That actually doesn't discuss Edwards' energy plan.  This is his plan.

Apparently not only is Obama a centrist on climate change, but he's also more of an instinctive free-trader than Clinton, according to the current issue of The Economist (May 12-18, page 34).  The article mentions that he supports subsidies for "liquefying coal - an environmentally filthy operation."  Same article said that a "wonk" who knows all the candidates described Obama as the most knee-jerk free-trade.

Just how is this man a "change" politician?  I'm not impressed by one's personal stories, I just want someone who has good policy positions.

Obama is a co-sponsor of S. 309, the strong Boxer-Sanders Safe Climate Act.

Saying "Obama's climate plan is nonsense" is not fair or accurate. It's fair to say that CTL without cap-and-trade would be terrible. But let's try to be honest about such a serious issue.

> If we don't deal with this now, our civilization is over.

Its clear that if we don't deal with it there will be some consequences, but saying that "our civilization will be over" is more than a little over the top.

In fact, like most things, poor and developing countries will bear the brunt, while the relatively affluent will be able to use their wealth to mitigate the consequences.

Unfortunately Senator Obama's position on coal is worse than centrist.

One can make a decent argument for using coal to generate electricity if it is accompanied by carbon capture and sequestration (CCS)assuming CCS becomes a proven technology, both scientifically and financially.

However Senator Obama is also a co-sponsor of legislation to develop the infrastructure to make coal-to-liquid fuel. This position is totally at odds with achieving large reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

It is blatantly inconsistent to proclaim support for action to protect the planet from global warming while also supporting coal-to-liquids. Even if carbon is captured and sequestered during the production of transportion fuel from coal, the carbon dioxide that would come out of the tailpipes of cars and trucks when that fuel is burned adds large amounts of new carbon to the atmosphere.

Coal is big in southern Illinois but Obama cannot have it both ways. Either he supports strong action against climate change or he doesn't. His support for coal-to-liquids would suggest he is trying to have it both ways. That is not good enough.

"If we don't deal with this [glogal warming] now, our civilization is over.  It's that simple."

That is absurd.  Many bad things will happen.  Mass starvation of mostly poor people, species extinctions, disappearance of Bangldash and Holland and many people will lose their vacation homes.

For the wealthy west we will be inconvenienced, but civilization will survive.  I agree with the main point that this is an issue that must be dealt with now, but hyperbole adds notion.

The deal-killer isn't in any of the Presidential candidates' "plans" -- because they really don't matter all that much.

What matters is legislation that gets through Congress AND THEN is signed by the President.

Unfortunately for planet earth, a guy named John Dingell is never going to let the changes happen that need to happen.  His incrementalism on mileage standards is what will sink us.  (The transportation sector is by far the biggest user of oil and biggest emitter of GHGs, and it's share of GHG emissions is forecast to grow.)

So prattle on all you want about the Presidential candidates and their plans...but can anyone show me the one that says "here's how I'm going to get auto-industry-funded Democrats in Michigan to support this?"

I think MyDD hyperventilates a little too often.  Obama probably just wanted to get on the record supporting CTL because the support of Downstate labor is pretty crucial to Illinois politicians.  Illinois is to coal what Detroit is the auto industry.  No one is immune to special interests in their state.  That being said, this bill is extremely unlikely to pass, and Obama probably knows that.

No one who runs for president is going to be a saint.  Everyone has sops to special interests in the Senate.  I'd expect any Democratic President to enact similar environmental policies.  The consensus will continue to build over the next couple years.  Let's wait until real bills are actually being put forward.

I worry about Obama's lack of committment to environmental issues.  As a Senator from Illinois, he supported big coal.  People excuse it becuase he was from Illinois.  Yet he supposedly was "brave" in telling off automakers in Detroit.

Real political courage was for him not to carry liqufied coal for the coal companies.  

He's nothing new.  Just another centrist politician.  

it looks to me like grist likes richardson's plan the best.

