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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney pledged to achieve North American energy independence by 2020 this week. That's a presidential move because every president since Richard Nixon has pledged some version of the same thing, including Romney's opponent President Barack Obama.
Obama's version is called the all of the above strategy: more domestic oil production to reduce imports. More electricity derived from wind, sunshine and natural gas added to the U.S. grid. Even more coal, as long as it has CO2 capture and storage attached.
Romney's plan differs only in the details. That increased domestic oil production should come from drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other public lands, for example, as well as off the Eastern seaboard. Both candidates love biofuels, even ethanol from corn.
The candidates share another similarity as well: an inability to discuss climate change on the campaign trail. And global warming is one of the largest environmental consequences of U.S. energy policy or, for the past half century, the lack of a coherent one. Until issues like climate change are included in the discussion, any energy plan is just a lot of hot air.
—David Biello
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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5 Comments
Add CommentYou cannot really blame them for not taking a stance on climate change. We will just have to see which of their policies will help more. Standing up for either side right now is political suicide. people on both sides of this issue at this point are pretty much just staring at the other side in disbelief that the other side could possibly not agree with them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDavid,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn four short paragraphs you have summed up the issue concisely. Now if we could get the MSM to run articles like this so as to reach a critical number of minds.
Frustrating......
Hi, I don't know what happened, but since yesterday all the audio links redirected me to the one with "New Gels Heal Themselves--and Maybe You".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSomebody got any idea?
I have met the same situation, and I really want to know what happened.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith the Obama's core of antinuke activists passively resisting nuclear power always damning it with faint praise and actively blocking research and construction of Gen IV technologies, we have Romney promising to cut the NRC's blocking times from almost infinity to two years. Great but likely mere words.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnfortunately, both organizations and all its politicians as well as virtually all American media are effectively owned by Big Oil, which knows nuke power is its only competitor.