NEWS

Ads push global warming toward debate stage

04/25/2007

By Sammy Fretwell

The State

With help from actor Robert Redford and key state legislators, environmentalists launched a full-scale effort this week to make global warming a priority issue for presidential candidates in South Carolina.

The League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, a national environmental organization, bought a television advertisement featuring Redford. The ad, which began running this week in Columbia and Charleston, has the actor-conservationist saying "we have the chance to chart a new course that will leave our children a better world."

"We need to challenge all of the presidential candidates to make solving global warming a top priority," Redford later says in the ad, also supported by the Conservation Voters of S.C. Education Fund.

Meanwhile, lawmakers said Tuesday about two thirds of the Legislature's members have signed letters urging presidential candidates to address climate change and energy independence while stumping South Carolina. That included 88 House members and 21 Senators, split among Democrats and Republicans.

The Conservation Voters of South Carolina persuaded legislators to rally support among their colleagues for the letters, Sen. Larry Grooms said during a news conference Tuesday.

The letters do not push a specific solution for climate change, but are intended for candidates to offer their own ideas. Democrats take center stage this week, with a nationally televised debate set for Thursday at S.C. State University. Republicans will hold a debate in S.C. next month.

South Carolina will hold the nation's first presidential primaries in the South next year.

"We're not telling presidential candidates what to tell us," Grooms, R-Berkeley, said. "We're telling them, ‘We want to know what your solutions are to these problems.' Then let the voters decide who has the best idea."

The war in Iraq, health care and the economy have been hot topics during the campaign. But national energy policy and climate change shouldn't be ignored, said spokespeople for Sens. John McCain, R-Arizona, Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut.

Scientists agree the earth's climate is heating up and man-made pollution from burning oil, coal and gas is contributing. Many experts expect global warming to cause an array of problems, such as crop failure, beach erosion and the death of wildlife native to certain areas. Alternative energy sources could reduce the country's dependence on expensive foreign oil and attack global warming, said national Sierra Club director Carl Pope, who met Tuesday with Gov. Mark Sanford in Columbia.

Both McCain and Dodd, as well as many of the other major candidates, have made speeches or issued position papers on climate change. Dodd spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan said she expects energy policy and climate change issues to be discussed during Thursday's Democratic presidential debate at South Carolina State University.

A poll released Tuesday found most South Carolina residents likely to vote in the Democratic or Republican primaries think the country should take action on climate change. The poll of 800 likely voters was conducted by Republican pollsters Ayres, McHenry and Associates and Democratic consultants Hamilton Beattie and Staff on April 14-19 for the S.C. Coastal Conservation League and the Conservation Voters of S.C. Education Fund.

The Sierra Club's Pope said state lawmakers can help urge presidential candidates to offer specific plans on global warming.

"We're trying to get people who are influential to weigh in,'' Pope said.