Assorted Afflatuses

George W. Bush does not have the most stellar record when it comes to the environment. At the same time, however, none of the "electable" candidates vying for the Democratic or the Republican nomination in 2008 have laid out policies that take sufficient action to prevent or, perhaps more pragmatically speaking, moderate, the effects of climate change.

Certainly Barack Obama would do a better job than our current president, but even his plan stops far short of what is truly necessary. In a speech he delivered early in 2006, just after the president's State of the Union address, Mr. Obama advocated that the United States, "raise fuel economy standards by 3% a year over the next fifteen years, starting in 2008." In practice, Mr. Obama's policy would take a GMC Suburban, which currently manages a meager 11 miles to the gallon, and push its fuel economy up to an unimpressive 17 miles per gallon. Hardly something to write home about.

On the other side of the Atlantic, however, England's Liberal Democrats have proposed a much more radical, and much more appropriate, set of policies designed to combat climate change. Their policies, simply put, aim to make the United Kingdom a carbon-neutral country by the year 2050. In practice this includes a proposed ban on all petrol-powered vehicles starting in 2040 and specialized "green mortgages" designed to incentives the construction of eco-friendly homes. Admittedly the pace of the Lib Dem's proposed reforms are much slower than might be ideal, but such a policy does a far better job of correctly identifying the scope and the immediacy of climate change.

Unfortunately, though, the Lib Dems have little chance of putting their policies into effect, at least for the foreseeable future: they have neither the numbers in the British Parliament nor sufficient support from other MPs. Still, their policies signal a marked departure from the ineffectual and rather wishy-washy policies set out by other political parties or individual politicians, especially those in the United States, with regard to the environment. I still have reservations about the current crop of presidential hopefuls here in the states, but, given the somewhat unexpected and decidedly bold shift in policy overseas, the seeds of hope have been planted in my mind. Much can — and undoubtedly will — change in the next fourteen months.