Barack Obama and John McCain on green energy and global warming

November 2, 10:50 PMGlobal Warming ExaminerJohn Ryden

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Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack
Obama, speaks about his energy policy Monday,
Aug. 4, 2008, in Lansing, Mich.
(AP Photo/Al Goldis)

Who will do more to develop renewable energy in our country and decrease our greenhouse gas emissions? Is it Barack Obama or John McCain?

First up Barack Obama! He promises change! He will bring in a new green energy future that will create 5 million new jobs! But is there any substance behind the campaign promises?

Obama has promised to spend $15 billion per year on renewable energy. He wants to decrease carbon dioxide emissions by 80% in the next 40 years. That means replacing our current investment in energy infrastructure over 40 years. That could be a $15 trillion cost. That is more like $350 billion per year. Where does the extra money come from?

Obama also is a supporter of the coal industry. He favors ‘clean coal’ just like George Bush. Is he going to allow more coal fired electric power plants to be built? He is opposed to nuclear power. What are we going to use to generate electricity? Wind and solar won’t be a big enough contribution to our power requirements over the next four years to provide for all our increased energy requirements and to start replacing our fossil fuels.

Obama favors higher mileage requirements for automobile manufacturers. Our auto manufacturers are currently suffering huge losses from our current recession. Over the past 25 years they have not been able to solve their problems. They don’t have the cars that Americans want to buy. They are fast running out of money. They probably won’t be able to survive without government assistance. [Henry Paulson announced last week that they shouldn’t expect to get any assistance from the Bush administration.]

Obama has been against offshore drilling or developing our oil resources in Alaska (ANWR). Couldn’t the government’s share of revenue from oil development be used to fund renewable energy development?

Barack Obama’s commitment to green energy and fighting global warming does not add up to me. We need energy to drive growth in our economy; even more important now to get us out of our recession.

Ok, now for John McCain. McCain’s energy plan is: All of the Above! He is in favor of any energy development including coal, offshore drilling, nuclear plus wind and solar. He is not, however, in favor of drilling in ANWR, which is strange to me considering his support for everything else.

McCain in the past has voted against support for solar and wind tax credits. Not a lot of commitment there. If we are going to drill for oil on federal land, he has not indicated that he would get our fair share of the revenue from the oil companies and use it for renewable energy.

I just do not see John McCain as doing much more than George Bush is currently doing, which isn’t much.

John McCain also has the problem that if elected president, he would have liberal democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. I just don’t see how we would make much progress on green energy or combating global warming with McCain as president.

So, who to vote for in the election? One of the problems with our economy has been the lack of savings. We have a 0 percent savings rate. We have been growing our economy on credit and the credit balloon just popped. McCain doesn’t seem like he has any new ideas. Obama wants to tax producers and “spread the money around”; which means to me he wants to increase consumption. How is that going to solve our problems?

Based on the above, I wish I had a third choice! The one thing going for Obama is that he is more likely to surprise us, Hopefully for the better.