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Presidential Elections 2008
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| Yes | 60% | 130 votes | Total: 215 votes | |
| No | 40% | 85 votes |
Yes
by David Nuttle
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Add to FavoritesOur next President will follow the Bush "era" with its policies of improperly altering scientific documents to hide solid proof of global warming. The reality was that all those with the most "political payola" payments (significant campaign contributions) were able to influence the White House and Congress to effectively ignore global warming. Such political action helped the major polluters continue high level of global pollution to dramatically increase their profits. Unless this type of corruption is ended, there is not much any President can do to mitigate global warming. A related problem is all the propaganda about global warming really being a hoax. The next President needs to make certain that we all get the scientific facts, without modification for political purposes, while acting to counter false information and propaganda about global warming.
To effectively deal with climate change there are many related issues out next President must be prepared to solve. In the area of diversity/ biodiversity our planet is experiencing the loss of numerous plant and animal species. Increased shortages of water, as well as shortages of food, feed, and habitat contribute to such losses. Desertification and deforestation are becoming increasing problems, and over 1 (one) billion people continue to cut trees and scrubs to make the charcoal they need for cooking and heating. Given the fact that global populations tend to increase, real solutions have been difficult to obtain. We have failed to educate people on the critical need for biodiversity as the underpinning of terrestrial ecosystems. Entire forests are being destroyed for timber or alternative uses of the land. Many plant species are being eliminated before we even discover their real value. Animals are killed in ever increasing numbers to provide exotic animal products, or for sport. In some cases the killing has no known reason, as in the case of 53 sea lions recently murdered on Pinta Island (in the Galapagos Islands).
Wealthy and polically powerful petroleum and coal companies will continue to fight for the right to produce, market, and burn large quantities of fossil fuels that contribute to the greenhouse gas problem, a major part of global warming. By hiring hundreds of lobbyists, and paying millions of dollars in annual "political payola," the petroleum industry has effectively owned the White House and Congress. In 2008, Congress only voted token support for "green" or alternative energy programs while voting $29 billion in subsidies for the petroleum companies making profits at historically high levels. Millions of acreas of land have already been leased to the petroleum companies at mineral lease rates that are pennies on the dollar. The push to give the petroleum companies more mineral leases in Alaska, and for U.S. coastal waters, is little more than a land grab at "bargain basement" prices. One of my sources, at a major petroleum company, tells me that $4 per gallon gasoline prices were planned and programmed (in advance) to achieve public support for such a land grab. Moreover, petroleum companies wanted the public to accept the idea that more drilling is a better energy solution than alternative energy.
On a global basis, many people have observed that the U.S. has effectively ignored the genocide in Darfur, just as we had (or have) ignored the genocide in Cambodia, Rwanda, Laos, and Vietnam. In Laos, we have allowed the communist government to hunt our former Hmong allies like wild animals. Many Hmong had fought and died to support U.S. efforts during the Vietnam War. At the same time, the U.S. ignored the sustained Vietnamese communist campaign of extreme genocide undertaken against the Montagnard of Vietnam. Like the Hmong, the Montagnard lost thousands of their people in the fight to support U.S. causes during the Vietnam War. Our global public sees that the U.S. has not done many of the things that it should have done in the name of humanity, and/or in support of those who sacrificed greatly for us. At the same time, they see that the U.S. invaded Iraq using a "fabricated" excuse of being seriously threatened by mass weapons of destruction. When our global audience is told that the U.S. really invaded Iraq for the oil (petroleum), and this appears to be a true statement as far as most people are concerned.
U.S. policy makers have been unwilling to undertake solutions that could solve the global warming problem, because they believe such measures could damage our economy. Our next President needs to realize that finding effective solutions to global warming may actually create jobs, and greatly improve our economy. We do not think so now because most of us have allowed the petroleum companies to tell us what to think. However, the petroleum monopoly is beginning to fracture. T. Boone Pickens, a petroleum billionaire is now saying that our salvation will be in the form of alternative energy rather than in more drilling. Let us all hope that our next President will also break away from past influences of petroleum companies only interested in their own profits.