Nonsense? Not to defend Obama's coal stance (it's one of my least favorite things about him) But it's not like he's alone in supporting that. Other progressives like Brian
Schweitzer support coal and CTL. No one is perfect.

He wants to cut carbon 80% below 1990 levels via cap and trade.

He wants a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard that would make all transportation fuels sold in the U.S. contain 5 percent less carbon by 2015 and 10 percent less carbon by 2020. That's like taking over 30 million cars off the road in 2020.

Gas stations will now be eligible for tax credits for installing E85 ethanol refueling pumps, thanks to a law advocated by Barack Obama and Senator Jim Talent. That will lead the way for a infrastructure for cellulosic ethanol Senator Obama also sponsored an amendment that became law providing $40 million for commercialization of a combined flexible fuel vehicle/hybrid car within five years.

Obama and Chuck Grassley launched a Government Accountability Office investigation of big oil to see if they are fighting the installation of alternative fuel pumps. That investigation will be completed in April 2007.

He wants make CAFE higher. He's signed on to just about every CAFA higher bill there is.

He wants to use 1 percent of oil company profits to invest in renewable energy.

He's no Gore but he isn't the James Inhofe you're trying to make him sound like. The only candidate who's wildly different then others is Chris Dodd because he has the guts to call for a bold plan that will work. A carbon tax. Hillary will do what the polls say. Bill Richardson will push for the highest CAFE standards(that Dingell will block) and he'll say 90 not 80 percent reductions by 2050. He's also the best on Electric Cars. Edwards is the best on efficiency and some other things.

But really, none of them are going to be wildly different then each other. Dodd maybe. But none of them will be able to wildly make huge amounts of change which they are proposing.

Why? John Dingell and Mitch Mcconnell. They'll fight anything that comes and unless we can unseat them we will never get anything major passed. Or we could just elect a super-majority and render them useless but that's unlikely to happen.

Yet again we see that St. Obama is in the right of it...Matt is wrong, wrong, wrong ad nauseam.

And to those who think the Matt's' comment about 'our civilisation being over...' you folks are really not paying attention.

Time is running out for centrist positions and those who support them.

Do you think recoverable oil reserves will last forever?

Have you checked one of the many websites which shows the change in coastline for every meter of sea level rise?

Have you read the news about icepack melting in Antarctica?

Or are you so enthralled with yer new Ipod or Zune that you just didn't notice?

Give me a break. There are plenty of extremely reputable SCIENTISTS, e.g., Ray Kurzweil, Claude Allegre (Socialist MP in France, former major geologist), who are sick and tired of the "there won't be any economy, two days before the day after tomorrow!" Hollywoodization of global warming.

If you look at climatologists in general, after factoring out the subsidy-starved loons and energy industry shills, you will find some consensus: one, humans are the cause of some ambiguous amount of global warming. Two, the Stern Report, "the world is ending" hurricane predictions for both 2006 and 2007, and other hyperbole is scientifically unfounded, and a crass politicization of a scientific discipline. It's a big reason why Allegre and others renounced their prior support for political remedies of AGW.

"If we don't deal with this now, our civilization is over" is ridiculous.

The claim that "Obama's climate plan is nonsense" based solely on the CTL issue is absurd.

Let me be clear, CTL is bad, it's a shame that Obama  is supporting it, and I'd like him more if he didn't.  

That said, it's a very minor part of his energy strategy, and is not intended to deal with global warming.  It's targeted at oil dependence, which is a problem closely related but in some ways distinct from climate change.  If CTL ends up in its best-case scenario for emissions (about even with oil), it will be a net good because it will provide another source of fuel, allowing additional diversification, lessening our vulnerability to price shocks in one commodity, and reducing money sent to OPEC and other oil-producing countries.  It will also increase the price of coal for electricity (more demand, after all), which might help natural gas or renewables get a foot slightly further in the door.

