Issues Page

Across the religious spectrum, from atheists to evangelicals, the economy ranks as the top issue on voters' minds - a scenario that usually works in Democrats' favor. Now, with U.S. financial systems in turmoil and the government rushing to fix it, Democrats sense an opportunity to highlight the economy as a values issue and attract middle-of-the-road religious believers who were central to George W. Bush's winning coalition in 2004. For years, more liberal faith leaders have tried to elevate fighting poverty at home and abroad onto the values agenda. What's changed is that an increasing number of voters are seeing suffering not just in the streets but in the mirror.

Christians are called to stop being wasteful and remember that the planet is everyone's home, says an official with the Italian bishops' conference. The bishops appealed for an "ecological conversion" in a statement for the 3rd Day to Protect Creation, held Monday in Rome. The planet "is what has been given to us to live on responsibly, safeguarding its viability also for the next generations," they recalled. There is a need to "use energy efficiently, as well as to appreciate the sources of renewable and clean energy," in addition to "an intelligent sobriety," which will allow for "lessening the problem of waste," the bishops stressed.

Nobel peace prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu said the Bible is the greatest weapon in the fight against injustice during a church conference on social justice. "There's nothing more radical, nothing more revolutionary, nothing more subversive against injustice and oppression than the Bible," the South African archbishop said Saturday at London megachurch Jesus House For All Nations, according to co-sponsor Tearfund. To the crowd of more than 800 U.K. church leaders, Tutu declared that the Bible has revolutionary power to free the poor as he drew from his experiences in apartheid-dominated South Africa. "If you want to keep people subjugated, the last thing you place in their hands is a Bible," he said.

Some of the political ads on TV this summer have managed to sink to the level of the swift-boat attacks that torpedoed John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004. One, authorized by the McCain campaign, depicted a grinning Barack Obama next to a gas pump as the price-per-gallon meter shot toward $5. The ad implied that the lone culprit for high gas prices (which averaged $1.20 a gallon in spring 2002 but hung around $4.10 for much of this summer) is the junior senator from Illinois. That’s because he did not initially jump to lift the ban restricting off-shore oil drilling, or support the Arizona senator’s feckless call for a federal gas-tax moratorium. That proposal was a gimmick and eventually disappeared even from McCain’s play book.

A dramatic investment in clean energy would be the most effective check on aggressive petroregimes from Moscow to Tehran. It would be the best long-term solution to global warming. And energy independence is the most effective step we can take for American families staggering under the burden of high gas prices. That's because the forces that have produced this summer's record prices are not going away. We are facing skyrocketing world demand for an ever-shrinking quantity of oil, and unless Congress figures out a way to amend the laws of supply and demand, that fundamental fact is not going to change. This is a large-scale problem, and it's going to take large-scale solutions.

Some of the political ads on TV this summer have managed to sink to the level of the swift-boat attacks that torpedoed John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004. One, authorized by the McCain campaign, depicted a grinning Barack Obama next to a gas pump as the price-per-gallon meter shot toward $5. The ad implied that the lone culprit for high gas prices (which averaged $1.20 a gallon in spring 2002 but hung around $4.10 for much of this summer) is the junior senator from Illinois. That's because he did not initially jump to lift the ban restricting off-shore oil drilling, or support the Arizona senator's feckless call for a federal gas-tax moratorium. That proposal was a gimmick and eventually disappeared even from McCain's play book.

The price of oil has cut into household budgets and curtailed summer vacation plans. With families forced to choose between a shopping trip or the commute that brings in a salary, consumer spending has declined. There's more than enough pain to go around, and yet there is no denying it: High energy prices also have an unforeseen bright side, forcing the nation to reduce its carbon emissions and delivering the encouraging message that, although we might not regain the freewheeling way of life that came with cheap gasoline, we have more ability to shape our fates than the caricature of the soft, spoiled American implied.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research, an important hub for work on the causes and consequences of climate change, has shut down a program focused on strengthening poor countries' ability to forecast and withstand droughts, floods and other climate-related hazards. The move, which center officials say resulted from the shrinking of federal science budgets, is being denounced by many experts on environmental risk, who say such research is more crucial than ever in a world with rising populations exposed to climate threats. In e-mail exchanges, these experts said the eliminated program, the Center for Capacity Building, was unique in its blend of research and training in struggling countries.

On his recent swing Down Under, Pope Benedict XVI garnered headlines for drawing a half-million pumped-up young Catholics to World Youth Day as well as for his latest bout of candor on the church’s sexual abuse crisis. Less noted was an important bit of subtext: the pope’s repeated calls for environmental protection. In fact, environmentalism has emerged as perhaps the most distinctive new feature of Benedict XVI's social teaching. Benedict touched upon the environment seven times during his July 12-21 trip to Australia, more often than he mentioned sexual abuse, the right to life, relativism, or any other social or cultural concern.

