CAMPAIGN 2008
Evan Thomas
The Green Phantom
Global warming's curious absence as a campaign issue.
In the summer of 2006 I went to see Congressman Rahm Emanuel, who was running the Democrats' successful effort to regain control of the House of Representatives. I had been reading a great deal about global warming in the mainstream press ("Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid" warned Time). So I asked Emanuel, how are the environment and global warming playing out there in the heartland? Is it stirring voters? No, he replied. In the 2006 congressional elections global warming was virtually a nonissue, he said, a low-priority item way behind the war and the economy and old staples like education and health care. Global warming is an issue for the elites, he said, not for the average voter.
That's still true. The mainstream media continues to write urgently about global warming. Last month NEWSWEEK asked on its cover which candidate will be the most green. On Sunday the New York Times Magazine produced a special issue on how to reduce your carbon footprint-from changing your light bulbs to walking more to eating "slow food." Any reader of old-line mainstream media-the traditional news source of the upper middle class-would think that the country is rallying to a crisis.
But the disconnect persists. National polls show that the environment ranks fairly low as an issue that moves voters. In the Pennsylvania primary global warming was such a peripheral issue that exit pollsters did not even bother to measure voter attitudes toward it. Many younger voters wish the candidates would talk more about global warming. But most voters worry more about jobs and keeping fuel cheap. Aside from speaking in broad generalities and making vague promises, the candidates steer away from involved debate on global warming. (Enabled, it should be said, by political reporters. Of the more than 3,000 questions asked in the more than 20 presidential debates, fewer than 10 mentioned global warming.)
There is an enormous class divide on the subject. The chattering classes obsess about greenhouse emissions. The rest of the country, certainly the older and less well-off voters, can't be bothered. Slow food to most people means that the waitress at the local IHOP is falling behind. The politicians duck the issue, or so it seems.
It may be, though, that the politicians know something they are not saying-and that the green-conscious upper classes do not wish to confront. Making a serious dent in global warming would be hugely costly. Fueled by population growth and a growing prosperity in underdeveloped parts of the world, greenhouse emissions will more than double by 2050, according to most estimates. About three-quarters of the growth will come in developing countries like China and India that, for understandable reasons, are not about to forgo economic growth at a time when their average citizen still consumes about a fifth as much energy as the average American.
President Bush talks about cutting the rate of growth by 20 percent or so. But that won't do much to keep the temperatures down or the seas from rising. Other politicians posture. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger boasts of a plan to drastically cut his state's greenhouse emissions. But he doesn't spell out how this goal can be achieved.
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Member Comments
Posted By: jimbo3800 @ 05/04/2008 11:06:01 PM
Comment: Well said, and RIGHT ON!
Yes, it became 'Climate Change' this past winter when most of both North America and Europe had record snowfalls. Oops, that didn't fit the liberal, activist pre-defined 'template', so now the weenies are scrambling to change global warming to climate change....LOL, they are laughable.
People who fall for this nonsense are sheep.
Posted By: jimbo3800 @ 05/04/2008 11:02:30 PM
Comment: Terrific post, and spot on.
I am more than a little tired of these 'slacktivists' who espouse causes that you know damn well they will not live up to themselves.
Posted By: Lee Holmes @ 04/29/2008 3:22:34 PM
Comment: But no sacrifices by the Evan Thomas'of the world. [who you can bet did not suffer either when Muslims were killing each other in riot firestorms touched off by his fake ''Koran-flushing''tales at GTMO]. In much the same vein,nobody likes it when Eastern liberal media nabobs troll out ''sacrifice''stories expecting all and sundry except themselves to engage in said ''sacrifice''. Thomas speaks of ''serious wartime sacrifice'' Very well.
Beginning in 1942, American automobile makers shut down manufacture of private vehicles to sustain the larger war effort at the behest of the Roosevelt administration. FORD,for instance,made the SHERMAN tank,which underwent five design changes in only three short years.
Thus it remains not only possible,but eminantly practical,to focus upon automobile manufacturing nationalization rather than this nonsense over nationalizing oil companies as peddled by the Left. Here is why. Cars are not consumables,unlike oil. Neither do American-made vehicles suffer from the environmental constraints placed upon oil exploration. While we have built several American automotive plants in the last thirty years,not one single new refinery has been constructed,nor is FORD or GM going to opt for an ANWR vehicle factory any time soon. This leaves in place a recipe that even a ponytailed socialist can find favour with.
All vehicles that have no credible use as major commerce transportation,farming,construction,defense,or law enforcement needs,will be confined to the purchase of vehicles representing only three vehicle options,none of which will be SUVs,high-perfomarnce ''muscle''cars, or large-series trucks. FOCUS and AVEO-style compacts,sub-compacts,smaller wagons,and sedans will be the vehicles du jour to be driven by a American generation that believes ''sacrifice''is a baseball term. I find little sense to be made of Green-pitching NEWSWEEK webpage mastheads that carry,right across their enviro-articles,advertisements for GMs massive ESCALADE which ponies up about 12 MPG. Thus the question begs. Do we need sustainable oil prices? Or more glam types[who all live in ThomasLand], tooling around in ESCALADES? Make the choice. Merely beating up on ''Big Oil''[which makes less profits than Bill Gates MICROSOFT],will not get the job done.