Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Inside Climate News laments the collapse of recently deceased Republican John McCain‘s efforts to build a bipartisan climate policy.
John McCain’s Climate Change Legacy
The senator from Arizona brought climate science into Capitol Hill hearings and cap-and-trade legislation to a vote, but then moderate Republican politics changed.
By Marianne Lavelle
AUG 26, 2018Among the many battles Sen. John McCain waged in his storied career, it is easy to overlook his fight for U.S. action on climate change.
He wrote legislation that failed. He built a bipartisan coalition that crumbled. And when Congress came closest to passing a bill that embraced his central idea—a market-based cap-and-trade system—McCain turned his back.
And yet, McCain’s nearly decade-long drive on global warming had an impact that reverberates in today’s efforts to revive the U.S. role in the climate fight. In the Senate chamber and on the campaign trail, the Arizona Republican did more than any other U.S. politician has done before or since to advance the conservative argument for climate action.
Today’s efforts to recruit GOP members into the climate movement—appeals to conservative and religious values, the framing of climate change as a national security threat, efforts to stress market-based solutions and the role business leaders can play—all owe a debt to McCain.
At the same time, McCain’s climate journey and its abrupt end serve as a cautionary tale of how far the Republican party has moved from a mainstream conservatism that is receptive to such appeals.
“What McCain did on climate is a really great reminder of where we need to get back to,” said Kevin Curtis, executive director of NRDC Action. As an environmental lobbyist on Capitol Hill in the 2000s, Curtis watched close-up as McCain crafted the first economy-wide climate legislation in the U.S. with one of his closest friends in the chamber, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, the Democrat who would later turn Independent.
“Lieberman and McCain were really good examples of a Democrat and Republican intentionally, consciously and thoughtfully trying to work across the aisle to build a 60-vote coalition in the Senate on climate,” said Curtis. “The point of looking at McCain’s legacy, I think, is not to just look back to the ‘good old days,’ but to look at what we need to get back to.”
…
…
I accept the view that McCain was motivated by a desire to do good, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Since the heady victory of President Trump it has been easy to forget that much of the world, much of the USA is still firmly in the grip of the climate rent seekers. After decades of rolling back opportunities for politicians to steal public funds, the climate crisis has opened the way for a new era of dodgy donations and kickbacks from people whom I believe are cloaking their efforts to help themselves to taxpayer’s money with noisy proclamations of their desire to save the world.
Political corruption, once entrenched, is difficult to root out. McCain, despite his best intentions, helped bring us to this point.
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depends on what the definition of “good” is……it certainly isn’t mine
I think the meaning of “good” is unrelated to the phrase “good intention”.
Seaching Google for the definition of “good intention” resulted in:-
good intention
See: benevolence
BENEVOLENCE, duty. The doing a kind action to another, from mere good will, without any legal obligation. It is a moral duty only, and it cannot be enforced by law. A good man is benevolent to the poor, but no law can compel him to be so.
BENEVOLENCE, English law. An aid given by the subjects to the king under a pretended gratuity, but in realty it was an extortion and imposition.
Looks like the second one is closer….
“A good man is benevolent to the poor, but no law can compel him to be so.”
Guess they never heard of welfare.
Is welfare actually good for its recipients? Most of the ultimate effects of welfare are bad: dependence, loss of the will to work or strive, furtherance of big government, militance in forcing other people to give money or goods to those who did not earn them, and the whole complex of phenomenal allied to these. For society as a whole, in this country it means higher taxes and a large cadre of federal/state/municipal employees whose sole job is administration of the status quo.
Senator McCain was hoodwinked by a pair of enviro-activists, one of whom went on to become executive director of Greenpeace. I described that situation back in 2015, please see: “Green Corps, part 3: Flipping Senator John McCain” http://gelbspanfiles.com/?p=3098
Cap-and-trade was as bad a notion as the McCain-Feingold bill, which he did get passed. McCain was in the bottom 10% of his class at the Naval Academy, and his career demonstrated it was a deserved grade.
