Jon E. Dougherty, NewsMax.com
Wednesday, Apr. 14, 2004

His name is John McCain, and he says he'll attack the issue as strenuously as he fought money in politics.

His crusade began shortly after his failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000. McCain, after promising Dartmouth College grad Matthew Stembridge—whom McCain appeared with at a college-sponsored environmental campaign in the winter of 1999—returned to Washington and made good on his promise.

He began to hold serious hearings in the Senate on global warming, which included a number of scientists. And with Democratic colleague Sen. Joseph Lieberman, he drafted a modest piece of global warming legislation which was, according to OnEarth Magazine, "the first real Senate vote on actually doing something about the largest environmental peril our species has yet faced."

The bill failed 55-43 but McCain, Navy fighter pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam for six years, remained undaunted.

"We'll be back this year [2004] to do it again," he told the magazine in an interview. "Campaign finance reform took us seven years. This may take longer, but we'll stay at it."

McCain's enthusiasm for battling global warming makes him somewhat of an enigma within GOP ranks. Not that Republicans have never supported environmental legislation—quite the contrary. It was President Bush the elder who received much grief from his own party when he signed the Clean Air Act in 1990. And, as much as 60 to 65 percent of each chamber of the House and Senate, in the past, has been enrolled in the Environmental Study Conference—a sort of environmental caucus.

But clearly the issue has been taken much more seriously—for better or worse—by Democrats. So while McCain's entry into the foray might be initially treated with some suspicion, it is welcome by many long-time global warming crusaders nonetheless.

Unlikely Champion

McCain is, for all purposes, an unlikely champion of the environment. Besides his Republican credentials, he doesn't appear like someone who has had much time to develop an appreciation for environmental issues.

But, says OnEarth, maybe his settling in Arizona changed his outlook over the years. He told the magazine of his retreat on Oak Creek, near Sedona, that his favorite season there is Spring: "Lots and lots of flowers. Lots and lots of wildlife, especially birds – wild ducks, quail, hummingbirds, yellow-billed cuckoos, which are very rare. A pair of black hawks. There are Javelina, coyote. A cougar passes through once in a while. Deer, beaver. It's the most beautiful place on earth."

He says of his Arizona surroundings, "The ecology of the desert is very fragile. Obviously climate change could have a very serious effect there."

There is another possibility. While many Republicans like to say they're "from the party of Teddy Roosevelt," McCain takes respect for the past president to heart.

McCain, who hails from a military family—his father and grandfather were Navy admirals—first garnered a healthy like for T.R. because of his military prowess, as well as his "deeply personal, almost spiritual, sense of patriotism." Those were virtues that turned Roosevelt into a crusader, often against the notion that private interests always supersede the public good.

T.R. has an impact on environmentalists as well; they respect him for the numerous wildlife refuges, national parks and monuments he left in his presidential wake.

For his part, McCain says his turn towards environmentalism was gradual. He learned more about it and, he says, the science changed his mind. The process came "over the years, as the evidence has accumulated," he told OnEarth. Before then, he took on the standard GOP mantra that environmental data was inconclusive, the costs of intervention can be very high, and the outcome is questionable.

Then came Stembridge. At the Dartmouth event, where McCain was to appear, the Arizona senator invited the young activist—who was dressed in a self-made "Captain Climate" outfit—to the stage with him. Once there, McCain raised his hand like a victorious boxer, and claimed, "I'm concerned about climate change. I'm going to do something about it."

Stembridge told OnEarth, "I thought we were all going to drop dead with a heart attack. I mean, we'd seen someone who tried to shut us down with pat, smooth answers in December do a 180-degree turn. . . He became passionate and driven. All of us felt that this was the kind of person we could be excited about following."

Better Informed

When McCain got back to Washington in May of 2000, having lost a contentious bid for the GOP nomination to George W. Bush, he scheduled the global warming hearings as he had promised.

He opened the sessions by admitting he had no plan yet to deal with the problem—or any firm belief that it even was a problem. But he said he intended to find out:

"One of the great things about the requirements of the electoral process is extensive interaction with the citizenry . . . I just finished an unsuccessful, but very enlightening, adventure in that area.... There is a group of Americans who now come to political rallies with signs that say, 'What is your plan?' I am sorry to say that I do not have a plan because I do not have, nor do the American people have, sufficient information and knowledge. But I do believe that Americans, and we who are policy makers in all branches of government, should be concerned about mounting evidence that indicates that something is happening...I do intend, beginning with this hearing, to become informed, to reach some conclusions, and make some recommendations."

McCain-Lieberman was the result of those hearings.

The Believers

McCain's jump to the bandwagon of eco-activists who believe global warming to be a serious problem may be less of a miracle of modern politics and more a natural progression.

According to OnEarth, McCain is merely joining the majority of American voters, world leaders and a number of climatologists—all of whom believe, as McCain now does, that "something is happening."

Among them is the Environmental Protection Agency, which says, "According to the National Academy of Sciences, the Earth's surface temperature has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the past century, with accelerated warming during the past two decades." The agency goes on to say there "is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities."

While admitting there is much that is unknown about the phenomenon, the EPA says much has been documented. For instance, "scientists know for certain that human activities are changing the composition of Earth's atmosphere," says the agency, in a Q & A posted on its Web site. "Increasing levels of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide (CO2 ), in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times have been well documented."

But other experts, citing other scientific data, are working to dispel the "myth" of global warming. Christopher Essex, a professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Western Ontario, and Ross McKitrick, an associate professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Guelph, argue in their 2003 book, Taken By Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming, argue global warming enthusiasts want people to believe that average temperature can say something about what is going on in the climate, but, they maintain, it is just a number with no physical content.

Essex explained to the Cooler Heads Coalition, a subgroup of the National Consumer Coalition, there are literally an infinite number of averaging rules that could be used, some of which will show "warming" and others that will show "cooling," but the "physics doesn’t say which one to use."

And, writes columnist James K. Glassman, host of TechCentralStation.com, despite advocates' claims otherwise, the science surrounding global warming is less than precise.

"New research, for example, has challenged Michael Mann's "hockey-stick" formula, which asserts that temperatures have risen sharply, in an unprecedented fashion. In fact, warming was worse centuries ago, before industrialization and automobiles," Glassman said, in a Dec. 15, 2003 column.

Still, McCain says it's just a matter of time before the problem is considered real enough for the U.S.and other nations to finally take seriously. What is needed, he argues, is more believers.

"What you really need is a sea change in public opinion," he told OnEarth. "Global warming has to become a campaign issue, and it never has, either in congressional campaigns or senatorial campaigns or presidential campaigns."

Editor's note: