Obama semi-props — Sciencedebate 2008 questions answered

The folks behind Sciencedebate 2008 have been trying, with zero success, to get a presidential campaign debate specifically geared toward science and technology issues.

While that hasn’t happened, or, to put it in the active voice, while Barack Obama and John McCain have both refused to commit to such a debate, Obama gets semi-props for answering SD 2008’s 14 questions.

A few highlights:

1. On global warming, Obama claims he will have a market-based carbon cap-and-trade program that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
That is the benchmark that many climatologists believe is necessary to keep global warming from being truly bad. Whether it is achievable, especially with as many voluntary approaches to different parts of the issue as Obama proposes, is another question.

2. On Question 3, re Washington investing in alt energy research, he says, First, I have proposed programs that, taken together, will increase federal investment in the clean energy research, development, and deployment to $150 billion over ten years.
That's TO, not BY. Going by what he counts as clean energy research, what are the current numbers? I have asked Otto for that info.

3. He proposed to do this in part by: “Increasing new building efficiency by 50 percent and existing building efficiency by 25 percent over the next decade, and taking other steps that will reduce the energy intensity of our economy 50 percent by 2030.”
Given that building codes are a local issue, the role of the federal government in this is minimal, and this sounds like a red herring.

4. Also on Question 3, Obama IS OK w/nuclear power, as long as a number of obvious issues are addressed, and gets a bonus point on that in my book.

5. On Question 4, education, I strongly believe we need a 200-day or longer school year, and that not having that school year is the No. 1 reason Western European and southeast Asian developed nations continue to show themselves more educated than our students, with the cumulative additional school days showing in a wider knowledge gap the older children get. It's sad that Obama says nothing about this; it's said that almost nobody in our country says anything about this.