John McCain Announces Climate Change Tour; America Scratches its Head

GOP presidential candidate John McCain announced on “The Chris Matthews Show” last weekend that he’s planning a climate change tour. Our question is, what does he aim to do exactly – speed up climate change? Make it worse? Tell people it’s not real? Surely he doesn’t expect us to believe that he’ll be as effective at promoting awareness of climate change, or actually doing anything about it if he were to be elected President (OMG, please, no!).

Well, at least according to him, McCain does intend to talk to his base about climate change, which he claims to feel ‘passionately’ about. He knows that it won’t be a popular subject with Republicans, but is hoping to get the message out regardless. The funny thing is, nobody is going to take John McCain seriously on climate change – for many reasons.

From Salon.com:

While McCain may understand the scale of the climate problem, he does not appear to understand the scale of the solution. He understands the country needs to put in place a mandatory cap on GHG emissions and a trading system to energize American innovation. But in a recent Republican debate, he denied that a cap and trade system is a mandate, even though it would arguably be the most far-reaching government mandate ever legislated.

Moreover, like most conservatives, he doesn’t understand or accept the critical role government must play to make that system succeed.

…Avoiding catastrophic climate change will require sweeping legislation that covers every sector of the economy. A McCain-stacked court led by Chief Justice Roberts will rule against any ambiguous or incomplete laws regulating GHG emissions in the commercial, industrial, utility, residential, transportation or agricultural sectors. That in turn will force Congress to write laws that are detailed and specific, but that are also overly intrusive, overly prescriptive, less flexible, less capable of stimulating innovation and hence politically unpopular.

These are just a few reasons why anything that McCain has to say about global warming is a bunch of crap. If he becomes president, we can undoubtedly expect the same kind of progress on climate change initiatives as we’ve had under the Bush administration. The people who would be appointed to his cabinet, more likely than not, would be global warming skeptics. That makes work toward solutions an impossible task. So basically, anything McCain has to say about climate change is a bunch of B.S., though he’ll undoubtedly use it to appeal to moderates and claim that he’s forward-thinking. Bah! Let’s hope he never has a chance to prove us wrong.

Link [Examiner] + [Salon]

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

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