….ever notice how a lot of politicians are in the bottom 10%
We certainly don’t get the pick of the litter
Algore flunked out of a divinity school, and eventually got a degree suited for football players and sons of prominent politicians.
OTOH … I believe Jerry Brown was top of his class in Jesuit Seminary … stinkin thinking can be found across a broad spectrum of … “intellect”
jesuit, n., 2. a crafty, intriguing, or equivocating person.
Yep, nowadays you can’t use offensive language about all sorts of protected groups but people can still be as offensive as they like to Catholics. Can anyone imagine someone submitting an offensive definition of a Jew and it getting past the moderators?
While Jesuits are Catholic, only a tiny fraction of Catholics are Jesuits.
The Jezzies have beeen heretical for 150 years save for a few bright lights. They have recreated God in their own image and likeness – that’s what Modernism is all about.
The word “jésuitisme” means playing with definitions in a not very honest way. “C’est un jésuite” = he is fooling you with elaborate prose.
And look at how much he enriched himself with cap & trade.
There was this really rich guy who got fired from a job plucking chickens because he flunked grade ten. A lady asked him how much better off he would have been if he had been able to finish his education. He replied that he probably would still be back there plucking chickens.
At each different stage of life, different skills make for success. That which makes a successful student does not necessarily make for a successful career.
It is often noted that the most successful lawyers finished in the bottom half of their class. link
Ever note that teachers are often (90%) in the bottom quintile of their undergrad classes?
These are the folks indoctrinating our yutes.
Maybe this is true for public schools, but independent (private) school have vastly more interested and educated faculty. My kids are far from being millennials, the mold does not fit.
No, it is NOT true for public schools. Your assessment of educational levels is also faulty. I also had chance to briefly teach in a private school. It was heaven, as those who were disruptive, disrespectful or not given to learn were simply shown the door. That does not happen in public schools, through no fault of the schools.
If there’s no remedial school available to take the troublemakers, the PubScho is stuck with them until their old enough to drop out.
I challenge you to cite the source(s) of such drivel. I suggest you start by reading this:
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/01/26/debunking-a-myth-about-us-teachers. As a retired teacher who was in the top 10% of my graduating class in high school and graduated Cum Laude from college, I resent the constant attacks on the many fine and high-quality public school teachers who work tirelessly to provide the best opportunities to learn for their students. I suggest that, should you need be critical of public education, you look for the cause of failure elsewhere. Students who come to school prepared to learn, do quite well, thank you.
I had a math teacher (kind of assistant) in first year of univ who didn’t understood linear bases at all, he believed that Ker H and Im H are in direct sum, I tried to explain him it couldn’t be true, never listened to me.
Another teacher had to admit, after I questioned her like a shark turning around a prey, that she didn’t knew a thing about the matter she was teaching (I left her alone at that point).
Regarding physics, the answers I got from teachers (not assistants, real professors):
– repetition of what he just said (not even related to my question)
– “thermodynamics is complicated and nobody really understands it”
That was DEPRESSING. I expected something else from univ.
There’s an old adage: those who can’t do, teach.
In regard to public school students, there is another old adage: you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
Yes. I once put up a drawing of that adage on my blackboard, much to the amusement of my pupils.
And those who can’t teach, teach teachers…
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.
They enter the service primarily just to be able to say they served, aka “punching their ticket”. Most end up in desk jobs for their tour of duty. McCain was unusual in that he saw combat and endured being a POW.
McCain showed a lot of character as a prisoner of war. He was tortured severely, and then when the North Vietnamese offered to release him (for propaganda purposes), he refused, saying the senior American in captivity should be the one released if there was going to be a release. So he remained in captivity.
John had a lot of heroic company in the Hanoi Hilton. A lot of tales of human endurance.
God Bless them all.
Of course not. They get real jobs.
He would have flunked out except for his dad and granddad’s being admirals.
He was at the academy only because of the “pull” that his father and grandfather, both academy alumni, were able to exert.
Yet, I will argue that nobody provides “pull” at Navy Pilot school.
