Ralph Nader Challenges Al Gore To Make His Obama Endorsement Count
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Chris Driscoll, 202-360-3273, chris@votenader.org
RALPH NADER CHALLENGES AL GORE TO MAKE HIS OBAMA ENDORSEMENT COUNT
Washington, DC----This evening, Independent Presidential candidate Ralph Nader issued the following statement to Al Gore following Gore's endorsement of Senator Obama at a rally in Detroit.
"During his Nobel Laureate acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway, Al Gore laid out in stark terms the single most important act the next President of the US can do to avoid dangerous climate change:
'And most important of all, we need to put a price on carbon – with a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the people, progressively, according to the laws of each nation, in ways that shift the burden of taxation from employment to pollution. This is by far the most effective and simplest way to accelerate solutions to this crisis.'
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/gore-lecture_en.html
Senators Obama and McCain both oppose a CO2 tax and instead favor the more politically expedient, manipulatable, evasive cap-and-trade approach.
In the last eight years, Al Gore has invested too much in trying to protect our climate to just a write a blank check of endorsement to a candidate on one of the most important perils of our time.
I challenge Al Gore, as one of the leading figures in the war on global warming, to uphold the courage of his convictions and demand that Senator Obama support a carbon pollution tax.
The people want the next President to take action to reign in global warming. The litmus test for whether a Presidential candidate is serious about global warming is if he or she has the courage to support a CO2 tax.
Unlike a cap-and-trade program, which can be easily gamed, a straight-out carbon tax on hydrocarbon production at the production source forces better choices of technology from the get-go.
For more detail: http://www.votenader.org/issues/carbon-tax/
