Week 3 Questions

1.) Current presidential debates revolve around several topics, including the hotly contested issue: the environment. There are various perspectives that candidates can choose to take on this issue, according to Clapp and Danvergne. However, I find it not altogether surprising that both Democratic candidate, Hilary Clinton and Republican candidate, John McCain appear to have similar sounding platforms when it comes to addressing climate change. Clinton's primary concern is to create a more efficient or "green" economy while increasing the number of jobs for the American people. By concentrating on the economy she hopes to improve the environment in the long run, just as most market liberals hope to do. Not unlike her is McCain with his ideas to strengthen the economy as a way of remaining "caretakers of creation." On his website the environment is something that is also consistently linked with the economy. These two topics go hand-in-hand since fostering economic growth will eventually lead to solving the global environmental problems. Why these two politicians do not seem to differ much to me is explained by Clapp and Danvergne's categorization of environmental worldviews. Both Clinton and McCain fall under the market liberal category due to their strong belief that research and development will prevail as the main initiatives to alleviating the present and future environmental problems, either by investing billions of dollars into a Strategic Energy Fund or utilizing the market forces to insert technologies like nuclear energy into the market faster.

2.) In terms of sense and who is talking the most of it, I believe that Clinton may have a set of clearer and more defined policies that she may be willing to follow through on if she were to be elected as the next president. However, that is not to say that she has a better outlook on environmental problems than McCain does since her discourse on the environment or sustainable development consistently involves the economy as a primary focus, particularly in the creation of new jobs. When considering new and alternate ways to solving global environmental problems, a completely revolutionary perspective must take shape, one that differs from the angle that has been taken up until now which has typically been either to emphasize the potential improvements made possible by technological advances or stressing the importance of a strong market economy that fosters economic growth.