Race to Be Green: 2008

Today, Newsweek landed in my mailbox. I was excited, but not just because I got mail. The cover story of this week is - Environment and Leadership: Who's the Greenest of Them All?

So, I'll spare you most of the story, because although it's interesting, you can read it here, and in all honesty you'll probably not be surprised if you've been staying up-to-date with the race. It does a good job of summarizing the three Presidential candidates' positions on the environment. My favorite part: no matter what happens, next year the policy in the White House will be different.

The worst about this article though was the ad in the middle and the statistics. First the ad - for a hybrid Chevy Tahoe, "America's first full-size hybrid SUV." Oh yay! It gets 14mpg in the city and a whopping 20 on the highway. Are we seriously celebrating this? This is why the United States has this problem in the first place. You don't see SUVs, hybrid or not, in Europe. It's time for smaller cars.

The second thing that got to me was the stats. Newsweek cited that "The environment has emerged as a leading concern. Last year, three in 10 voters said they cared about the issue, up from 11 percent in 2005." As much as I'm excited that the number grew from the measly 11%, 30 isn't really amazing. Do we not realize that without the environment we couldn't live?

How can we seriously expect a change in the public's perception of the environment when we're selling hybrid SUVs that get worse gas mileage than most sedans? How much harm do you think the next 9 months will have on the environment until we get a new set of ideas in DC? And, realistically, how fast do you expect any action to happen?

Just some thoughts, feel free to weigh in and ask questions of your own!

2008 Presidential Race: Carbon Neutral?

Today (well I got the news today, might have been yesterday) John Edwards announced that his 2008 Presidential Campaign will be "carbon neutral". Edwards says, "We cannot wait until the next president is elected to begin to take action on global warming. We all must take responsibility and do our part to stop global warming today—even if the current government refuses to act. That's why today I’m announcing my commitment to make my campaign "carbon neutral"—meaning we will offset the impact of all our energy use to ensure that our campaign does not contribute to global warming."

Does this mean the 2008 Campaign is moving towards putting global warming and the environment as issues of importance? Would carbon neutrality affect your vote?

You can help give Edwards ideas and get ideas of your own on Edwards' blog. If you decide to post, don't forget to mention where you saw this ;-)!! Click the link "Click here to see the entire post." to read more of what Edwards' campaign said.


Edwards continues, "To achieve carbon neutrality, we’re taking two big steps. First, we’re implementing a number of simple but effective techniques to conserve energy in our national and field offices. And I’ve asked my staff to take concrete steps to reduce their own energy consumption. Conserving energy now is the single biggest thing we all can do as individuals to combat global warming.

But presidential campaigns by their nature use an enormous amount of energy for travel and operations. Which is why today I have also directed the campaign to purchase carbon offsets that support alternative energy production to neutralize the global warming impact from our travel and office energy use."