Barack Obama

Prying answers out of the candidates about science-related issues this electoral season has proven almost as challenging as prying interviews out of Sarah Palin, McCain's elusive running mate. Aside from an early focus on the candidates' respective energy policies (see: their positions on offshore drilling), the press has shown relatively little interest in scrutinizing Obama's and McCain's views on matters of science.

Even the once controversial issue of stem cell biology, which, alongside gay marriage, helped mobilize the conservative base for George W. Bush during the 2004 election, has received little shrift this time around.

Of all the people to jump on the Blame-Bush-Bandwagon, Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper is now claiming that,

... global efforts to fight climate change are likely to go more smoothly once U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office early next year."

Yes, this is the same Prime Minister whose government was viewed as one of the lone instigators (along with the United States) of climate inaction at the last major round of international talks on climate change in Bali, Indonesia.

An argument has broken out on the DeSmogBlog (again) over whether the perfect is the enemy of the good - that is, whether government must get its climate change policy exactly right or stand up to the (often well-deserved) scorn of its critics.

Here's the argument that action, no matter how incremental, should be praised.

Prize honors those who sow confusion and delay on Climate Change

Update: DeSmogBlog withdraws Obama Award
 

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama has captured the inaugural 2007 SmogMaker Award for blowing smoke on global warming, the DeSmogBlog announced today.

Global warming is an environmental problem, not a political one. And people who try to ‘solve’ it with political or public relations spin are just making the problem worse,” said James Hoggan, co-founder of the DeSmogBlog.