Naval Aviator… Pilots are in the Air Force… 😎
>>
Naval Aviator
<<
As that old saying goes: “It’s a distinction without a difference.” We went through pilot training too.
Jim
When they hop in their planes, do they sit in a pilot’s seat or an aviator’s seat?
>>
. . . do they sit in a pilot’s seat or an aviator’s seat?
<<
Yes.
Jim
USS Liberty
Remember the Keating 5?
… of which he escaped punishment. Which is usually the first ‘tell’ of a corruptocrat.
McCain (rot in hell) had virtually nothing to do with the Keating Five.
Go dig out the real court and congressional records!
McCain was the only Republican among the Keating Five. He had everything to do with them. The worst offender was Cranston, Democrat of CA. McCain and Glenn were not the worst offenders, but were definitely unethical.
Keating, like McCain and Glenn, were naval aviators. USMC counts.
Yes.
I went to school with one of their kids.
Yes . And he treated “us” like he treated his first wife .
“us” being everyone except the “elites” .
I am of the belief we should speak no ill of the dead.
So I will just say, may he Rest In Peace.
Moving on, maybe we can get an actual conservative into his now vacant seat.
The recently dead, that is.
After a respectul period of time has passed, gloves are off and we need to be able to discuss a person’s legacy.
Body in the ground and tears of the family slowed to a trickle seems to be the minimum time for such.
I wrote in response to people trying to leverage McCain’s death to promote their climate cause.
getting a ringing posthumous endorsement from Inside Climate News…says it all
And I meant no criticism of what you write, just offering my own admittedly conflicted perspective.
I have come across numerous article and comments on various sites that I would like to offer my heartfelt opinion of, but get not get past the idea that to do so is unseemly.
Unfortunately, this is the time when much is being said that calls for weighing in on.
I was just reading about how on Vox a very insulting opinion piece was published within an hour of his announced death.
For me, it was about three days ago I wrote a longish commentary on him on my FB page, and wound up looking up just what sort of cancer he had, and found that it was a type of very aggressive brain cancer for which average survival time is 14 months from diagnosis. He was diagnosed 14 months ago.
I hear you. I certainly wouldn’t have jumped in so quickly on this issue except that others were already moving to try to make McCain’s death a climate policy statement.
No excuse, still entirely inappropriate when he is still warm.
As usual for Simon, it’s ok when done by your side. However responding is just evil.
Tell me when someone on my side has been openly critical of a Republican war hero who has just passed away? Seriously I would love to know, because I think you are talking nonsense.
Notice how Simon has to narrow the category. It’s almost as if he knows that he’s guilty, but has to try and hide it.
MarkW. Come on, stop avoiding, tell me when any respected politician has been nailed like McCain has here. It’s all just so sad you attempt to justify it. And you the man who is constantly flinging mud at the Left” for being inappropriate.
+42
I have already expressed my solemn and respectful … jubilation.
No. He was a disgusting person who worked to restrict our freedoms and engaged in self-glorification. And it’s important we say this now as we did before his death. How many times in climate research have we turned to “contemporary accounts” to disprove adjusted numbers or claims that cold or warm periods were not just regional. Recording history is too important to be left to those who want to soft sell a terrible person.
He was heavily involved in the fake “dirty” dossier on then candidate Trump. Nothing more needs to be said.
The dossier, the analysis of the intelligence agencies, climate science, medical science… the “liberals” support all the adjusted/made up/unverifiable stuff.
Now is the time to celebrate the goodness in the man. It should be acknowledged he was a brave war hero, who gave everything for his country…..in stark contrast to the draft dodging coward (private bone spur) who is the last person qualified to say McCain wasn’t a hero because he got caught.
Come now, all is fair in love and war. McCain thought he would use his power, celebrity, and influence to put upstart outsider Trump back in his place. The outsider who threatened the way of life of him and his ilk.
Trump tore him a new one with the celebrated counter attack against the RINO never-Trumper. “I prefer the ones who didn’t get caught.” With zingers like this, Trump showed the forgotten people that you can take on the corrupt Washington elite with a street fight.