During a gathering with more than 400 priests in the Italian region of Tirol on Wednesday, the feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus, Pope Benedict XVI said Christianity has always encouraged care for the environment based on the conversion of the human person. He said that when asked about the Catholic view on protecting the environment, Benedict XVI stressed that "God, as Creator, cannot be excluded from history." The Pope believes that those who are conscious of the fact that God has entrusted man with creation have a solid foundation for respecting the environment.

On McCain: "His opposition to corporate welfare and subsidy disappears when it comes to the domestic auto industry.... Price signals will deliver all of these sought-after technological improvements if [and] when they are economically competitive."
On Obama: "Obama's plan is a more naked assertion that federal will plus federal dollars will make all technology wishes come true.... If subsidy and mandates could deliver low-cost alternatives to fossil fuels, then ethanol would already be cheaper than conventional gasoline."

The current economic system does not work when it comes to protecting environmental resources. Polluters, still, do not pay. Considering the environment as an ‘externality’ allows false prices to be sustained on ever depleting resources. Governments maintain environmentally damaging perverse subsidies (for oil; for agriculture; favoring automobiles over public transportation) and are not adequately forthcoming on environmentally helpful subsidies The market has never been much good at creating or preserving ‘public goods’. The ‘Free-Rider’ dilemma has bedeviled global environmental attempts at treaties or cap and trade schemes.

Catholic colleges and universities are joining their public counterparts in pursuing green initiatives for their campuses using a variety of resources, offices and organizations. Students and school officials are tapping into Internet-based initiatives such as the Campus Greening Initiative at www.netimpact.org and Campus Climate Challenge, www.climatechallenge.org, and they're also entering competitions such as RecycleMania, which promotes friendly competition among campuses to promote recycling efforts. Sustainability, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, means "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

Americans want their next president to invest in new energy sources and won't penalize a candidate who says they need to change their habits to conserve, according to the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. Obama's ideas had broader support, and he was viewed as better able to handle energy issues. But 21% said neither candidate would do a good job. Energy and gas prices top the list this year when voters are asked what's extremely important to them in choosing a candidate.

Energy is now the No. 1 issue in the 2008 elections, with both candidates touting new plans to deal with soaring energy prices. Meanwhile, Congress is at a standstill, arguing over the renewal of critical clean energy incentives and a push for more offshore drilling. But above the partisan cacophony is a proposal all Americans can get behind: a new national education initiative to meet the energy challenge. Solving the energy crisis requires large strategic investments to spark a clean energy economy and develop cheap and nonpolluting energy for every American.

Visiting Australia in July gave Pope Benedict XVI an opportunity to develop further his creation morality, which he first explained in the northern Italian Alps a year ago. While Pope John Paul II was the outdoorsman, Pope Benedict's three-year pontificate already is seen as the green papacy. But his July 12-21 trip to Australia also gave him an opportunity to demonstrate that his concern is theologically based, part of a broad moral code and is perhaps the best way to convince young people that there is such a thing as natural law -- that some actions are naturally always right or wrong.

Seven Western states are joining four Canadian provinces to propose a plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions through use of a "cap and trade" system. The draft plan, made public Wednesday by Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski's office, is aimed at gradually reducing carbon emissions across Oregon, Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Washington. The plan, which also would extend to British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec in Canada, is keyed to a cap and trade system on utilities and industries that are major sources of greenhouse gases.

The world is in deepening crisis. Food prices are soaring. Oil prices are at historic highs. The leading economies are entering a recession. Climate change negotiations are going around in circles. Aid to the poorest countries is stagnant, despite years of promised increases. And yet in this gathering storm it was hard to find a single real accomplishment by the world's leaders. The world needs global solutions for global problems, but the G-8 leaders clearly cannot provide them. Because virtually all of the political leaders who went to the summit are deeply unpopular at home, few offer any global leadership. They are weak individually and even weaker when they get together and display to the world their inability to mobilize real action.

On Tuesday, T. Boone Pickens made his Capitol Hill debut to promote his new cause: using American wind to alleviate the nation's energy crisis and wean itself from dependency on foreign oil. He testified before a Senate committee and held meetings with Democratic leaders, calling on lawmakers to take a stand. For Pickens, 80, it's not a complete turnabout. But he is spending $58 million to advance what he calls "the Pickens Plan" to the country and its leaders.