Red, Green, and Blue

Although the cringing from last night’s uninspiring debate is over for the time being, today provides an excellent opportunity to look back at what was the first head-on collision between the two major party presidential candidates and the dual threat posed by global warming and our current economic crisis. This collision was the making of Ingrid Jackson, a student and social services worker from Nashville. In Tuesday’s town hall debate, Jackson asked:

“Sen. McCain…we saw that Congress moved pretty fast in the face of an economic crisis. I want to know what you would do in the first two years to make sure that Congress moves fast as far as environmental issues like climate change and green jobs.”

John McCain, given his atrocious record on supporting renewable energy (having skipped all nine votes on the extension of renewable energy tax credits this year), began to stumble and gave his usual answer of having “traveled all over the world” as a qualification for his beliefs, and proceeded to tout nuclear power as the cure all for our energy and climate crisis. Not only did McCain ignore the potential solutions presented by truly clean and renewable sources of energy, but he even went so far as to discount Senator Obama’s concern about the disposal and storage of nuclear waste, describing Obama’s position as “something like that”.

When given the chance to respond, it was apparent that Obama, despite his despite his ill-advised support of clean coal, nuclear power and offshore drilling, understands the importance of creating a green economy in the US. Obama cited the potential creation of 5 million new jobs, as well as his record of support for solar, wind and geothermal energy, while also calling McCain out for his lack of interest in renewable energy. And while Van Jones’ new book, The Green Collar Economy, just came out today, it seemed apparent after last night’s debate that Obama has already been doing his fair share of listening to and understanding Van Jones and other green jobs evangelists. McCain’s response to Jackson’s question, however, showed that he’s done little listening, except to those nuclear and oil lobbyists who he has surrounded himself with for the past 26 years.

And while we can all feel justified in being a bit cynical after the debates, Jackson’s question highlighted an important difference between Obama and McCain. So for all of the poorly timed one-liners and hissy fits thrown on stage by both candidates, it became increasingly apparent that an Obama-Biden administration would handle both our energy and economic crises with care and respect for both American citizens and our environment, while a McCain-Palin administration would just build nuclear reactors.

Photo Credit: flyoverstate via Flickr under a Creative Commons License

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