Environmental persepectives of McCain and Obama

Looking over McCain's views of environmental issues, I can see that he is concerned about the environment and that he has proposed ways to make positive changes if he were elected. He acknowledges that global warming is occurring and that something needs to be done about it. In this sense, I think he leans towards being an Institutionalist. He says that he supported America's decision to not join the Kyoto Treaty, but also said that now it's necessary to convince China and India to join and then we should join as well. He spoke about the importance of working together globally to fix environmental problems, which goes along with the Institutionalist view of emphasizing a global commitment to improving the environment. McCain also believes that environmental issues and the economy are strongly linked, therefore he also has some Market Liberal beliefs.

Obama has a much more detailed plan of his goals to improve the environment if he were elected. I think that he leans more towards being a Bioenvironmentalist. His major point of emphasis is that of the depletion of natural resources and the need to decrease our dependency on fossil fuels. He promotes investing $150 billion in clean energy such as biofuels over the next 10 years, and wants to reduce our consumption of oil by 35% by 2030. Obama also says that he thinks it's important to work with other leading energy consuming nations to reduce greenhouse gases. I think that many of his ideas go along with the Bioenvironmentalist views that we will not be able to continue to grow at the current rate and still use the same technologies, and that we are depleting our natural resources and need to work with other nations to improve the environment.

I think that McCain does want to improve the environment, but I doubt that he would actually do much to change our current situation. He doesn't have nearly as detailed of a plan as Obama, and he is definitely trying to appease conservative voters. In a video on his website, he starts off by saying that global warming is a huge problem and that we have to do something about it, but then ends by saying that actually, it's in the best interest of the economy and international security. I think that Obama has some great ideas and I am especially supportive of his plans to work with industries and workers to create a "clean technologies workforce." I think that the government needs to create strong incentives for manufacturers to be environmentally friendly before we begin to see any major changes in our treatment of the environment.