The Bush era of energy policy has been one of contempt for the planet and the economy — all for the benefit of Exxon and its ilk. Now he wants to tie our future to even dirtier, deadlier, costlier fossil fuels. Today in West Virginia, President Bush declared his plan for a “sprint to the finish” of his tenure:

We all want to be environmentally friendly people, but we also want to have practical policies that deal with the problems we face today and the problems we’ll face tomorrow if we don’t get going.

What are these “practical policies”?

— “We use about 1.1 billion tons of coal a year. That sounds like a lot to me. It — and so the challenge is, how do we make sure that this reliable source of U.S. energy remains in the center of our strategy?”

— “First, we ought to be drilling offshore exploration, what’s called the Outer Continental Shelf.”

— “Secondly, we ought to expand oil production by tapping into oil shale.”

— “We ought to be drilling in Alaska.”

— “I believe that one really promising source of energy, so we can power our automobiles and become less dependent on foreign energy, is coal-to-liquids projects.”

This is a call for a “sprint to the finish” of civilization as we know it. The Wonk Room has explained how coal-to-liquids, oil shale, expanded offshore drilling would benefit no one but corporate polluters — and would dramatically worsen the climate crisis.

Two weeks ago, former Vice President Al Gore, Bush’s 2000 opponent, explained the roots of the Bush-era crises:

When we look at all three of these seemingly intractable challenges at the same time, we can see the common thread running through them, deeply ironic in its simplicity: our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges – the economic, environmental and national security crises.

We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change.

But if we grab hold of that common thread and pull it hard, all of these complex problems begin to unravel and we will find that we’re holding the answer to all of them right in our hand.
The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.

Standing before right-wing coal industry of West Virginia — which has devastated the state’s jobs, lives, and land — Bush claimed, “I love the fact that we’ve got people who understand the dangers we face, understand we’re facing ideological people that use murder to achieve their objectives, and want to hurt us again here at home.”

With his right-wing fealty to the fossil polluters who, if left unchecked, will destroy the planet, the president is describing himself.

How much oil can be found in Americans’ car — through more efficient driving and better vehicle maintenance? Using current numbers from the Bush DOE and EPA , the answer appears to be some 2.5 to 3 million barrels a day — 20 times what could be found if we ended the congressional moratorium on offshore drilling (see “The cruel offshore-drilling hoax“) and three times the oil we are likely to find in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (see “Opening ANWR cuts gas prices TWO cents in 2025“).

And these savings would quickly lower Americans’ annual fuel bills perhaps $700 a year , whereas drilling might save them about $12 a year in 20 years.

But let me begin at the beginning. Obama, as everyone knows, has presented detailed national strategies to reduce oil consumption as part of his climate plan months ago (see “Obama’s excellent energy and climate plan“). Now the right wing is all agog at some remarks Obama made yesterday about what individuals can do:

“We could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling if everybody was just inflating their tires and getting regular tune-ups. You could save just as much.”

Limbaugh said:

This is unbelievable! My friends, this is laughable of course, but it’s stupid! It is stupid! … Avoid jackrabbit starts, keep your tires properly inflated, there’s a list of about ten or twelve these things. I said if I follow each one of these things I’ll have to stop the car every five miles, siphon some fuel out, for all the fuel I’m going to be saving. This is ridiculous…. Who has filled his head with this stuff?

Actually, it is probably the Bush administration’s own Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency that has filled him with that stuff. Let’s do the math.

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Just when you thought it was safe to build 45 new nuclear plants by 2030 as John McCain wants, comes this word from France’s Independent Commission on Research and Information on Radiocactivity (CRIIRAD):

“In less than 15 days, the CRIIRAD has been informed of four malfunctions in four nuclear plants, leading to the accidental contamination of 126 workers,” CRIIRAD head Corinne Castanier told Reuters in an interview.…

But the conservative francophile [how's that for an oxymoron?] said last year

“If France can produce 80% of its electricity with nuclear power, why can’t we?“

McCain seems to forget we are a much, much larger country than France. Heck, we already have more nuclear reactors than they do. To achieve McCain’s goal, we’d need 500 to 700+ new nuclear reactors plus 5 to 7 Yucca mountains, at a cost of some $4 trillion. Not to mention the soaring electricity bills Americans would have to suffer through, with electricity from new nukes projected at some $0.15 a kilowatt hour — some 50% higher than current national rates — not even counting transmission (or reprocessing).

