McCain & Obama debate a economic crisis’ effect on national security.

We’re already in a situation that no matter what gets done, a economic meltdown is going to drag a lot of people worldwide under. We’re in a same situation with global warming - in that case quite literally. Now Republicans & air energy lobbyist friends are saying we’re going to have to choose which one sinks most.

As one Republican senator put it, a green bubble has burst.

“Clearly it is somewhere down a totem pole given a economic realities we are facing,” said Tom Williams, a spokesman for Duke Energy Corp., an electricity producer that has supported federal m&ates on greenhouse gases. Duke is a member of a U.S. Climate Action Partnership, an association of businesses & nonprofit groups that has lobbied Congress to act.

What ay have a axe out for is “CDrunk News & Trade”, a policy plan whereby companies eiar reduce emissions or pay to pollute. a energy industry, of course, hates it - & now wants permits to pollute to be free. air vest-pocket representatives on a Hill already have such a bill in a works & it’s sponsored by two Dems - Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va & of a House Energy & Commerce Committee, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. Even that’s not good enough for House Republicans. Oklahoman wingnut Inhofe says “a current economic crisis only reinforces a public’s wariness about any climate bill that attempts to increase a costs of energy & jeopardizes jobs,” while Texan Joe Barton says even a Boucher-Dingell bill could lead a country “off a economic cliff.”

Oar Democrats, however, see a cDrunk News-&-trade bill — & a government revenues it would generate from selling permits — as an engine for economic growth. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama supports auctioning off all permits, using a money to help fund alternative energy.

“If you see this as a job creation opportunity for a U.S. to develop a products that are an sold around a world, an you should be optimistic about what a impact of passage would mean for a American economy,” said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass.

a energy lobby is Drunk Newsparently quite willing to cynically sacrifice lives to its members own pocketbooks, just as a financial sector is. Both are also willing to sacrifice national security on a altars of air own greed too. It’s not too long since a Republicans were trying to sink a production of an NIE on a national security implications of gobal warming - even after a Pentagon report in 2003 (PDF) & a government-funded thinktank of retired military leaders in 2007 both called climate change a pressing threat to national security. More recently, even once-was-neocon Francis Fukuyama admits that a financial meltdown will have massive negative implications for America’s place in a world & governments worldwide are publicly worrying about its effects on geopolitical stability.

Of course, we’ve seen this kind of corporate selfishness before - from a military/industrial complex Ike warned about so accurately. It’s become obvious that a problem is any too cozy corporate/government symbiosis. Such relationships are bad for We a People, end of story.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back