With the snow settling on Tuesday's presidential primary, Wisconsin voters are waiting with fingers crossed for their favorite candidate to win the Big One.
We all have our favorite issue but our generation will be primarily remembered for our success or failure to preserve peace in the face of climate change and resource scarcity. What the leader of the free world has planned for America's conservation policies is no small matter.
Here's what the top candidates have proposed to keep the nation running in an imperiled planet:
John McCain: The only Green Republican
McCain's voting record is spotty on issues of environmental health, but it reflects more good than harm. McCain's a staunch advocate that economic and environmental health go hand-in-hand - the only Republican candidate to make energy conservation a regular part of his campaign. But he falls short of doing enough, fast enough to meet the goals deemed necessary for national health by scientists. His position that nuclear power is a necessary part of energy policy is potentially wise but may be too simplistic if the vast emissions and land damage required for uranium mining turn out to be as bad as coal power.
Green Plus: McCain proposes a mandatory cap and trade on carbon emissions and supports nuclear energy and alternative fuel investment.
Green Minus: McCain's goal to reduce carbon emissions by 65 percent by 2050 is 15 percent below levels estimated necessary to avoid dangerous climate change. His votes to protect the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) from oil interests have not been consistent.
Mike Huckabee: Energy independence takes more than talk
Huckabee has claimed support for a cap and trade program and says he will propose an energy independence plan but has offered neither goals nor details. He supports offshore and ANWR drilling, as well as including nuclear and clean coal in the clean energy definition. The preacher's rhetoric is sound. It's all of our responsibility to leave this planet in better shape for the future generations than we found it ... We have no right to abuse [resources],"" Huckabee said in a May 3, 2007 Republican debate.
Green plus: Huckabee is an example of the growing environmental rhetoric in Christianity.
Green minus: Huckabee seems to be more than a little confused as to what the issues require.
Hillary Clinton: The social environmentalist
Clinton has the strongest conservation plan and has backed her goals for the environment with financial plans, such as taxing oil companies $50 billion for a Strategic Energy Fund and placing $5 billion towards ""green collar"" jobs. Clinton has tied environmental health closely to her social goals, including children's health and proposing $650 to families that can't afford energy bills.
Green plus: Clinton wants to cut foreign oil imports by two-thirds by 2030. She also supports 80 percent carbon reduction by 2050, a mandatory cap and trade program, progressive auto standard to 55 mpg by 2030 and reducing oil use 40 percent by 2025. She supports permanent ANWR protection, a ""polluter pays"" program for the EPA Superfund and protections for water resources.
Green minus: Clinton's opposition to the Yucca Mountain storage site (the expensive and controversial proposed final resting place for nuclear waste under a mountain in Nevada) and her ambivalence toward nuclear energy puts development at a standstill. Clinton's 2003 vote to introduce 100,000 hydrogen vehicles by 2010 reflected poor understanding of their energy tradeoffs, but she has not revived such proposals.
Barack Obama: He's not kidding about change
Obama's conservation plan is second in detail only to Clinton amongst the leading candidates, and he demonstrates a clear willingness to include consensus from the scientific community in his national plan. His intention to overhaul auto industry standards is admirable, but could go astray if it leads to a rapid fleet overturn where the emissions of producing new vehicles and increasing inefficiently processed corn ethanol would exceed the emissions saved.
Green Plus: Obama supports cutting carbon emissions by 2050, increased dependence on nuclear power, more hybrid cars, mandatory cap and trade, acquiring 25 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2025, a 40 mpg auto standard and wants to reduce oil use by 35 percent by 2030. He supports permanent ANWR protection, a ""polluter pays"" program for the EPA Superfund and protections for water resources.
Green Minus: Obama has the shortest voting record and supports a substantial increase in corn ethanol production.
- Sources: Candidate Web sites, Science, the League of Conservation Voters and On the Issues