McCain’s service in the war was admirable, possibly even heroic.
His service in politics was abominable at best.
And comrade Trump is doing better in politics?
Much
Much? OMG I think you are serious.
Trumps response to McCain’s passing highlights how completely unfit for president he is.
This passage from Blomburg highlights how little Trump knows of how a president should act.
“Trump has a duty to honor McCain not because he liked him (he apparently didn’t) nor because he is impressed by the former Navy pilot’s record of heroism (he isn’t) nor because he respects the senator’s lifelong commitment to public service (he’s incapable of understanding it). Trump is supposed to honor McCain because it is the president’s role, and the occasion demands it. “
I do not consider McCain any such man worthy of any such tribute. He “served the state” by sitting in the Senate for many years, spending many hours in front of the sympathetic TV cameras of the news media he preferred, giving opinions that they liked so he would go back in front of their TV cameras. Nothing more than that. And, in many of those years, he was corrupt and getting money for his votes.
As a Navy pilot, he crashed or destroyed five USN airplanes in less than five years. It was only through his father’s and grandfather’s connections as former admirals themselves that he continued to fly, that he even graduated Annapolis.
McCain thought he could use his prisoner of war status to provide cover for his atrocious, anti human and anti individual actions. I’m glad he’s dead, he was a scum sucking politician who was responsible for much destruction. I will never praise evil in any form nor talk in fond terms, regardless of circumstance. The same can be said of David Rockefeller, I hope they both get no rest wherever they are.
Simon, you are a tool, and a blunt one at that. Why are you still here?
“Simon, you are a tool, and a blunt one at that. Why are you still here?”
To highlight the hypocrisy of nobs like you.
+42
Hmmm
Just because a great man nailed his colours to a particular mast, doesn’t mean it was a good cause.
Sadly, in this case, it seems he was hoodwinked like so many others.
The perpetrators of the CAGW hoax ought to be rounded up and thrown in jail.
RIP, John McCain.
Big Oil has PROFITED more from climate hysteria than any other business on the planet. Which is why they are Big Green’s best partner. Which is what leads to campaign-funding-beggars like McCain support the AGW nonsense. “Maverick” my ass. How is one a “maverick” when he plays along with the popular, dominant, narrative? Less a “maverick” than a consensus-building Ewe.
Logically nuclear should benefit hugely from carbonophobia.
In the real world, not so much.
Yes If one follows the money, the owners of big oil are also the directors of the foundations (et al) that are Big Green’s largest funders. They are also the “Owners” George Carlin liked to mention, and the so called maverick was just another of their puppets.
I honor his service and the give highest regards to the resolve he showed as a POW.
His political career was nothing but one self serving disaster after another.
I thought this was about McCain not Trump.
Are you a complete idiot, or are you just paid to portray yourself in that manner.
Does your butt hurt all the time?
He either entertained their belief, profited from its progress, or thought that a compromise with a speculative cause was a lesser evil.
A short article, but sweet and succinct. Many good people get many things wrong.
McCain just died. It is fine to acknowledge his different positions on issues, but to go further than that is simply bad manners and poor taste. There are plenty of others who hold the same or worse views who are still alive and are, therefore, fairer targets.
The signs of admirations from people who used to despise the guy are much more indecent and depraved that critics from people who have been consistently critical.
But there is a time to breath through your nose and it is after the mans death.
Why?
Called respect. Learn some.
simon demanding that others act with respect.
Irony is lost on these guys
Simon can’t tolerate that we don’t worship his idols the way he does.
Right you are. Perhaps it would be appropriate for Jeff Sessions to lie in state next to McCain.
Gridlock is a GOOD THING for the American people.
You’re darn right it is.
The less those morons in Congress can do the better.
According to Marianne Lavelle, John McCain stopped trying to get a cap-and-trade system made into law when congress failed to back it. But many people, including myself, did a 180 turn on the issue after they did some research and after the passage of time revealed the true nature of all the green energy schemes. Why not McCain?
