn’t seem to extend beyond the notion that tapping into more domestic fossil fuel sources as the answer to all of the country’s energy problems.
The fact of the matter is that, at current levels of fossil fuel consumption, there is simply no way at all that the United States will ever be free from oil imports. We simply consume too much and produce too little from reserves which are depleting.
As I’ve said many times, there is simply no way for virtually any nation, other than those which are major producers of oil, to be energy independent when fossil fuels form the dominant part of the nation’s energy mix. It is simply an impossibility. The only road to true and lasting energy independence is through reducing energy demand and expanding production of non-exportable renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and geothermal.
Palin: Global Warming Not Man-Made
When asked about the causes of global warming and how to deal with them, Palin had this to say:
Alaska feels and sees impacts of climate change more so than any other state. And we know that it's real.I'm not one to attribute [...] activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man's activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet.
But there are real changes going on in our climate. And I don't want to argue about the causes.
What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?
We have got to clean up this planet. We have got to encourage other nations also to come along with us with the impacts of climate change, what we can do about that.
As governor, I was the first governor to form a climate change sub-cabinet to start dealing with the impacts. We've got to reduce emissions. John McCain is right there with an "all of the above" approach to deal with climate change impacts.
We've got to become energy independent for that reason. Also as we rely more and more on other countries that don't care as much about the climate as we do, we're allowing them to produce and to emit and even pollute more than America would ever stand for. So even in dealing with climate change, it's all the more reason that we have an "all of the above" approach, tapping into alternative sources of energy and conserving fuel, conserving our petroleum products and our hydrocarbons so that we can clean up this planet and deal with climate change.
At least Palin says we have to reduce carbon emissions...But beyond that I find in inconceivable that she doesn’t think that debating the causes of climate change is important when differences in those causes directly impact the best courses of action to take.
In regards to other nations not caring about the climate as much as the United States: Although I’ve never seen a quantitative scale of climate caring, it could easily be argued that a great number of nations (both great and small) have enacted tougher climate change policy that the US has heretofore. And while there are other nations which have much higher levels of air and water pollution, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and natural resource consumption the US pretty much leads the pack on natural resource consumption per capita and is second only to China in overall greenhouse gas emissions and second to Australia in per-capita emissions.
Biden: Global Warming Is Definitely Man-Made, US Can’t Drill To Independence
Well, I think [climate change] is manmade. I think it's clearly manmade. [...]
If you don't understand what the cause is, it's virtually impossible to come up with a solution. We know what the cause is. The cause is manmade. That's the cause. That's why the polar icecap is melting.Now, let's look at the facts. We have 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. We consume 25 percent of the oil in the world. John McCain has voted 20 times in the last decade-and-a-half against funding alternative energy sources, clean energy sources, wind, solar, biofuels.
The way in which we can stop the greenhouse gases from emitting. We believe—Barack Obama believes by investing in clean coal and safe nuclear, we can not only create jobs in wind and solar here in the United States, we can export it.
China is building one to three new coal-fired plants burning dirty coal per week. It's polluting not only the atmosphere but the West Coast of the United States. We should export the technology by investing in clean coal technology.
We should be creating jobs. John McCain has voted 20 times against funding alternative energy sources and thinks, I guess, the only answer is drill, drill, drill. Drill we must, but it will take 10 years for one drop of oil to come out of any of the wells that are going to begun to be drilled.
In the meantime, we're all going to be in real trouble.
Biden’s pretty much dead-on in his entire rebuttal of Palin’s positions on drilling to energy independence and on climate change causes mattering. That’s the good news; the bad news is that he keeps using the words ‘clean coal’. In previous statements, as in this one, he says that the US should be developing technologies to make coal burning less polluting so that they can be exported to countries such as China.
Cleantech transfer is certainly a good thing, but when it comes to coal, the type of cleantech that will deal with the carbon emissions of coal burning has a long way to go before being scalable to the levels needed. If done as anything other than a sideline to massive (more massive than either candidate proposes) investment in renewable energy, focusing on developing carbon capture technology is a distraction from focusing on the imperative of getting away from coal as quickly as possible.
Palin: “Green” Natural Gas?
I have to admit that I involuntarily screamed when I heard this next part, the emphasis is mine:
...people are so hungry for those domestic sources of energy to be tapped into. They know that even in my own energy-producing state we have billions of barrels of oil and hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of clean, green natural gas. And we're building a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline which is North America's largest and most you expensive infrastructure project ever to flow those sources of energy into hungry markets.
Let’s get one thing straight. Compared to petroleum and coal I suppose one could call natural gas clean and green, it does have lower carbon dioxide emissions. But compared to renewable energy sources such as wind or solar, natural gas is in no way clean nor green. It may be a part of our energy mix for a while as the shift to greater renewable usage continues, but Palin’s statement on the green cred of natural gas is simply greenwashing.
Want a complete blow by blow account? Read the :: full Biden-Palin debate transcript.
