Running for Office on Climate Change?

Specifics, please?

What is fascinating is that neither party has actually decided to confront climate change in a real and significant manner.  What happened is that they have agreed to keep that topic out of the debates, the rhetoric and any significant proposals. Ignoring any technological advances, that would have allowed one of the other candidate to achieve hero status for very little effort by endorsing local energy projects or technologies that would benefit broad spectrums of their bases, the candidates are forging ahead on a rigid “business as usual” mainstream message.

To start with the posturing is not only universal but the messages are identical, culminating in the Democrat’s Green New Deal which does not contain any new or useful programs or ideas. It has all been said before with less hype and more thought with a notable exception in that the GND actually takes us away from the real pioneers in climate change and poses a significant threat to actually implementing the changes in time to avert what every climatologist, ecologist and politician on the forefront of this slow moving disaster are telling us. By promoting and expressing concern, the universal thoughts and prayers, they are ensuring inactivity at the national level and allowing the less informed to push their own weak spot remedies like PV panels and electric cars as band aids for gigantic shifts in energy options. Incumbents in office pass significant legislation and create mythical realities that will be subject to overturns since some reach all the way to 2050 for implementation. A typical reaction from a reader goes like this to support the democratic candidate Bernard Sanders:

“Sanders has been working towards broad and impactful climate legislation since his first year in the Senate, when he passed a national energy efficiency program grant, which dedicated $3.2 billion to energy efficiency standards and programs. He managed to have it passed as part of Obama’s economic recovery package during the recession, and it was the largest investment the US had ever made towards energy efficiency. In addition, the Green New Deal’s main point is that it factors the climate into every aspect of policy going forward. Bernie has fought ardently to include the topic of climate change in the debates and even called for a climate only debate.”

Republicans fare no better, although vociferous in their defense of the environment, their ideas and programs are aimed mostly at maintaining the status quo while cleaning up, at a later date, the methods used to provide energy. The insane defense of the coal efforts are an infamous case in point, along with the clean fracked gas effort and the proliferation of deep oil wells and pipelines targeting national parks and water tables are not climate change averting ideas.

Keep reading on the next pages for perfect solutions for the wrong problems, hydrogen edges closer to mainstream, and more.