One measure of John McCain's decision to pick Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate can be seen on the governor's biography page on the Alaska state Web site. Or, not seen. There was so much interest -- suddenly -- in the outside-the-Beltway choice, that the servers have, by all appearances, crashed.
The political calculus that led McCain to Palin appears to be that outsider status, in an election year when changing Washington is key; her executive experience, with two major party tickets otherwise chockablock with Senators; and her sex, in an election that has some Hillary Clinton Democrats leaning Republican; and even her age (she was the youngest governor ever elected in Alaska) at a time when Obama's youth and McCain's age have been campaign issues.
From a green perspective, McCain's choice further distances him from the maverick policies that had made him a favorite Republican among environmentalists that typically support Democrats. McCain's early championship of a global warming cap-and-trade bill in the Senate, in 2003, is the hallmark of his environmental credibility. It helped push the GOP's platform to acknowledge the reality of global warming, and to shy away from drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, despite the centrality of offshore drilling to McCain's energy agenda.
Palin, on environmental issues, embodies a distinctly Alaskan perspective. It's a state that has, after all, run on oil royalties and pork-barrel spending from its favorite son, Sen. Ted Stevens, who's been indicted (and nominated for reelection) for allegedly taking bribe-like gifts from an oil services company. When many states are suffering from record deficits, Alaska, like an oil company, is flush: "Our state government coffers are bursting at the seams because 85% to 90% of our budget comes from oil and gas developments," Palin told Investor's Business Daily in July. ...
It's hard not to be a little freaked out by Russia's incursion into Georgia and the new and slippery icy patch it set between the U.S. and our old Cold War adversary.
While I didn't live through under-the-desk air-raid drills, the elementary school in my hometown did proclaim itself a nuclear fallout shelter, and the thought that continent-spanning nations, and not just rogue zealots, are getting back into the game of international belligerence is off-putting, to say the least. (The irony of President Bush's missive against foreign policy "bullying and intimidation" is not lost on me, particularly since our fully-committed military no doubt played a huge strategic role in Russia's decision to use such overwhelming force in Georgia -- but the prospect of some other Superpower, one whose leaders are anointed rather than elected, engaging in bullying and intimidating its way to global hegemony seems even worse.)
But a new war, cold or hot, isn't the only concern we need to have, when it comes to Russia. Consider the climate.
Already, the prospect of a strong new worldwide agreement to curtail greenhouse gas emissions has dimmed by the failure of economic talks, the faltering economy and Bush's longstanding opposition to a United Nations-led effort.
Russia has never had a strong incentive to participate...
Sometimes the dots just don't get connected.
It used to be they might not get connected on the same page of the same newspaper, but now we're more apt to get our news delivered one headline at a lightning flash time. The disconnection can be overwhelming.
The headline today is President Bush Lifts Executive Ban on Offshore Drilling (in the Washington Post's formulation. The reasons cited: High gas prices, and politics. The rationale: Drill more oil domestically, and eventually you get cheaper gas at the pump, and highlight the issue now and you favor Republican John McCain over Democrat Barack Obama in November's presidential election.
The story's a wee bit bigger than that, though.
Start by connecting it to another, smaller story making some news today, Polar base evacuated as ice melts early, in the CNN formulation. Russian researchers abandoned their outpost on an Arctic ice floe more than a month ahead of schedule because the ice is melting so rapidly. Some have predicted the North Pole will go ice-free for the first time in history this summer, a year after the most extensive melt ever witnessed.
Drilling for oil means burning oil, means releasing carbon dioxide means more global warming means more ice melting. Consider those dots connected.
President Bush, while agreeing with world leaders last week that we ought to collectively cut our greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050 (50% from what level? they didn't say), has otherwise kept his administration's hands off the switch and tied behind its back. The capstone of this achievement of stalling came last week, when the EPA announced it would continue to take public comment on the potential health impacts of global warming for a few more months, effectively ensuring that the next president would be the decider when it comes to carbon dioxide regulation.
It was 1990 (2 years after Congress was first warned about global warming, incidentally) that President Bush's father, George H.W. Bush imposed the executive branch ban on offshore drilling. Congress has its own ban, and seems content to keep it.
The decision whether or not to drill for oil off the coast of the United States is a question of long-term strategy, sort of ...
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