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pnwmom

(108,925 posts)
Mon Jul 4, 2016, 11:57 PM Jul 2016

Carol Browner: "Accusations that the Clinton Campaign isn't serious about climate change

are absurd."


http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/democratic-party-platform-debate-hillary-clinton-213998

Last Friday, the drafting committee met in St. Louis to debate amendments to this platform. We worked together to create a draft that was even stronger than it had been that morning, with new shared goals and ideas. As a representative of Clinton’s campaign, I was proud that we came together as Democrats to articulate the boldest climate vision ever to appear in our party’s platform. And the allegation that the Clinton team is not fully committed to solving climate change is absurd.

Here’s what happened: The Sanders campaign’s representatives put forward nine amendments on climate and energy. We worked together to turn four into “unity amendments” representing common ground, including an amendment opposing utilities’ efforts to undermine renewables; an amendment asking the Department of Justice to investigate whether fossil fuel companies misled their shareholders; and a bold commitment to power our economy with 100 percent clean energy by mid-century. As a regular bicyclist—and the daughter of a pedestrian who was killed on a residential street—I was pleased to support the amendment Sanders representative Bill McKibben introduced to strengthen bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure.

SNIP

But debating the merits of different policy solutions is quite different from setting up a litmus test for what it takes to be “serious” about climate change. And that is what the Sanders campaign and its representatives have done, claiming that the Democratic platform falls short because it does not include their preferred amendments to enact a carbon tax and immediately ban all oil and gas production through hydraulic fracturing.

If we were to accept that a carbon tax and a fracking ban are the only “right” policies, every state that we consider a climate leader would fail the test. California has some of the most ambitious climate targets in the country, with a governor and state legislature that support climate action. But as the pioneering chair of their Air Resources Board, Mary Nichols, told our committee, California uses a range of standards, incentives and other tools to meet its climate targets—because that is what the state’s leaders find most effective. They have decided to regulate fracking, rather than ban it outright. They put a price on carbon, but through a cap-and-trade program, not a carbon tax. Even Sanders’ home state of Vermont does not have a carbon tax.

In short, we have more than two tools at hand. And it's a good thing, because there is no single, magic lever that will solve this crisis. Climate change will impact every corner of our country and every sector of our economy. It will affect everything from our national security to our children’s health. There are no simple solutions to challenges as complex as this one.


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Kelvin Mace

(17,469 posts)
1. Serious about climate change means
Tue Jul 5, 2016, 12:50 AM
Jul 2016

No fracking.

No more drilling in coastal waters, ANWR, or the polar ice caps.

Shutting down coal-fired plants.

Manhattan Project-like move to renewables.

These are the minimums. Anything short of this is not serious.

pnwmom

(108,925 posts)
2. Bernie thinks he has the only serious plan. He's wrong.
Tue Jul 5, 2016, 01:11 AM
Jul 2016

Others, including Governor Brown in California, think there should be multiple approaches taken by the states. And they included all the ideas in the Democratic platform -- not just Bernie's.

Hekate

(90,189 posts)
5. Bernie is not the be-all and end-all on every topic, including climate change.
Tue Jul 5, 2016, 04:15 AM
Jul 2016

A party platform is a set of basic principles arrived at by compromise, not a Christmas list written by one person. I know compromise is not Bernie's thing, but that is how it is -- and he is getting an awful lot of his wish list as it is.

 

Kelvin Mace

(17,469 posts)
11. You cannot "compromise" with climate
Tue Jul 5, 2016, 10:58 AM
Jul 2016

The reality of the biosphere is non-negotiable. Either we make substantial cuts to carbon emissions, or we irrecoverably alter the climate to something quite hostile to human life.

Physics could give a rat's ass about politics.

Nay

(12,051 posts)
10. This. ^^^
Tue Jul 5, 2016, 10:35 AM
Jul 2016

Anything else is just the usual lip-flapping bullshit. Everyone's ox must be gored for some of the human race to even get through the next 100 years, but politicians are still acting like they can do a few flashy (but inoffensive) dance moves to "address" climate change. Uh-uh.

But we'll find out shortly what our inability to be sensible will cost us. Won't be pretty. But I'm sure a bunch of rich people and warmongers will get rich over it in the short term and be our masters until the day the blackness closes in on them as well.

 

Kelvin Mace

(17,469 posts)
12. People really don't want to see
Tue Jul 5, 2016, 11:03 AM
Jul 2016

A change of 3 feet in sea level puts a Hell of a lot of the coastal U.S. in peril. Without prompt and substantial cuts to emissions we are looking at 9 feet, which displaces about a billion people worldwide.

That is catastrophic war, famine, pestilence, and choking in our own poison.

BlueMTexpat

(15,349 posts)
6. All or nothing too often = nothing.
Tue Jul 5, 2016, 07:40 AM
Jul 2016

That's what too many BoBers do not understand ... and do not WANT to understand. For them, purity trumps pragmatic practicality.

From your link ...

But debating the merits of different policy solutions is quite different from setting up a litmus test for what it takes to be “serious” about climate change. And that is what the Sanders campaign and its representatives have done, claiming that the Democratic platform falls short because it does not include their preferred amendments to enact a carbon tax and immediately ban all oil and gas production through hydraulic fracturing.
 

Kelvin Mace

(17,469 posts)
13. The difference bewteen what the GOP wants and what the Dems want is the difference
Tue Jul 5, 2016, 11:06 AM
Jul 2016

between driving off a cliff at 100 mph and driving off a cliff at 40 mph.

We need jamming on the brakes, slamming the transmission into reverse and skidding the car sideways. Anything short of that still takes us over the cliff.

 

reddread

(6,896 posts)
7. the facts about climate change and global warming have not altered for decades
Tue Jul 5, 2016, 07:45 AM
Jul 2016

while the results have accumulated.

their agenda is the same.
they knew before.
they know now.
enjoy the results!

JudyM

(29,122 posts)
8. She repeatedly characterizes it as "bold," yet her standard comes down to "if California's not doing
Tue Jul 5, 2016, 08:28 AM
Jul 2016

it, we can't either." Cap and trade is not the solution. And fracking has to stop. Should be in any platform that is truly serious about climate change.

If they want to get more of Bernie's voters they need to actually be bold on climate change.

cprise

(8,445 posts)
9. Agreed. They're stuck on something that doesn't work *because*
Tue Jul 5, 2016, 10:06 AM
Jul 2016

..it doesn't work. Cap and trade permits can be traded, eased, etc. in deals that are out of the public view.

Carbon tax is "bad" because its easy to tell when a polluter isn't paying, and playing favorites would cause widespread resentment against the companies who were simultaneously polluting and tax-dodging.

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