Election 2008 The environment Warming up to the environmental debate

Author: Bill McKibben, Scholar-in-Residence

For a while, it looked as if the 2008 presidential election might be one of the first to really tackle the single biggest problem facing the planet, the threat of runaway global warming. With the Arctic now an island for the first time in human history (and long before); with drought and flood increasing dramatically as hydrological cycles start to tilt; and with oil prices rising rapidly as supplies dwindle, it seemed the perfect moment for a serious debate on energy and climate.

And John McCain and Barack Obama seemed the best duo to have that debate. McCain was out in front of almost all his GOP Senate colleagues in addressing global warming - after he was dogged by student protesters in New Hampshire during his 2000 bid, he returned to Washington and held hearings that produced the first attempt at even modest legislation. I spent a couple of days in Washington interviewing him at that time, and was impressed with his candor. Meanwhile, Obama responded to protesters of his own - after last year's nationwide StepItUp demonstrations, organized primarily by Middlebury students, he signed on to the call for 80 percent carbon reductions by 2050.

Unfortunately, the debate has yet to materialize. Partly that's because the media has focused attention elsewhere, rarely raising the issue in debates. And partly it's because McCain has steadily backed away from his aggressive stance. Though his Website continues to say that he views global warming as our primary environmental challenge, he has endorsed (like Hillary Clinton) a 'gas tax holiday' to drive down the price of fuel and dampen the price signal sent by dwindling supplies. He has also appointed a vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, who has said she is unsure if human beings even cause climate change (which is a problematic stance, since if we're not causing it, it's hard to imagine how we could slow it down). The floor of the Republican National Convention last month was crowded with adults chanting "Drill, Baby, Drill," which in a global warming context really is another way of saying "Burn, Baby, Burn."

Obama, meanwhile, has been more straightforward. Despite a continued weakness for so-called 'clean coal,' especially when giving speeches in the Appalachian mining states, he's mostly advanced a platform of strong action on global warming. Earlier this month he endorsed the innovative SkyTrust program, which would charge the big energy companies for the right to emit carbon dioxide and send a check to each American ever year for their share of the proceeds - a scheme that has some hope of maintaining broad political support for higher energy prices in the years ahead. Such straightforwardness makes Obama the obvious choice on climate issues, and is the reason I joined Environmentalists for Obama.

But both candidates will need a healthy push from the populace if they're going to make real progress on this most difficult of issues. In particular, they need to be persuaded to take a real lead on the upcoming international negotiations, the kind of talks the U.S. has boycotted for the last eight years. 350.org, led by recent Middlebury graduates, will next month launch a campaign to get people from across the country and around the world to send invitations to each candidate, urging them to come if elected to international meetings scheduled for Poland in December. That would be a real chance to demonstrate their intent to lead, not follow, on this most crucial question.