Hillary Clinton and Climate Change

Dear Friends,

As this campaign for President has progressed, Secretary Clinton has moved closer to Senator Sanders' long held positions to fight climate change.  She eventually came out against the Keystone XL pipeline, although she said it was a distraction, she eventually came out against Shell drilling in the Arctic, she eventually came out against the Trans Pacific Partnership which among other terrible things is an environmental disaster, she came out eventually against offshore drilling after a long record of support for it, and she has a plan to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels over time.  I have written about these issues before here and here.

I am happy to see that she has moved closer to Bernie Sanders on these issues, but she is still an Obama "all of the above" in terms of what our energy policy should be.  Bernie Sanders wants to keep the carbon in the ground and truly accelerate our move to alternative renewable energy sources. Bernie Sanders' tweet from last August says a lot about the difference between Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton.

We need to keep fossil fuels in the ground, and move to 100 percent renewable energy - and we need to act immediately.

In addition to the sense of urgency expressed by Bernie Sanders compared to Hillary Clinton, fracking is an issue that clearly separates these two candidates.  In fact, Senator Sanders is the only Presidential candidate calling for a ban on fracking.  Hillary Clinton has no recent statements on fracking, but has supported it historically both domestically and internationally.  Clinton entities, particularly their network of charities have taken million of dollars for the oil and gas industry, much of it when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State and promoting fracking abroad.  If you are interested in more on this topic, I commend a couple of articles: the first entitled "Bernie Sanders Will Ban Fracking.  Hillary Clinton 'Sold Fracking to the World'" at Huffpost Politics (here), and the second entitled "There's Only One Presidential Candidate Who Wants to Ban Fracking" at Mother Jones (here).

The only argument for fracking is that it enables the use of natural gas which is cleaner than coal as a bridge from fossil fuels to renewable energy.  Even if you assume that argument to be valid, it is clearly an incremental approach to a problem that requires immediate and bold action.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal