Senator Obama rightly chided both his Democratic opponent and corporate talking heads for their obsession with personality and political gamesmanship in the twenty-first debate last night. Obama joked that a "new record was set" because 45 minutes had elapsed before the candidates discussed issues that matter to most Americans.
Today in Oregon, one of his senior policy advisers on the environment talked only policy at Portland State University's Urban Policy Center. Daniel Kammen is the director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at UC Berkeley. Kammen is also a lead scientist and author in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He talked about Obama's environmental policies for an hour to students and interested activists. He began by making the broad observation that a vacuum had been created at the federal level in the past eight years of the Bush regime. He attributed that policy vacuum to the regime's long term denial of the scientific consensus on global climate effects of greenhouse gas emissions. States, like Oregon and California, have created their own policy initiatives such as renewable energy portfolios and clean energy standards in the absence of federal guidance. But he believes there is now considerable political momentum to make national progress on the climate crises and other neglected environmental issues. Despite growing public support for significant action, the effort will take an administration that has a mandate to overcome Washington's political gridlock. He intimated that an Obama administration would sign the Copenhagen Protocol in 2009 which is the follow-on agreement to the Kyoto Treaty. Kammen likened Senator McCain's recent energy proposal to cut gasoline taxes for the summer to "giving a coke addict free cocaine temporarily".
Questions from the informed audience followed his remarks. Some of the issues addressed:
Clean fuels: Mr. Kammen said Senator Obama is the first to adopt a "low carbon standard" for evaluating alternative fuels that is a sustainable approach to determining which fuels are best for our use. High fuel prices do not necessarily lead to good choices because high prices make less accessible fuels economically feasible such as oil extraction from tar sands. He estimated that American made plug electric cars will not be on the market until 2012.
Conservation: Conservation will play a role in the Obama scheme. Obama will develop domestic incentives that reward forest owners, farmers and ranchers for developing sustainable practices and restoring ecosystems to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Pollution from intensive agriculture, manufacturing and urban development is affecting the health of salmon populations and their river habitats.
Nuclear Power: Its not clear if nuclear power will play a role in the near to mid term because of its high capital costs ($5-$10 billion per plant) and unsolved waste problems. In the long term nuclear may be a means of providing low carbon power, but there is no federal evaluation process in place to objectively compare nuclear to other power cycles such as coal with carbon sequestration. In twenty five years, all of America's 102 nuclear plants will be obsolete and require decommissioning, an expensive process.
Green Building: Endorses the concept of "walk to latte" building or putting urban residents within walking distance of services and amenities. Property owners should not face up front costs for retrofitting or installing green technologies, but be given tax incentives for doing so. Market disincentives for highly energy efficient products should be removed.