Xblog

Sadly, the link in the ad took me to the homepage for Huckabee’s campaign, rather than to a page talking about his positions on the environment. I did find a link to the newsroom where it he is, <sarcasm> in a manner that in no way is an attempt to hitch on to media coverage about the Nobel Peace Prize </sarcasm>, having a Green Day while campaigning in New Hampshire this weekend. I peaked around on the “Issues” section of his website and noticed nothing on the environment, although there was a section on “Energy Independence”. Now, that doesn’t mean he has poor positions on the environment. It does mean that his campaign doesn’t think his positions on the environment are important, and it appears they are correct.

Huckabee is far from alone though. I checked out all the major contenders for the GOP and the Democrats. I also checked out Ron Paul because it is dangerous to ignore him in the blogosphere. ;-) They all universally have an “Issues” section which provides a quick summary of their candidate’s positions on key issues. Almost none of them had the environment as a top issue. Sure, there was always something about “energy independence”, but that really isn’t the same thing. Arguably, one could significantly improve the US’s “energy independence” by damming up every river in the country, ripping open the earth up in Alaska, pulling out whatever coal remains in the country no matter what shape it is in, and conquering Canada. That won’t get you so much as a Christmas Card from the Sierra Club. I’ll give the Democrat front runners credit for mentioning “global warming”. Hillary gets bonus points for being magnanimous enough to congratulate Al Gore on his Nobel Peace Prize, although she fails to mention the IPCC shared in the kudos.

The one that really stood out was Barack Obama, whose issues page has an entry for energy, and a separate entry for the environment that links to a fairly extensive article on his plans for the environment. It goes beyond talking about climate change to concerns about pollution and conservation (I’m guessing he is pulling for an endorsement from the Sierra Club). A few strikes against him for talking about “global warming” (which I find misleads people about the issue), but as far as I could see his site was the only one that used the term I prefer: “climate change”.

What does this mean? I suspect this means the environment is going to get short shrift in the US for years to come, despite Al Gore’s efforts. You can only go after the candidates so much. The public just isn’t concerned. Obama deserves a lot of credit for having the leadership to push the issue in the face of the public’s indifference.

I have to say I have an increasing dislike of the TV, and tend to prefer the Internet. I didn’t watch MSN’s broadcast either (bets as to whether it was Linux compatible? ;-), but I saw a few screenshots of the interface. It looked a lot like a TV. ;-)

Two things have become clear to me:

1. The Internet is going to kill TV.
2. TV will have the last laugh, because the Internet is going to look more and more like TV.

So who loses in all this? Well, I worry that the Internet might suffer, but I imagine it is a matter of perspective. I suspect search engines are going to have to work a bit harder to extract meaning from video content, but it hardly seems impossible. I’m thinking probably the biggest pain will be felt by satellite companies (I’m looking at you Rupert Murdoch with your DirecTV and SkyTV networks) followed up with any cable companies whose profit was largely the function of being a licensed monopoly.

Otherwise, it is probably going to be a Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose chose kind of thing. What is also becoming clear to me is that the Nielson ratings are becoming an increasingly irrelevant metric of what the younger generation is interested in, which hopefully explains why TV’s content is getting worse and worse in a way that doesn’t doom us all to extinction in like two generations.

I’m going to have to chat with some of my neighbours (who are overwhelmingly in the TV business) to get an idea as to how the industry is going to respond to this. I thought they were all focused on HDTV, which at this point seems likely to be stillborn. To get an idea just how far off target HDTV is, keep in mind that the younger generation seems more than happy to view TV content on 2.5” diagonal screens with 320x240 resolution. So much so that a good chunk of them will pay money for it. About the only aspect of HDTV that is following something resembling a trend is the focus on thin TV’s, which seems to be following the already so-overdone-it-may-be-losing-its-cool razor thin cell phone trend.

I gotta say, the weirdest thing for me about visiting Canada was just how different the whole debate about the environment is outside of the US. The facts on the ground are different, the priority is different, the news is different, etc. It is a testament to the power of whoever influences the debate in the US that the story can be so different.

To understand just how different the context is, think about all that Canada has in common with the US: Canada has soldiers deployed overseas largely in response to 9/11 (Canadian forces are in Afghanistan, US is sadly primarily focused on Iraq), concerns about globalization and the impact of that on the economy and the job market, you’ve got debates about diversity and minorities, government scandal, etc.

Despite all this, in Canada the top political issue, and the one that put the current government in jeopardy almost as quickly as they took office, is the environment, with global climate change being the focus of discussion. The debate isn’t whether “it is real” or whether we should do anything about it, the debate is about what is “enough”. Seriously.