GOP Presidential Campaign: McCain Cancels, Palin Chokes

Along with the Presidential candidates' stances on energy and economy, we need to evaluate their character, intelligence and decision-making skills. If elected, will they do what they say they will do? Are they smart enough to make the right choices? How do they answer probing questions under pressure? McCain and running-mate Palin have not fared well in these areas. Some of their shortcomings have been revealed during the past week in news interviews and commentaries, and also by comedians.

John McCain canceled his appearance on David Letterman's "Late Show" in NYC just hours before he was slated to tape the show on Sept. 24. Letterman said that McCain phoned him to cancel because he suspended his campaign to race back to Washington in order to save the economy. HOWEVER, during the Letterman taping, McCain appeared live in NYC on the CBS "Evening News" with Katie Couric. As only Letterman could get away with, he cut to the CBS "Evening News" during his show to demonstrate McCain's hypocrisy. Click Here for the video.

In addition to thoroughly blasting McCain for lying his way out of his scheduled appearance, Letterman continued turning the screws using his Top 10 List entitled "Questions People Are Asking The McCain Campaign", now that it had been suspended. Number 10 was my favorite: "I just contributed to your campaign--How do I get a REFUND?"

McCain didn't have to worry about the suspended presidential campaign. His second-in-command, running-mate Sarah Palin, was out stumping...and stumbling. Palin, the darling of the GOP, told Katie Couric in a news interview that the financial bailout is about healthcare reform, job creation, spending reductions, reducing taxes, and, oh yeah, trade too...Unbelievable! To see it for yourself, and hear Jack Cafferty's cutting comments, Click Here.

Fortunately, Saturday Night Live's Tina Fey did not suspend impersonating Sarah Palin. Fey mocked Palin's interview with Katie Couric (SNL's Amy Poehler), and talked about Palin's trip to NYC, her comments about Russia, and the financial bailout. Many of her funniest lines were not the work of comedy writers, but were direct quotes from Palin's original interview! The full SNL video is HERE.

By week's end, McCain did not save the economy by racing off to Washington. He reversed his "decisions" about suspending his campaign until the financial bailout was resolved and canceling the debate with Obama in Mississippi, and ended up traveling to the debate. Obama reacted in a more calm and consistent manner to the financial bailout: he traveled to Washington to meet with the President and McCain, but stood by his decision to hold the debate regardless of the outcome on the bailout. All in all, McCain's decisions about his campaign, including its suspension as well as his choice of Palin as Vice President, were hardly of presidential quality.

It's time to get serious about the upcoming Presidential AND Vice Presidential Election! McCain lacks good judgement and decision-making skills. Palin, potentially a "72 year old's heartbeat away" from inheriting the Presidency, is totally out to lunch. In a Face the Nation interview today, Obama wisely left the judgement of Palin's qualifications up to us, the voters. Do the right thing for America and for a clean energy economy in the upcoming election. Elect Senator Obama as President along with Senator Biden as Vice President on November 4.

[UPDATE, Oct.18: McCain appears on the Letterman show to beg forgiveness for the earlier cancellation. He get's grilled by Letterman, who exposes McCain's negative campaign and his association with Gordon Liddy. Click here]

Coal Power: Clean and Green?

While traveling along Interstate 70 in Pennsylvania, I saw several billboards like the one shown here. The message reads: "Welcome to Coal Country. COAL. Pennsylvania's #1 fuel for Electricity. NOW Clean and Green with New Technologies".

Amazing! Coal power is not only Clean, but also Green? Really? Ironically, one of the billboards was sited right in front of a wind farm! The wind turbine blades were spinning around, generating REAL Clean and Green Electricity. No need for a billboard advertising clean and green wind power when you've got the real thing! Big Coal is funding ads for the clean & green coal myth in order to remain in power, in more ways than one. Who are they fooling?

I don't know about you, but my image of coal is quite different than that portrayed by the coal power industry and their advocates. Everything about coal is dirty, and certainly not green: from extraction (including mountaintop removal, mining, and toxic runoff into waterways), to transportation (CO2 emissions plus coal dust from open railroad cars), incineration (massive CO2 emissions plus mercury, oxides of sulfur and nitrogen causing smog and acid rain, ozone pollution) and waste disposal. The photo of the two coal miners portrays some of the realities of coal...Not clean, Not green. Everything about coal is also Not healthy for people and other living things.

