There is a myth being perpetuated by the media that there would be little difference between a McCain and Obama presidency on the issue of climate change. It has been soundly debunked today.
On the official draft official Republican platform for the 2008 election:
The first thing that’s scratched out is “Global Warming and” at the top of a section that used to read “Global Warming and Environmental Protection.” The energy subcommittee — whose task is to draft energy- and environmental-policy language of which the full Republican Platform Committee can approve — decided to strike the phrase “global warming” anywhere it appeared in the document, either replacing it with the more neutral “climate change,” or removing it altogether.
None of [the delegates] was happy with the first paragraph of the global-warming climate-change section, particularly the line, “Increased atmospheric carbon has a warming effect on the earth.” Nor did they think the paragraph was specific enough when it called for “measured and reasonable steps today” to mitigate the consequences of climate change.
The chair and co-chair of the subcommittee told the delegates with the biggest concerns to work together on alternative language rather than file a bunch of separate amendments. “Essentially, we re-wrote the first paragraph,” says the delegate I talked to. “We decided to strike the whole thing and come up with something better.”
The new version dropped the sentence that attributed warming to human activity. It also added a line after “measured and reasonable steps” that stated, “Any policies should be global in nature, based on sound science and technology, and should not harm the economy.“
[Emphasis mine, strikeout author's.]
It seems Steve Forbes was telling the truth. There will be no meaningful action taken on climate change under a McCain presidency.
Who could have seen that coming?
[Edited, this is the draft version, not the "official" version]
[LATE UPDATE: It's official.]
3 responses so far ↓
HankRoberts // August 27, 2008 at 7:48 pm |
Ah, code words: “sound science” is one of them, as warned of by the public health journals. Have a look here:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?sourceid=Mozilla-search&q=%22sound+science%22+
Brian D // September 4, 2008 at 6:06 pm |
These guys are masters of deja fu — hitting you with the same moves so hard it knocks you into last week, and you’re stuck debunking talking points for a second time instead of making progress.
Case in point: Recall the Luntz memo. (Link unavailable, looking for new mirror. Have offline version if folks want.) How much of this is straight out of there? (Hint: If your answer’s lower than 80%, play again.)
thingsbreak // September 5, 2008 at 9:20 am |
@Brian D:
This link works for me [PDF].