Of course, the best case scenario is unlikely.  But one thing that could really help create the economic incentive for it is a comprehensive cap (or tax) on carbon, which Obama (and all the Democrats) supports.  Another thing about that cap, it will apply to CTL production so if it does pollute more, they'll have to pay through the nose for it and frankly, the whole enterprise will die if they can't make it clean.

None of that is the real point though.  That is this: what we do right now in terms of CO2 pollution really matters very little.  Climate change is caused by decades of action, not a year or two.  It's far more important to create a framework that will reduce emissions 80% by 2050 (just to pick some numbers) than to reduce by 2% right now.  

Of course, it's quite possible that the only way to get the former is to do the latter.  Possible, but honestly a lot less likely than you'd think.  There's a strong case to be made for setting up a framework that demands serious innovation in clean technologies AND diversifies our (admittedly dirty) options right now.  

If CTL was seen as part of the ANSWER to global warming, that would be a problem, but I don't think anyone sees it that way.  They see it as a short-to-medium-term mitigator of the effects of the coming oil peak, and as a technology that will obliterated by the long-term shift to a carbon-reducing economy.

Now, I will be the first to admit that all of this depends on your belief that Obama would work to get those long-term innovation programs going: subsidies for renewables, better efficiency standards on appliances, a carbon cap or tax, etc.   If you think he won't, then you might be right than his plan is "nonsense."  But if you believe (as I do) that any Democratic candidate will be very similar in terms of their devotion to this issue (with the possible exception that Richardson might be more hard-nosed about it), then the shuffling around of subsidies now is unfortunate but of relatively little importance.

Like I said, I don't like CTL, I think it's a waste of time and money that ought to be going to hydrogen, hybrids, and putting some SERIOUS money into mass transit (one of the most important energy issues that no one seems to talk about), but in the grand scheme of things I just can't get too worked up about it.

is his (and Clinton's) support for growing and subsidizing nuclear power:

http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view .php?id=25462

http://dominantreality.blogspot.com/2007 /04/critical-difference-emerge-between.h tml

I can see how some would think this might be a good way out of energy dependence and be emission free, but its really the wrong direction. We've already learned our lessons on nuclear power by now; Yucca is a good example of that.

" don't know anything about Clinton's plan"

Maybe because you havent looked?
HRC:
Co Sponsor -The Clean Power Act

Introduced -Coordinated Environmental Health Network Act. Will reintroduce again - expand bio-monitoring work to determine which chemicals are accumulating in our bodies-

Wants to start a $50 Billion Strategic Energy fund for an Apollo Like Project (Except she advocated this in February of 2007)
See details for her plan here
HRC's plan is much more detailed than what was released today by Richardson.

Then theres always the Bill Clinton factor and his new experiment starting with 11 Cities and expanding from there.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/5/ 17/151725/397

Though public transport is not officially part of the plan, I was also glad to hear it in Richardson's environment speech.  It is such an important issue, and its a very good thing he realizes it.

With some in the executive (cough*John Culberson*cough)making it harder for cities like my hometown of Houston to get a decent public transport system, it is nice to see someone running for the top national job to see that the need for more efficient transit is huge.  I know that in Houston we have way too many cars.

BO is Elmer Gantry, selling his miracle on the campaign trail.

should disabuse all of us of the notion that Obama represents a new kind of politics or is a progressive.  He's not.  At this point, he's just another centrist candidate pushing incrementalist policies.  There's no there there.

I'm an Obama supporter, but one area of Obama's climate change proposal that should not be taken seriously is his pledge to cut carbon by 80% by 2050.  It seems to me that he's just throwing out a date, distant in the future, to meet a goal that actually needs to be met earlier.  2050 is not realistic.  It's put out there to sound serious on global warming without actually doing anything.

If Obama accompanies this strategy with binding benchmarks set every few years, it would be a serious proposal.  Now though, I don't think it is.