Coal power is on the way out, and renewable energy is moving in. Al Gore recently raised the bar on the clean energy time-line, calling for 100% renewable energy within 10 years. The coal industry is desperately fighting this sort of thinking, and is struggling to clean up its act and even trying to green it's image. Don't buy it. There's no such thing as clean coal power, and there never will be. And coal will be green...when pigs can fly.

A transition to 100% renewable energy would mean that coal miners will loose their jobs. Aware of that important concern, Al Gore said "We should guarantee good jobs in the fresh air and sunshine for any coal miner displaced by impacts on the coal industry. Every single one of them." I agree wholeheartedly.

Sustainability & Global Warming: Get It?

Once we've sucked out all of the oil and natural gas from under the land and the sea floors, blown up every mountaintop and stripped the Earth of all of it's coal, burned all of the oil, gas and coal, and reached 1000 parts per million CO2, enjoy the weather because our planet will be transformed from a magnificent globe inhabited by billions of people and other living things to something that looks like THIS.

Tom Toles Gets It!

A major problem for us and for future generations is that our old fossil fuel economy is not sustainable and can't prosper without polluting and destroying the planet. We need to transition to a clean energy economy that will create new jobs in support of renewable energy sources that don't pollute the planet. Unfortunately, not everyone gets it.

Put a Price on Global Warming Pollution

People take action when prices increase. With rising gasoline prices, people react by driving less, using more mass transit, carpooling, biking and moving from over-sized SUV's to smaller, fuel-efficient cars and gas-electric hybrids. In response to public demand to use less gasoline and save money, U.S. automakers are finally taking action to increase the fuel efficiency of their fleet. Suddenly, GM plans to close four SUV and truck plants, increase production of compact and mid-size sedans, and offer an electric hybrid in 2010. Now that's rapid change that will reduce global warming pollution and help stabilize the climate. [click image to enlarge]

Utility, coal and oil companies will also take action on global warming pollution when they have to pay for it. As long as polluting the air is free, they will continue to spew out global warming pollution and other pollutants that negatively affect the health of people and the planet. Putting a price on polluting the air is the only way to stop it. When the government enacts a sufficiently high price for polluting the air, pollution will go down. Investments will then move toward alternative energy sources that don't pollute the air.

It's time to put a price on carbon emissions that cause global warming and climate change. Scientists recommend emission cuts of 80% by 2050. To achieve this target, companies that profit by polluting our air must pay. New legislation is being proposed that will help compensate consumers for increases in energy costs and facilitate the transition to clean energy sources.

Markey Announces iCAP Climate Bill

WASHINGTON (May 28, 2008) – Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, introduced a revolutionary new bill that would reduce global warming pollution according to scientific targets, reinvest any revenue back to American workers and technology, and would establish America as a leader in solving climate change.

The bill offers a new paradigm for global warming legislation: the Cap-and-Invest system. It caps pollution at 85 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. It uses an auction system that sets a price on carbon, and allows companies to compete for reductions, or buy or trade credits within the system. It then takes the $8 Trillion in revenues expected from polluters over the length of the bill, and reinvests that money back to American families and workers and into promoting a clean energy economy.

The “Investing in Climate Action and Protection Act” (iCAP Act) amends the Clean Air Act to establish an economy-wide cap-auction-and-trade system that adheres to five core principles:

• Reduce U.S. global warming pollution by 85 percent by 2050, the necessary U.S. contribution to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping gases and avoid dangerous global warming.
• Auction pollution allowances, instead of giving them free-of-charge to polluters, to avoid windfall profits for polluters, ensure fairness and effectiveness, and reduce social costs.
• Return over half of auction proceeds to low- and middle-income households to help compensate for any increase in energy costs as a result of climate legislation.
• Invest the remaining auction proceeds in programs that will further reduce the costs of climate policy, spur the development of advanced low-carbon technologies, grow the U.S. economy, and address unavoidable impacts of climate change.
• Include policies that will encourage major-emitting developing countries, like China and India, to take comparable action to reduce global warming pollution to protect the competitiveness of U.S. industry.
  

A video of Rep. Markey announcing the climate legislation is here.
An executive summary of the legislation here, and a report from 1Sky is here.

Plug-in Prius: Mayor of Minneapolis

The Mayor of Minneapolis drives a plug-in hybrid. The plug-in conversion of a standard Prius hybrid was done by A123 Systems. The mayor says he gets 70MPG in his driving, and A123 claims up to 150MPG in city driving. Check out this video of the Mayor and his Cool car.