Because McCain loved what adulation he received from across the aisle from being a thorn under certain conservative’s saddles. “I just want to be loved! Is that so wrong?”
I looked at him as a media whore. I think there were times when he was younger he had a different heart but as he grew older he seemed to began to loose control of his center and wanted attention
There are a lot of of Arizonians who are glad to see him out of the Senate. If this is what it took so be it. His naval history isn’t as grand as it looks up close, either. His Admiral father’s hands are all over it. After he was grounded after his first crash, his father used his influence to put him back in the seat. Had there been no interference, McCain would not have become a prisoner of war.
He did some good things, like going thumbs down on Trump’s shameless attempt to deprive poor Americans of basic medical care and replace it with what?
Poor Americans (and illegal border-hoppers) received FREE medical care lonnng before Obamakkare shot an RPG into the heart of the American medical system. Now … poor people have to PAY … for the sex change operations and EVERY other politically-favored medical treatment despite having no need for such nonsense.
I know … because one of my own family members went from 100% FREE medical care (State and County) including the $100/dose medication he takes. Now … he pays $100/mo. with only 80% coverage despite working below the poverty level.
Saying that “America was the only industrialized nation in the world that didn’t care for its poor” was one of the most insidious LIES ever told about the greatest nation to ever inhabit the planet. Why d’ya think the world’s poor are flooding across our borders? McCain only extended the collapse of our economy under a mountain of DEBT.
Hatred for ObummerCare is largely what stopped Queen Hillary, and enabled the ongoing dismantling of the War On Carbon. You really need to consider who your true friends are. And while you’re at it, do some research, go discover just how many poor people are actually benefiting from ObummerCare.
The poor are and were under Medicaid. They get better care than most working Americans, although they deal with long waiting lines to keep being certified. Part of that is the increased paper work Obamacare put on the system. They were automatically grandfathered into Obamacare.
Please tell us when that guy approved that “basic medical care” before Trump was elected.
His record is very clear: He campaigned for years with repeal of Obamacare a centerpiece of his campaign.
Just days before the vote he indicated support.
McCain was a RINO.
He was not against Big Government. He was all for it.
He just thought a Republican could run your life better than a Democrat.
McCain loved being the NYT’s favorite Republican and would do whatever it took to maintain that adulation.
He was honestly surprised and hurt to find out that the NYT as well as the rest of the liberal establishment prefered a real Democrat to a fake one when he ran for president.
Let me remind everyone of what the left thought of McCain PRIOR to intentionally losing to Obama (think Chicago Black Sox scandal). …
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_azEh5s79kCE/SNBwfdRdwMI/AAAAAAAABio/ILsbzAyljVc/s1600-h/1609_mccainblood_sp.jpg
This “artistic” depiction of McCain was on the pages of Atlantic magazine.
McCain was a globalist. He finally admitted this a couple of weeks back. It was at least carried on Arizona media. He sometimes supported Progressive policies with his vote. He claimed to be working in the interest of wounded veterans, but nothing was accomplished during his time in Congress. The system just kept getting worse. It took a Trump to actually get real progress done.
The idea that anybody has a right to steal from their neighbors just because they are poor is despicable.
Actually the real thieves here are Democrat robber barons in Congress. Trillions of dollars were wasted as there had only been a change for the worse until jobs opened up. Very little of it wound up in the hands of the poor. The giant bureaucracy ate it up from the federal government down to the city level.
The socialist welfare state is a race to the bottom to be declared the Most Victimized of Them All, and receive the second-biggest license to steal.
(The State keeps the biggest license for itself, of course.)
Fixing the disaster of Obamacare was not going to deprive anyone of anything.
Voting against even discussing how to reform Obamacare is killing Americans right now.
Since you brought it up.
…. ahhhhh, what? Or, should I have sad: … ahhhh… wtf did they just say?