The only thing scarier than the radioactivity hazard of nuclear power is the economic hazard, (see “Nuclear power, Part 2: The price is not right” and “The Self-Limiting Future of Nuclear Power“).

But wait, you say, where in fact will McCain store all of his radioactive waste — assuming he doesn’t plan to ask plant workers to toss it out the car window? Don’t worry, yesterday he reiterated his desire to be like the French and reprocess, reprocess, reprocess:

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Sure glacier melt, sea level rise, extreme drought, and species loss get all the media attention — they are the Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Barack Obama of climate impacts. But what about good old-fashioned sweltering heat? How bad will that be? Two little-noticed studies — one new, one old — spell out the grim news.

Bottom line: By century’s end, extreme temperatures of up to 122°F would threaten most of the central, southern, and western U.S. Even worse, Houston and Washington, DC could experience temperatures exceeding 98°F for some 60 days a year.

The peak temperature analysis comes from a Geophysical Research Letters paper published two weeks ago that focused on the annual-maximum “once-in-a-century” temperature. Researchers looked at the case of a (mere) 700 ppm atmospheric concentrations of CO2, the A1b scenario, with total warming of about 3.5°C by century’s end. The key scientific point is that “the extremes rise faster than the means in a warming climate.”

The results, depicted above (in °C), are quite remarkable, especially when you consider that, instead of 700 ppm, we could easily end up closer to 1000 ppm by century’s end (see here), in which case these record temperatures could be seen closer to 2060 than 2100:

… values in excess of 50°C [122°F] in Australia, India, the Middle East, North Africa, the Sahel and equatorial and subtropical South America.

As you can see from the map, extreme temperature peaks are only slightly lower over large parts of this country. The study notes:

Such temperatures, if lasting for some days, are life threatening and receive relatively little attention in the climate change debate.

So now the question is, has anybody done an analysis of what global warming could do to intense heat waves that last very long times, weeks or months? The answer is yes, and the results of that study are more worrisome — and it also received relatively little attention.

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The rich do get richer — and at your expense. The energy giant has posted the largest quarterly profits of any U.S. company ever:

Profits at oil companies this quarter continued to reflect oil prices that almost doubled in the second quarter from the year earlier.

Exxon Mobil on Thursday reported that second-quarter profit rose 14 percent, to $11.68 billion, the highest-ever profit by an American company. Exxon broke its own record.…

Earlier in London, Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s largest oil company, reported a 33 percent increase in second-quarter profit on Thursday, helped by a higher oil price even as production declined…. Shell’s profit rose to $11.56 billion from $8.67 billion in the period a year ago.

So, yes, you should’ve listened to your father’s friend when he said to you in college, “petrochemicals.”

Okay, it wasn’t the Bush White House that admitted this, it was Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). And it wasn’t so much an admission as an accusation. But still.

Whitehouse, a Senator we love, laid out the damning case against EPA administrator Stephen Johnson, concluding:

Administrator Johnson suggests a man who has every intention of driving his agency onto the rocks, of undermining and despoiling it, of leaving America’s environment and America’s people without an honest advocate in their federal government.

Our take on Johnson here. Whitehouse video here. Full text below:

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EARTH–Former vice president Al Gore–who for the past three decades has unsuccessfully attempted to warn humanity of the coming destruction of our planet, only to be mocked and derided by the very people he has tried to save–launched his infant son into space Monday in the faint hope that his only child would reach the safety of another world.

“I tried to warn them, but the Elders of this planet would not listen,” said Gore, who in 2000 was nearly banished to a featureless realm of nonexistence for promoting his unpopular message. “They called me foolish and laughed at my predictions. Yet even now, the Midwest is flooded, the ice caps are melting, and the cities are rocked with tremors, just as I foretold. Fools! Why didn’t they heed me before it was too late?”

Al Gore–or, as he is known in his own language, Gore-Al–placed his son, Kal-Al, gently in the one-passenger rocket ship, his brow furrowed by the great weight he carried in preserving the sole survivor of humanity’s hubristic folly.

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This is the second post in our series of investigative pieces looking into ASWF. See the first post here.

Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company, became one of the top funders for Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF) this June, with a contribution of a quarter of a million dollars. IRS documents reveal that Peabody’s donation of $250,000 on June 9 — days after fossil-industry senators blocked global warming legislation — came on top of an April contribution of $25,000 from Peabody’s top Washington lobbyist, Fredrick Palmer:

Peabody, World’s Largest Coal Company, #4 Backer Of American Solutions For Winning The Future. Newt Gingrich’s 527 organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future, has received $275,000 in contributions from Peabody Energy, Inc. As of July 1, 2008, the world’s largest private-sector coal company is ASWF’s fourth highest contributor. [IRS, $250,000 6/16/08, $25,000 4/30/08]

Last year, a front group backed by Peabody smeared Kansas Governor Kathleen Sibelius (D) as a supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for denying an air permit to new coal plants because of their potential global warming pollution. When challenged, Peabody declared, “We are pleased to support the message.”

On July 23, Peabody reported record profits of $242.6 million and record sales of $1.53 billion for its second quarter, on surging coal prices. Its 59.8 million tons of coal sold are responsible for about one percent of the world’s total global warming emissions that quarter.

Peabody Energy’s vision for “America’s Energy Future,” with U.S. coal consumption doubling by 2025, is shared by ASWF, as its “Platform Of The American People” attests:

– To combat the rising cost of energy and reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources, we support the United States using more of its own domestic energy resources, including the oil and coal it already has here in the U.S.

– We believe the United States should increase its use of coal because it is a domestically available energy source, is less expensive than imported foreign oil, and new technologies have dramatically reduced emissions from burning coal, as well as making it much less harmful to the environment.

– We believe that if research indicates we could build clean coal plants in the United States with no carbon emissions, it would be important to build such plants as rapidly as possible.

– We believe in using United States domestic energy sources such as clean coal and oil, even if it means drilling off our coasts and in Alaska, as well as offering tax credits for American businesses that develop new energy sources.

The fossil-fuel-dependent future that Peabody Energy is promoting through Newt Gingrich’s “Drill Here, Drill Now” billionaire-backed front group is catastrophic, as it “ignores the nightmarish damages that would be caused to our air, water and climate.”

In the words of NASA climate scientist Jim Hansen, “Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, as tobacco companies discredited the smoking-cancer link.” ASWF is just the latest of these fossil-fueled front groups. Hansen concluded:

CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature. Conviction of ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal CEOs will be no consolation, if we pass on a runaway climate to our children.

California and its utilities have achieved remarkably consistent energy efficiency gains for three decades (see “Part 3: The only cheap power left“). How did they do it?

In part, a smart California Energy Commission has promoted strong building standards and the aggressive deployment of energy-efficient technologies and strategies — and has done so with support of both Democratic and Republican leadership over three decades. I talked to California energy commissioner Art Rosenfeld — a former DOE colleague and the godfather of energy efficiency — about what the state does, and here are some interesting details he offered, as discussed in “Why we never need to build another polluting power plant“:

Many of the strategies are obvious: better insulation, energy-efficient lighting, heating and cooling. But some of the strategies were unexpected. The state found that the average residential air duct leaked 20 to 30 percent of the heated and cooled air it carried. It then required leakage rates below 6 percent, and every seventh new house is inspected. The state found that in outdoor lighting for parking lots and streets, about 15 percent of the light was directed up, illuminating nothing but the sky. The state required new outdoor lighting to cut that to below 6 percent. Flat roofs on commercial buildings must be white, which reflects the sunlight and keeps the buildings cooler, reducing air-conditioning energy demands. The state subsidized high-efficiency LED traffic lights for cities that lacked the money, ultimately converting the entire state.

California adopted regulations so that utility company profits are not tied to how much electricity they sell. This is called “decoupling.” It also allowed utilities to take a share of any energy savings they help consumers and businesses achieve. The bottom line is that California utilities can make money when their customers save money. That puts energy-efficiency investments on the same competitive playing field as generation from new power plants (for more details, see California makes efficiency “business as usual”).

If you really want the specific strategies that California utilites use to save energy, here are the “approved program implementation plans” for 2006-2008 from one of the state’s largest utilities, Southern California Edison. You can click on each link to see just what SCE will do and what the expected results are:

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Can anyone stop the madness?

