Blow to good intentions

The Australian ^ | 2nd July 2008 | Janet Albrechtsen

[naturalman1975]

FORGET Iraq. The politics of petrol will dominate the coming presidential election in the US. As much as one hates to upset the lofty foreign policy sensibilities of the Left, you need only set foot in the US for a nanosecond to see that the campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain are consumed by grassroots concerns over the rising cost of fuel.

Just as in Australia, it is clear that the hip pocket nerve of working families may haunt the next US president, confounding efforts to address climate change.

And the advocates of climate change are largely to blame. The debate in both countries has been a phony one.

But the political parallels don't end there. Obama, the fresh-faced 46-year-old Democrat, is wooing voters across the continent with his promise of change. Sound familiar? He was recently described by Daniel Henninger in The Wall Street Journal as the "Hey Jude candidate, the man who can somehow make things better". Sounding more familiar?

Both the Republican McCain and Obama support an emissions trading system yet remain quiet on how a cap and trade greenhouse gas emissions system will affect American working families. Boy, does that sound familiar. And, if debate in Australia these past few weeks is any indication, whether it's McCain or Obama who wins in November, they are in for one scary climate change ride. The same ride that confronts the Rudd Labor Government here in Australia. To be sure, had the Coalition been re-elected last November, it would have faced a similar problem of mismanaged voter expectations.

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[calcowgirl]

By framing climate change in soaring terms as the single biggest moral issue of our time, Rudd ensured that the climate change roller-coaster was always going to crash down to earth when cost finally entered the equation.

I hope Americans wake up to this scam and bring it crashing down to earth sooner rather than later.

Good article.