Clinton, The Environment, And Trust

Matthew Yglesias gets to the nub of Hillary Clinton's pathetic gas tax pander.

This is basically the environment/energy/transportation equivalent equivalent of Obama's anti-mandate fliers and it makes it very hard to imagine that she's prepared to try to do anything about climate change.

Exactly so. Clinton will sacrifice the fight against global warming for the sake of getting someone's number for a news cycle or two. Global warming is a real and present danger to mankind - just ask the US military. Calling on an increase in driving for three months to fix a political problem when it would add greenhouse gas emissions to the air is just a horrendous strategy. Also, it wouldn't accomplish anything, despite what partisan hacks like Jerome Armstrong think. Actual economists and even the traditional media are assailing this stupid pander. And the Clinton hacks know it:

Clinton aides think that even if the measure is a limited way to reduce gas prices, it allows the candidate to bash oil companies and cast her opponent against an idea that has political appeal.

That's what Clinton is signaling here, that politics are preferable to policy (I also think they are bad politics - with 18-29 year-olds turning to Democrats in record numbers and concerned about global warming, why would they continue to trust Democrats if a President Clinton sells out the environment?). This is backed up by years and years of triangulation from her husband's administration. This is why I never preferred her in this race.

...as a side note, I know technology is most likely to get us out of the global warming fix we're in, but do we have to gravitate to every science fiction possibility to solve the problem? Giant vacuums? Really?

UPDATE: Great, I hope everyone's happy, now I agree with Tom Friedman. Gah.