As depicted on the award-winning AMC show, people in the advertising industry in the 1960s are utterly despicable. So are McCain’s ad team. To go by their latest ad, they are willing to say and do anything to win.

Notwithstanding its mixed messages — what do celebrity starlets have to do with offshore drilling? — this ad is beyond despicable. McCain supports higher prices for coal and natural gas — assuming he is not abandoning his cap and trade system as everyone else in his campaign alredy has. And, of course, coastal drilling will do nothing to lower energy prices even in 2030.

But the media has been letting McCain just make stuff up on oil drilling. So why not on everything else, too?

One more question — exactly who is this “John McCain” guy who would approve such a message? Somebody, strictly Rove Bush league, I’m afraid.

I have no idea what this ad means. But I saw it in Newsweek and had to scan it onto the blog:

Seriously! I am open to anyone’s thoughts as to what this means. Here is the best I can come up with.

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Do the 535 elected leaders in the United States Congress have what it takes to help America solve its energy and climate crises?

Apparently not. Congress flunked a crucial test on climate change earlier this year when the Senate failed to bring a cap-and-trade bill to a vote. The House hasn’t even brought a bill to the floor.

Another crucial test is scheduled this week on a proposal to extend tax incentives for renewable energy industries. The incentives are critical to the rapid development of wind and solar systems in the United States, technologies that are essential to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. Unless Congress votes to extend them, the incentives will expire at the end of the year.

How much science does it take; how many droughts, wildfires and natural disasters; how many energy crises; how many entreaties from world leaders before Congress does the right thing?

For some historical perspective, here’s another question: What do Tim Wirth, Al Gore, Claudine Schneider, Ernest Hollings and Daniel Patrick Moynihan have in common?

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Paul Krugman has a blog post about one of my favorite economists, Marty Weitzman. He has the central point right, which is that “on any sort of expected-welfare calculation, the small probability of catastrophe dominates the expected loss.”

But Krugman’s general lack of understanding of global warming — and his willingness to believe anything Bj¸rn Lomborg says — undermines his entire analysis:

Bjorn Lomborg … says that climate change will reduce world GDP by less than 0.5%, so it’s not worth spending a lot on mitigation.

Weitzman’s point is, first, that we don’t actually know that: a small loss may be the most likely outcome given what we know now, but there’s some chance that things will be much worse. (Marty surveys the existing climate models, and suggests that they give about a 1% probability to truly catastrophic change, say a 20-degree centigrade rise in average temperature.)

… Suppose that there’s a 99% chance that Lomborg is right, but a 1% chance that catastrophic climate change will reduce world GDP by 90%. You might be tempted to disregard that small chance — but if you’re even moderately risk averse (say, relative risk aversion of 2 — econowonks know what I mean), you quickly find that the expected loss of welfare isn’t 0.5% of GDP, it’s 10% or more of GDP.

Well, ‘yes’, on the final point, but ‘no’ on every other point.

Indeed, a 20°C rise in average global temperature — which translates to perhaps 50°F warming over much of the inland U.S. — is “James Lovelock” territory where “the Earth’s population will be culled from today’s 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million.” Catastrophic climate change is anything significantly over 3°C, which is not a 1% chance, but a near certainty if we don’t reverse greenhouse gas emissions sharply and soon (see “Is 450 ppm politically possible? Part 0: The alternative is humanity’s self-destruction“).

Lomborg, of course, does not have anywhere near a 99% chance of being right that “climate change will reduce world GDP by less than 0.5%.” Indeed, if we actually followed Lomborg’s do-nothing prescription, then he has precisely a zero chance of being right. He is a pure disinformer (see “Lomborg skewers the facts, again” and “Debunking Bj¸rn Lomborg — Part III, He’s a Real Nowhere Man“).

Weitzman’s analysis is, however, very important for traditionally economists — and everyone else — to understand, so let me reprint my September post, Harvard economist disses most climate cost-benefit analyses, below:

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In a sobering speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) formally announced the request for a Department of Justice investigation into the potential criminal conduct of EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, whom he called “a man after Spiro Agnew’s own heart.”