From the referenced piece: “… appeals to conservative and religious values, the framing of climate change as a national security threat, efforts to stress market-based solutions and the role business leaders can play—all owe a debt to McCain.” Such misdirection is not commendable. The atmosphere does what it does with heat because of the inherent properties of air and water vapor. It will not be persuaded by “framing,” and so neither will I.
McCain is “country over party” is code name for Dem program over his own promises.
You have an edit button to correct grammatical errors. It makes your sentence more powerful.
(x is a person who puts “country over party”)
=
(x is a person who puts (Dem program) over (x own promises))
I will pray for him but he was a disaster in the Senate. Speaking of McCain, my old roomate who was also shot down over Vietnam said you only get one plane, if you lose it for any reason you’re done flying, unless your dad is an admiral.
Oh, I dunno about that. Perhaps in the Navy. A good friend was a USAF pilot, and cashed his F-86D through pilot error. He was back in the saddle three days later, with a reprimand in his file is all. Moved on to F-102s. Years later Darryl Greenamyer tried to talk him into staying in the service and fly F-104s, but he was married by then and jumped over to the commercial airlines.
Why are you praying for the dead? Pray for his family. In fact McCain was grounded after his first crash. His admiral father supposedly used his influence to get his son back in the air.
Tom Cruise got another plane, so neener neener neener.
Coincidentally, he was Maverick too.
And they were both on Oprah.
And now, unfortunately, Oregon appears to have a GOP hopeful for Governor this fall, that has fallen for the same climate racket nonsense and his name is Knute Buehler.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was the GOP RINO that caused California’s climate law AB32 to become enacted into law on September 27, 2006. What’s really entertaining about this is that the left has been screaming that the California drought and this years bad wildfire season are the result of “worsening climate change”.
Gee, after 12 years of the California legislature picking the pocketbooks of Californians to “combat climate change” since the enactment of this insane climate law and policy, you’d think they’d be scratching their heads about now wondering why atmospheric CO2 is still increasing and they are still complaining that “climate change” is ruining their state. You would also think the voting base would be wondering the same thing about now and whether they’ve been lied to and ripped off.
A possible love story?
Aieee! My eyes! My eyes!
Ugggh, that was a low blow.
McCain was a mystery, inside a riddle, wrapped in an enigma.
And a useless dinosaur.
“I accept the view that McCain was motivated by a desire to do good,….”.
You can if you want; I don’t. I’ve never seen any evidence that good is what he wanted to do.
Stevie Wonder Dedicates Song to Late Sen. John McCain,’God Bless His Soul’
The same Stevie Wonder was blaming climate change for Aretha’s illness…
Stevie Wonder brought to you by Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and the Rockefeller Brothers?
Stevie Wonder’s comment on global warming and Aretha Franklin was deplorable.
Ironic that Stevie Wonder sang “If you believe in things you don’t understand, then you suffer”. Then he goes & does just that.
“Today’s efforts to recruit GOP members into the climate movement—appeals to conservative and religious values, the framing of climate change as a national security threat, efforts to stress market-based solutions and the role business leaders can play—all owe a debt to McCain.”
In this respect, it is good that his efforts now cease. And, now, without his misguided antiglobal warming efforts, other more reasonable views will get more air. As we are not warming, any effort to fight global warming will fail. The globalist goals, which do not have anything to do with global warming, will persist and simply be redressed and packaged.
McCain had a lot of positives, but his RINO status cannot be disputed.
The need to appeal to “conservative” (usually totally misdefined) and religious views indicates a severe failure of any science in global warming theory. When you have to use these marketing techniques to sell your lemon, it’s a sad commentary on your “product”.
The path to modern liberal fascism in Western Democracies go through the collective efforts of John McCain and Ted Kennedy.
I won’t say anything negative about him this close to his death.
I will simply say he was the democrat’s favorite republican.
Well well
Kennedy
Kerry
McCain
I’ll see you and raise you another three:
McCain
Obama
Hillary
>>I accept the view that McCain was motivated by a desire to do good, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.<< no one funded by uber national socialist George Soros is intending to do good for anyone but themself.