Portland, Oregan:

Today, John McCain stakes out the greenest position of any Republican presidential candidate in decades. He’ll visit a wind turbine manufacturer in Portland, Oregon… and put his money where his mouth is with a new ad signaling a new direction on the environment for his party.

“I believe that climate change is real. It’s not just a greenhouse gas issue. It’s a national security issue. We have an obligation to future generations to take action and fix it.”

McCain’s climate change ad highlights his courtship of independents & moderates. He chastises the far left for overreacting to the problem & the far right for being too dismissive of it.

“One extreme thinks high taxes and crippling regulation is the solution. Another denies the problem even exists. There’s a better way.”

In his prepared remarks the Republican party’s fall standard-bearer pronounces the debate over the existence of global warming and mankind’s responsibility…over!

“We know that greenhouse gasses are heavily implicated as a cause of climate change. And we know that among all greenhouse gasses, the worst by far is the carbon-dioxide that results from fossil-fuel combustion.”

In an interview with Fox News he said that it is better to accept that climate change exists and take steps to address it:

done

McCain will lay out specific goals for reducing greenhouse gasses -with a cap & trade program. Industries would be given emission targets (caps.) If they produce less than the targets, they could sell (trade) their surplus polluting capacity to those industries and firms unable to meet their targets.

“By the year 2012, we will seek a return to 2005 levels of emission, by 2020, a return to 1990 levels, and so on until we have achieved at least a reduction of sixty percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050. “

McCain will criticize former President Bill Clinton and current President George W Bush for failing to broker an international climate change agreement years ago.

“I will not shirk the mantle of leadership that the United States bears. I will not permit eight long years to pass without serious action on serious challenges. I will not accept the same dead-end of failed diplomacy that claimed Kyoto. The United States will lead and will lead with a different approach – an approach that speaks to the interests and obligations of every nation.”

He specifically hits China and India, two leading polluters for not doing their part.

“No nation should be exempted from its obligations. And least of all should we make exceptions for the very countries that are accelerating carbon emissions while the rest of us seek to reduce emissions.”

But McCain promises to move the U.S. forward with or without others.

“If the efforts to negotiate an international solution that includes China and India do not succeed, we still have an obligation to act.”

Though the GOP has been turning greener in recent years and President Bush acknowledged man’s role in climate change years ago, skeptics of global climate change remain. Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, last year said:

“the man-made global warming fear machine crossed the ‘tipping point’ in 2007. I am convinced that future climate historians will look back at 2007 as the year the global warming fears began crumbling. The situation we are in now is very similar to where we were in the late 1970’s when coming ice age fears began to dismantle. We are currently witnessing an international awakening of scientists who are speaking out in opposition to former Vice President Al Gore, the United Nations, the Hollywood elitists and the media-driven ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming.”

[source: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, “INHOFE FLOOR SPEECH ON GLOBAL WARMING: 2007 - GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISM REACHES A TIPPING POINT,” October 26, 2007

McCain has his work cut out for him.

To be fair, Hillary Clinton actually rolled into Des Moines’ Drake Diner with General Wesley Clark this morning to court voters and to enjoy some decaf and a fruit cup before heading out on a long 4-stop swing through East Central Iowa today. Chatting up the breakfast crowd, Clinton sounded genuinely excited to hear that one booth would support her on caucus day, and personally passed out supporter cards to each of them.

Bellied up to the counter with Gen Clark and fmr IA Gov Tom Vilsack’s wife Christie, the trio talked about the early caucus date and the difficulty of campaigning over the holidays — though Christie pointed out that since the University of Iowa’s embarrassing loss on Saturday put them out of bowl contention, more fans and students would probably be around on January 3rd to participate.

Hillary also discussed Global Warming with Gen Clark, who’d just been to a conference on the issue in China and said the Chinese were begging for American leadership on climate change. Clinton said she’d hold meetings on emissions with China as President. “You can’t turn and point a finger at China and say ‘oh, just because you missed the industrial revolution we dont want you to grow.’ That’s not the way you actually get their cooperation,” she said.

Later in Knoxville, IA,  she rolled out some new energy policies to help ease the credit crunch in the housing market, and deal with the spike in energy costs during the winter. But she also took the opportunity to take some broad swipes at Barack Obama on his inexperience and on his Social Security plan.

While she didn’t mention Obama by name, she said “there is one job we can’t afford on-the-job training for — our next president… every day spent learning the ropes is another day of rising costs, mounting deficits and growing anxiety for our families.” And she dissed his plan to raise the cap on income taxed for Social Security, which she says amounts to a massive tax hike. “We don’t need more Republican scare tacticts about a ‘Social Security crisis,’” she said. “And we don’t need a trillion dollar tax increase.”

But spokesman Jay Carson was more specific after the speech. On her economic plan, Carson said Hillary “is rolling out policies that he (Obama) doesn’t have.” And on Social Security, he said Obama continues to “spend most of his energy fighting to fix a long term challenge,  and playing into the Republicans hands in the process.”

Los Angeles, CA-

Three presidential candidates: Dennis, Kucinich, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton spoke Saturday at this presidential forum on global warming, and other environmental concerns, and all 3 touted their records on being the greenest candidate. The diminutive Kucinich spoke about his tiny house, and vegan diet as evidence of his higher environmental consciousness , Clinton broadly highlighted her plan to fight global warming, and Edwards offered up details to combat the issue,but pointedly charged that the oil companies had permeated, and poisoned the atmosphere in Washington. Edwards asserted that the oil lobby had made it hard for change on an issue that needs urgent attention. His comments an indirect slap at Clinton who he has said is “part of a system ” of corporate Democrats that essentially cannot take on the massive oil and gas industry because she takes money from them.

“I see the oil and gas companies blocking progress by spending millions of dollars and deploying hundreds of lobbyists in Washington to make sure that America stays addicted to foreign oil and fossil fuels,”JRE said to this enthused, and very green audience at the League of Conservation forum.

Edwards also spoke out against, what he considers, big company media consolidation, specifically targeting Newscorp’s (Fox News’ parent company)Rupert Murdoch.

‘I personally don’t want Rupert Murdoch to own every paper in America, can we do something about media consolidation?”, Edwards said.

A smattering of applause broke out in the media tent I was in. Not surprisingly, the majority of writers, at this global warming forum, seemed to be environmental bloggers.

Here is what Edwards said about his differences on Environmental policy with Senator Clinton during the post-speech media availability:

done

Codepinker Disrupts Hillary

During Clinton’s speech, an anti-war activist disrupted her speech yelling about her “voting for war”.

“Were you invited to speak here this afternoon?”replied the Democratic front-runner to the anti-Iraq war protester, as he was physically escorted out by local and federal police.

Now I have covered Congress in some way over the past 7 years or so, and code pink members are constantly doing this,so for this reporter, not that big of a deal frankly, but the reaction by the authorities , to the press, I thought was over the top. Check this out: As soon as we saw that the protester was being lead out of the theatre, members of the press rushed out to shoot the man being lead away. When we asked him what his name was, one of his police escorts told us to loudly “shut up”, and that press were “not allowed to shoot on federal grounds”. Um really? Since when?

done

Incidentally the Wadsworth Theatre is on the grounds of the West L.A. Department of Veterans Affairs. The “historic “Wadsworth, according to its description on the LA Times website, “ has played host to Broadway shows, concerts, movie premieres, screenings, dance productions and more, is operated by Richmark Entertainment”. Regular Fort Knox.