Learn more about this author, David Nuttle.
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No
You can't fight "Mother Nature", and to try to shoulder the responsibility of global climate changes on the President of the United States is absurd. The earth has been warming since the end of the ice age, which is millions of years, and that is a fact, and it has nothing to do with presidential policy. Who wrote this question, Al Gore?
What has to be one of the priorities of the next administration is to try to work towards making our country more energy independent. The question here should be, "How can the next President and his staff help the country shift our dependence on foreign oil, and lead our country into becoming energy self sufficient?" As a nation, we should have been working on this for the last forty years, and there are many things we can do right now to start the process.
Our country runs on petroleum, and it would be impossible to suddenly stop using oil. The computer you are using right now is mostly a petroleum product. All plastics are produced from oil. How many things in your home can you think of that do not have some plastic in them? All of your appliances have plastic parts, your television has a lot of plastic, and so do all of your phones. Your house may have vinyl siding on it, another petroleum product. We could not exist or manufacture anything without petroleum. Our cars and trucks all run on petroleum products in the form of gasoline and diesel. Even the handful of electric vehicles in the country which run on batteries need to be charged by producing electricity by the way of burning petroleum products. Trying to switch to ethanol doesn't work because of the expense of producing it, and at the same time it raises food costs. We're trying to burn in our cars what normally would be a food staple.
So how do we solve the problem of dependence on foreign oil? The answer will come from technological developments, an area in which this country has always led the way. In the short term, we must maximize the oil reserves which are available to us right here in this country, and off our own shores. Wouldn't it be much better for us to extract our own oil in a much cleaner and safer manner than importing it from other countries? It's just common sense. We will continue to need oil in the foreseeable future, so why not use resources available to us within our own country? We can do it better and cleaner than any other country, making for a much cleaner environment for the entire world. It would also ease the strangle hold which we now find ourselves in by having to deal with countries which are laughing at us for not using what we have within our own borders. Instead we are empowering what are basically third world countries by buying what we need from them. They don't care how they get the oil out of the ground, or how they are harming the environment, and apparently neither do we, because we continue to buy it from them instead of using our own oil.
Another source of power which is safe and clean is nuclear power. That's how most of the power needs in Europe are met. We have the technology and know how, so what is standing in our way? It is the environmentalists which are halting progress with their scare tactics, and this the next president must put a halt to. We must drill for our own oil and build more nuclear plants, there really is no way around it. The only thing standing in the way right now is congress acquiescing to the strong environmental lobbyists. This is something that the next administration can put a stop to.
We also have vast natural reserves of coal and natural gas. These resources can be safely and cleanly extracted from the ground and used. Again, it is the environmentalists who stand in the way. You can blame them for the position which we presently find ourselves in.
Solar power is also a very promising technology. I recently visited a neighbor's home which had been converted to solar power, and it was completely self sufficient. They have zeroed out their electric bill, and in the winter, they use electric heaters, all by installing solar voltaic electric panels on their roof. The power they now use to heat and light their home is free, clean, and there is an infinite supply. George W. Bush has also done the same thing to his ranch in Texas. He also drives a pick-up truck which runs on hydrogen. Now that's something which you won't read about in the main stream media.
T. Boone Pickens wants to develop wind power, another good idea, and the technology is already there to do it. Again, it is the environmentalists who stand in the way. They wanted to put a windmill farm in Long Island sound in New York, but the environmentalists claimed it would be an eyesore, and harmful to the sea life. More tree hugging baloney.
As far as the President being able to control the climate, it really is too laughable an idea to be taken seriously, but the next president can move us towards energy independence and a cleaner environment. Barack Obama has said "no" to drilling for oil, "no" to nuclear power, and "no" to coal and natural gas. He thinks we should all over-inflate the tires on our cars and maybe get a tune up. Vote in November for the only sane choice, and together, we can achieve energy independence.
Learn more about this author, Barry Girolamo.
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