2008-01-19

US presidential candidates' environmentalism

The two aspects of the US presidential campaign I find most interesting from the point of view of a condescending European are the candidates' foreign policy views and their environmental views. If you've been following the campaign at all, you've probably gotten a pretty good idea of where the front-runners stand on foreign policy, but environmental policy doesn't get as much attention in the media. To that end, here's a handy charty from Grist magazine.

While I'm at it, the Green League party organ Vihreä lanka published an article on the topic (fi). Their conclusion was that John Edwards was the best of the Democrats, although they got there mainly by noting that he opposes nuclear power whereas Barack Obama supports it and Hillary Clinton won't say. If you disagree with the assumption that nuclear power is bad for the environment, your ranking may differ with theirs. On the Republican side, they named John McCain as the first Republican candidate who takes climate change seriously and supports cap-and-trade.

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