Strategy vs Ideology

I agree with Jordan and Joely that both candidates are definitely market liberals according to Clapp and Dauvergne. I think that both McCain and Obama plan to use the market as a tool for environmental reform. However, I think that it would be naïve to take all of the information given on the websites as truths or set plans.
Both candidates are still in the running and at some points I feel as though they’re just playing a Cold War game. McCain plans to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 66% by the year 2050, where Obama boasts a haughty 80% decrease. McCains incentive plan will place a $5,000 tax cut in the hands of people who purchase zero-emission hybrid cars where Obama plans to hand out $7k to every owner of the 1 million hybrid cars he plans to place on the road over the next seven years. I think that Obama’s ‘goals’ in the environmental arena are equivalent to a 7th grade class presidential candidate running on a platform of no homework. McCain’s steps are more gradual.
We’re not going to enter a world of cleaner coal and wind power the day he steps into office. He knows that. He has strategic plans, where Obama simply has flashy goals with higher numbers than his opponent’s. Here is where I diverge from Joely. Yes, McCain is strategizing a break from FOREIGN oil, but that is just his first step and is quite a good one concerning foreign policy in general. “Strategic independence from hostile and unstable suppliers of oil” can’t be SUCH a bad thing for the USA. He does want to break the dependence on oil eventually however, he’s even budgeting to dish out a 300 million dollar prize, he is just doing it realistically and in small increments. First we have to rely on our own reserves, and then we will slowly enter a world of hybrid electric cars. He also understands that people aren’t just going to jump up, junk their SUV’s and say “I’m going to go green today and spend a large portion of my yearly income on a brand new hybrid car!” He has realistic incentive plans by implementing a graduated tax cut system for those who purchase lower emission cars. So not as many people will have unnecessarily large gas guzzlers.
Overall, I feel that McCain has a better grasp on HOW to get the job done realistically, I think we’ve all agreed upon that. That is not to say, however, that if Obama were to get us down to 20% of our current gas emissions by 2015, that I would not eat these words.