So, what to do in November if you live in the United States?

I believe that the most important thing you can do is educate yourself about your choices. And vote!

While I’m not 100% convinced that John McCain would be a green President, I think he’s paying more attention than others in his party have in the past. McCain opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and he’s been very critical of Bush’s lack of environmental leadership.

Here’s an excerpt from McCain’s recent speech on climate change in Portland, Oregon. You can read the whole speech with the link, but I picked this part because I think it shows that he does believe global warming is real.

“Some of the most compelling evidence of global warming comes to us from NASA. No longer do we need to rely on guesswork and computer modeling, because satellite images reveal a dramatic disappearance of glaciers, Antarctic ice shelves and polar ice sheets. And I’ve seen some of this evidence up close. A few years ago I traveled to the area of Svalbard, Norway, a group of islands in the Arctic Ocean. I was shown the southernmost point where a glacier had reached twenty years earlier. From there, we had to venture northward up the fjord to see where that same glacier ends today — because all the rest has melted. On a trip to Alaska, I heard about a national park visitor’s center that was built to offer a picture-perfect view of a large glacier. Problem is, the glacier is gone. A work of nature that took ages to form had melted away in a matter of decades.

Our scientists have also seen and measured reduced snowpack, with earlier runoffs in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere. We have seen sustained drought in the Southwest, and across the world average temperatures that seem to reach new records every few years. We have seen a higher incidence of extreme weather events. In the frozen wilds of Alaska, the Arctic, Antarctic, and elsewhere, wildlife biologists have noted sudden changes in animal migration patterns, a loss of their habitat, a rise in sea levels. And you would think that if the polar bears, walruses, and sea birds have the good sense to respond to new conditions and new dangers, then humanity can respond as well.”

To learn more, I highly recommend the Grist candidate profiles. Also, check out Time’s article: How Green is John McCain?

Do you think John McCain is sincere in his green efforts?

Image used with permission: Newscom

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in June 2008

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