Whitehouse listed five charges of “putting the interests of corporate polluters before science and the law” in ozone, lead, soot, tailpipe emissions, and global warming pollution; and four charges of degrading “the procedures and institutional safeguards that sustain the agency;” before discussing “his apparent dishonesty in testimony before Congress”:

And in what is perhaps the gravest matter of all, I believe the Administrator deliberately and repeatedly lied to Congress, creating a false picture of the process that led to EPA’s denial of the California waiver, in order to obscure the role of the White House in influencing his decision.

Today, Senator Boxer and I have sent a letter to Attorney General Mukasey, asking him to investigate whether Administrator Johnson gave false and misleading statements, whether he lied to Congress, whether he committed perjury, and whether he obstructed Congress’s investigation into the process that led to the denial of the California waiver request.

Watch it:

After listing yet more “signs of an agency corrupted in every place the shadowy influence of the Bush White House can reach,” Sen. Whitehouse concluded:

Administrator Johnson suggests a man who has every intention of driving his agency onto the rocks, of undermining and despoiling it, of leaving America’s environment and America’s people without an honest advocate in their federal government.

This behavior not only degrades his once-great agency – it drives the dagger of dishonesty deep in the very vitals of American democracy.

The American people cannot accept such a person in a position of such great responsibility. I am sorry it has come to this, but I call on Administrator Johnson to resign his position.

I yield the floor.

Watch it:

Join Sen. Whitehouse in calling for Johnson’s resignation here.

Full text of Sen. Whitehouse’s speech: Read more

I don’t really see how there is any serious prospect for solving either our energy security problem or our climate problem if the traditional media doesn’t do any policing whatsoever of statements by major politicians. Here is McCain yesterday:

“… it will be vital that we continue oil production at a high level including offshore drilling. Now, the briefings that I have had with the oil producers, there are some instances that within a matter of months, they could be getting additional oil.“

Standing in front of a large California oil drill, in what appears to be filming of a new movie, There Will Be Lies, McCain went so far as to say:

But there’s abundant resources in the view of the people who are in the business that could be exploited within a period of months. So offshore drilling is something we have to do.

Okay, I can understand why he believes whatever stuff the oil producers make up — they are lining his pockets now. And I understand the three reasons that McCain would lie to the public:

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Fivetime Climate Progress blogger (and former Time magazine reporter) Eric Roston has just published The Carbon Age: How Life’s Core Element Has Become Civilization’s Greatest Threat.

He will be appearing on The Colbert Report tonight at 11:30. I hope he fares better than the Sierra club’s Carl Pope.

If Time magazine can call it “engaging” with a “powerful conclusion,” then I can certainly testify it is the definitive book on the most vital — and most dangerous — element in the universe. Publisher’s Weekly says:

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The Solar Electric Power Association has issued a report ranking the top utilities that have integrated solar energy into their portfolio. Crowned at the top of several of the ranking categories are Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

ClimateWire has also covered the release and reports (full article):

The California company was rated as having the most overall solar capacity and the highest solar capacity per customer. The association notes, however, that Southern California Edison may not stay in the top spot for long, as other utilities are planning to build concentrating solar thermal plants [baseload solar plants], which use technology such as mirrors to collect sunlight and use the energy to heat water for electricity generation.

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The same old men that propelled George W. Bush into office in 2000 and 2004 are behind Newt Gingrich’s multimillion-dollar front group, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF). ASWF has capitalized on the energy crisis caused by the Bush presidency to promote a “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” campaign. Although the campaign’s priorities are just a rebranding of an oil-company agenda, ASWF’s well-funded drill-drill-drill message has achieved significant success, with 1.3 million people signing their petition:

We, therefore, the undersigned citizens of the United States, petition the U.S. Congress to act immediately to lower gasoline prices (and diesel and other fuel prices) by authorizing the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries.

The Wonk Room has covered in depth how the “solutions” promoted by “environmentalist” Newt Gingrich: increased offshore drilling, oil shale mining, coal-to-liquids, and tar sands — would be ecological disasters without economic benefit, except for Big Oil executives and their even wealthier investors. That group has likewise prospered richly under Bush, while the rest of the nation falls into disrepair.

