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December 3, 2007

Next president must step up efforts to stop global warming

Penny Williams

Editor's note: This is the ninth in a series of stories examining the top issues of concern for The Eagle-Tribune's 154 voters participating in the presidential campaign coverage project.

Global warming is real, and the world is feeling its effects.

The causes may be up for debate, but the need for the next president to lead the country toward cleaner technology and a worldwide effort to reverse the trend isn't.

That's the consensus among voter participants in The Eagle-Tribune's poll, who ranked the issue among their top 10 concerns, when choosing the next president.

These voters agreed: the United States' dependence on oil must be addressed and alternative sources of energy must be developed.

The Eagle-Tribune polled more than 150 voters in 16 communities in southern New Hampshire. Thirty-three percent of them ranked global warming among their top 10 concerns when deciding whom to support as the next president.

Retiree Jim Stewart of Hampstead, who manages real estate investments, said his primary concern is that too many people are ignoring the issue.

“Members of the scientific community may not agree with the causal relationship between human actions and their impacts on our planet," the 62-year-old said. "But they all agree that global warming is happening.”

Stewart wants the next president to bring the country in line with the global community in terms of resolutions and action. He cited signing the 2002 Kyoto Accord as an example.

The solution, Stewart said, will come from reducing energy consumption and the release of hydrocarbons into the atmosphere. But, he said, the best strategy must come through research and development of alternate forms of energy.

Government’s role is one of funding through "tax breaks that support the creation of an infrastructure to support alternate energy,” he said.

Fellow Hampstead resident John Moynihan, a 43-year-old banker, agrees.

“The solution to this issue will not come from either regulation or grandstanding, but through technology," he said. "The challenge is to develop technology that will allow the production of clean energy in a cost-effective manner.”

Government should motivate businesses and scientists to do more research and develop cleaner technology, he said. The next president's role is to encourage the development of clean technology, he added.

But Liz Hannah, another Hampstead resident, thinks it's the president's responsibility to recognize the country's "insatiable appetite" for natural resources | particularly oil | and to recognize that appetite cannot be sustained.

Hannah, a 40-year-old marketing consultant, wants the next president to understand Americans won't have a safe and prosperous future if things don't change. And one way to change things, she said, is for the new president to encourage businesses to find alternative solutions to support the nation's need for fuel.

“He or she must be honest with the American people about this," Hannah said, "and use the power of the federal government to help us understand our impact on the rest of the world."

She said the current policy of encouraging the automotive industry to produce more fuel-efficient or alternative-fuel vehicles isn't working.

“I don’t believe there is any one solution that will stop global warming, but, rather, there will need to be multiple changes in the way we live and work," Hannah said. "Some of those changes will be difficult.”

Maria Green, a Hampstead engineer and math teacher, said her main concern with global warming is its "disastrous" impact on the Earth.

She said the country has the technology now, to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, "but until car-makers, power companies and the like will make the switch from using fossil fuels, there has to be a tremendous profit in it for them to do so.”

Green, 45, views government's role in the same way as Stewart.

“The U.S. government needs to step in with incentives and funding,” she said. “I want the next president to fine companies that are not in compliance with current environmental laws and make tougher laws. Also, stop contributions to international governments, using that money to finance research and development of alternative energy sources into products and services that are affordable and available to every American right now.”

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