Green Options

Obama and McCain agree on the goals of energy and climate policy. Both candidates acknowledge global warming is man-made and advocate a mandatory cap-and-trade policy in the United States for dealing with carbon emissions — something the Bush administration opposes. They’re also largely in agreement over reducing oil consumption and investing in new energy technologies.

Just over two weeks ago, we announced the Red, Green and Blue/ReframeIt scavenger hunt for details and background on Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s energy and environmental policy proposals. Then the economy went to hell… so we’re offering a little economic stimulus of our own.

Clean coal has been getting a lot of attention lately. Both Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama consider it to be an important piece in their energy plans. Even the recent $900 billion bailout package included $1.5 billion for clean coal. Because coal is so plentiful and relatively cheap in the US, the notion of clean coal is particularly appealing. Unfortunately, clean coal is a myth.

Here’s why clean coal is so dirty:

1. Clean Coal Requires More Coal

30% more energy is required to pump carbon underground for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). The captured carbon dioxide has to be compressed to 100 times the atmospheric pressure, transferred to an underground storage reservoir and then pumped in the ground. All of this requires large amounts of energy, thus the coal plant must burn an additional 30% more coal to generate the same amount of usable electricity.

With only four weeks to go until Election Day (November 4th if you’ve been living under a rock), now seems like an excellent time to check in and see how the candidates are faring.

On the heels of our first RG&B debate poll conducted to gauge public opinion on the first and only vice-presidential debate, we’ve decided to follow up with a poll for the top of the ticket.

Sarah Palin dismisses alternative energy in favor of a pipeline built by God.

More on Palin >>

From Think Progress

Palin’s First Statewide Campaign Was Fueled By Veco. “While mayor of Wasilla, Palin ran for lieutenant governor in 2002. She gathered $5,000 — or about 10 percent of her campaign fund — from Veco officials or their wives along the way.” [Anchorage Daily News, 9/6/06]

Palin’s Inauguration Was Sponsored By [...]

Guest contributor Pamela Price is the founder of Red, White & Grew, a blog devoted to “Promoting the Victory Garden Revival and other simple, earth-friendly endeavors as bipartisan, patriotic acts in an age of uncertainty.”

If you’re a regular Eat.Drink.Better. reader, then you’re probably familiar with the clever, non-partisan Eat The View initiative to put vegetable gardens in high profile places like the White House lawn.

With the economy and the forthcoming presidential election top-of-mind, a status report seemed in order. After all, we will very soon have an answer to just who may receive the petition to restore the White House victory garden at the very moment in which tens of millions of people may be thinking about gardening as a means of survival.

In short, we Americans need Eat The View to succeed!

Let’s say you’re a politician, and you have a policy you want to push to the public. How do you get the backing?

You turn to semantics.

Do you call it a bailout or a rescue plan? Invasion of privacy or the Patriot Act? A War on Terror or an invasion of a country that doesn’t possess WMD? Do you say we’re looking for oil independence or to drill in ANWR? Do you call it global warming, admitting that the earth is indeed warming, or do you call it climate change?

Throughout this campaign, McCain has been claiming that he is Mr. Renewable Energy, but the Senator’s record says something completely different.

Sound familiar?  Unless you’ve had your head stuck in the sand for the past couple of months, you’ve heard variations on this statement from both Barack Obama and John McCain… countless times. High gas and utility prices have collided with a stagnant economy,  and energy issues (and the environmental issues accompanying them) have come to the front and center of the ‘08 election cycle.

My colleagues at Red, Green and Blue have done a thorough job of covering the policy proposals of the presidential candidates. But the devil’s in the details, and NPR’s Talk of the Nation: Science Friday held a fascinating discussion last week on the issues that aren’t being covered in the political rhetoric: namely, the economic and technological challenges that both government and the private sector will have to address to get us to a clean energy future. Host Ira Flatow, New York University professor emeritus of physics Martin Hoffert, and Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in energy studies and associate director of the energy program at Rice University Amy Myers Jaffe took a look at the bigger picture of our energy challenges, and the kinds of leadership a new presidential administration will have to exert in order to facilitate rapid, even revolutionary, changes in how we power ourselves.

Among the questions raised during the discussion:

The dual focus on foreign policy and the financial crisis crowded out any discussion of energy and the environment. Whenever the candidates tried to talk about energy policies, the moderator immediately tried to change the subject.