So who is behind ASWF? The key funder is right-wing casino kingpin Sheldon Adelson, who has pumped over $3 million into the organization since its beginning in 2006. Adelson is flanked by 56 other such donors who have given at least $10,000. Donors can give unlimited amounts to this 527 corporation, making it an ideal mechanism for the superrich to influence the presidential season. In the first of a Wonk Room series, we discuss the seven right-wing billionaires bankrolling this “non-partisan” organization:

SHELDON ADELSON

Net Worth: $26.0 billion
Donations to ASWF: $3,066,340
Bush Pioneer

The Casino Kingpin

BACKGROUND: The third richest man in America, Adelson made his first millions with the dot-com trade show Comdex, then purchased the Las Vegas Sands Hotel and Casino, tearing it down to construct the Venetian in 1999. Since he took the Sands Corporation public in 2004 and began establishing casinos for the Asian market in Macao, his wealth has ballooned at a rate of “almost $1 million an hour” to $26 billion, mostly in China. A major GOP donor, Adelson sits on the board of the “conservative Republican Jewish Coalition.” Armed with, in his language, a “big pair of brass monkeys,” Adelson “is fiercely opposed to a two-state solution” in Israel. In addition to supplying over $3 million to ASWF, Adelson co-founded Freedom’s Watch, a “big neoconservative slush fund” with ties to the American Enterprise Institute.

QUOTES:

“You know, I am the richest Jew in the world.” [New Yorker, 6/30/08]

“We’re the largest investor of any kind in the history of China.” [New Yorker, 6/30/08]

On AIPAC’s support for aid to Palestinians: “If someone is going to jump off a bridge, it is incumbent upon their friends to dissuade them.” [Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 11/15/07]

“Why is it fair that I should be paying a higher percentage of taxes than anyone else?” [New Yorker, 6/30/08]

CARL LINDNER

Net Worth: $2.3 billion
Donations to ASWF: $650,000
Bush Pioneer

The Banana Republican

BACKGROUND: Carl Lindner, Jr., “a Cincinnati businessman with international interests ranging from banking to bananas, is one of the nation’s wealthiest men” and “gives heavily to political campaigns.” He built a dairy empire into the holding company American Financial Group, making giant profits off the savings and loan industry, junk bonds, and Chiquita Brands International Inc., where he “oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group.” Using political connections in the 1990s, “Lindner opened European markets for Chiquita bananas,” but “it came at a high cost: more expensive goods for American citizens; the threat of fewer jobs in industries that buy American-manufactured steel; and certain economic instability for Caribbean and African nations and its citizens.”

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Twitter is the home of micro-blogging.

Members write text-based posts or “tweets” that are up to 140 characters long “for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” Or another simple question, “What corporate spin are you pushing?”

I know readers will be eager to “Join today to start receiving ExxonMobilCorp’s updates.” Heck, you might want to send the oil giant some of your own tweets as Desmogblog suggests (see “Is ExxonMobil following you on Twitter?“)

If nothing else, this proves ExxonMobil’s profits are too large, since they can afford to pay some PR stooge staffer to push this drivel, assuming these tweets are genuine and not some clever campaign to make the oil company look (even more) inane:

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As the popular European political thinkers at Abba explained in their award-winning 1974 treatise, Waterloo: “The history book on the shelf is always repeating itself.”

President Bush campaigned on a cap-and-trade system for electric utility CO2 emissions. He dumped that as fast as Brad Pitt dropped Jennifer Aniston. Now is McCain following suit?

Yesterday, McCain economic adviser Steve Forbes said:

I think cap and trade is going to go the way of some other things, as you may remember, when he came into office, Bill Clinton had a proposal of tax carbons and stuff like that. I don’t think those things are going to get very far as people start to examine the details of them.

I’m not sure people should simply dismiss this as mere talk from a conservative who doesn’t believe in global warming — remember, McCain’s administration would mostly be filled with conservatives who don’t believe in global warming (as noted in “No climate for old men: Why John McCain isn’t the candidate to stop global warming“).

This is part of a concerted effort by McCain and his campaign to reassure conservatives he’s not going to take strong action on climate, while hoping that moderates would be fooled just like some Bush voters were in 2000 ignore all this talk, which itself is a core campaign strategy of doubletalk (see “Memo to media: McCain doubletalks to woo conservatives and independents at the same time“).

Consider the increasingly sorry history of McCain campaign pronouncements on climate and clean energy:

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