More on the Energy & Environmental Policy Statements of the Candidates
In case you missed them, you can check out how the energy and environment policy prescriptions on Barack Obama and John McCain compare in a series of posts I’ve been doing of the past few weeks:
My Bottom Line is Green: McCain v. Obama on Renewable Energy
Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel: McCain v. Obama on Offshore Oil Drilling & ANWR
The Nuclear Option: McCain v. Obama on Nuclear Power
It’s Still a Dirty Business: McCain v. Obama on Clean Coal
It’s Still a Dirty Business: McCain v. Obama on Clean Coal
Too Little, Too Late? McCain v. Obama on Global Warming
2008 Elections
Note to Sarah Palin: The Cause of Global Warming Does Matter
Five Questions You Should Ask the Presidential Candidates
What Green Words Are Obama and McCain Really Saying? Ask SpeechWars
B-Love Sustainable Clothing Showcased at IUCN Congress
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Dell's Customers Say: I'll Take the Computer, But Not The Tree
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No, we can't drill our way to energy independence. Nor, can the US government afford to put a Prius in every garage. And, government isn't very good a picking winners (google> corn ethanol). We need government to cooperate with industry and jointly develop the right incentives for individuals and companies to develop innovation that not only moves us closer to energy independence but also helps the US to clean up the environment. Perhaps legislation that makes it easier and more affordable for inventors to patent their inventions, would be good as well.
OK, my father who worked for the EPA says the same thing that Palin says about global warming. And I have to yell at him about this issue.
He says that he does not believe that it is man made, And in the same sentence, he says, but if we lower our emissions, it will help.
OK, what am I stupid? IF it is NOT man made, how can you possibly say that reducing emissions will help?
Man increases emissions = more global warming
Man reduces emissions = less global warming
Man = cause of global warming.
DUH!!
One thing I'd like to see addressed is the changes in infrastructure that are required to switch from an oil-based economy/infrastructure to an electric one. Thousands of rail lines, street cars, and electric buses running off overhead wires need to be built and implemented. There's just no way to produce enough electric cars to maintain our current car-based society, never mind the oil-based inputs even electric cars require: tires, asphalt, plastics, etc. This will cost at least as much, if not more, than building all the solar, wind, and geothermal plants required to replace fossil fuel plants. Where will that money come from? How will you convince the public it's necessary? We need to have this conversation, b/c it's a 20-year project to accomplish.
Palin was just plain bad. She knows very little about the most important issues facing our country. I can't support a ticket with an ill-prepared VP.
Yes, JSDreyer, it is a project of decades, but the alternative is to lose them anyway a little later, as fossil fuels become unaffordable, and later unattainable. No one wants to hear that, but the long term prognosis is clear: use the resources whose supply is independent of time, because ultimately non-renewable resources, even if abundant initially (i.e. 300 years ago), become scarce.
Today, not just the quantity but the quality of oil worldwide (the ratio of light sweet crude to heavier crude) is declining, as is oil's energy balance. If we don't make the necessary investments in non-fossil fuel energy and related infrastructure and R&D now, when there is still enough energy to spare to do it, then when? If we wait until the last drops of recoverable fossil fuels are used up, there simply won't be time to get the job done, and our modern world will collapse.
The only way to convince people to undertake a decades-long project is to show them why it is needed. The benefits will be felt not just now, but for centuries. And the alternative is to court disaster.
Maybe I am picking hairs, but when Biden said "We know what the cause is. The cause is manmade. That's the cause.", did anyone else find it weird that he actually never said a cause? To me it sounds like he is pretending to take a hard line stance without taking one at all.
Also I found it strange when Biden said that by investing in clean coal and safe nuclear we can create jobs in wind and solar.......
Just for argument's sake... Climate changes are natural. Before ya'll come looking for me with pitchforks, it's true, over the geologic history of the earth, there have been periods of warmth and cooling, long before man was here and before we figured out how to burn stuff for heat and power. BUT... we have certainly exacerbated the issue, that is completely manmade and we are completely responsible for this. So... Yes, nature heats and cools the earth, but that doesn't mean we need to add any extra heating elements, right?
Is there an escape? I mean seriously? Someone mentioned all the infrastructure that would be required if we went with electric cars, but what about the electricity? I mean, they say that one electric car would only raise your electric bill by less then 10% if you charged at night/low peak electricity. But what if all 100+ million cars were electric? Where would that load increase come from? Here in the south a huge majority of our energy comes from coal (probably not clean, just to be honest...) so it would seem the savings in carbon would be lost by the increase in energy production. But then we have to remember the massive amount of petroleum products that go into all the actual products we touch on a daily basis, the plastics, the lubricants, the by-products like pesticides.
If you're not careful it gets a little pessimistic at this point. Almost oppressive how hard this stuggle will be. The only way for the majority of the population of the globe to care, much less believe, about a decades long (if not longer) transition is for there to be no other option. I just shudder at how hard this detox will be.