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Published online 24 September 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.1125
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US election: Questioning the candidates, part two
Barack Obama accepted Nature's invitation to answer 18 science-related questions in writing; John McCain's campaign declined. Here are Obama's answers to additional questions that did not appear in our print magazine. Wherever possible, Nature has noted what McCain has said at other times on these topics.
Should the United States take the lead in signing up to binding international emissions targets? How should it proceed if China and India do not initially agree to such a mandate?
Obama : As the world's largest per capita emitter, most vibrant economy and technological leader, I believe the United States must assert leadership to fight global warming both at home and abroad. By adopting an aggressive cap on domestic emissions, the US can recapture the moral authority to lead the world toward an effective and equitable solution on global climate change.
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Since there is a not-insignificant probability that Sen. McCain will die in office, making Sarah Palin President, voters should include her views on science in their evaluation.
I agree with Tucker that the voters should include Sarah Palin's views on science in their evaluation of who should be our next president. Best as I can tell, she is a creationist, but what kind of creationist (old earth, new earth, etc..) is not clear. Does she think the world is only 8000 years old? Does she believe that dinosaurs walked with humans? I want to know!
I am going out a limb and say that CO2 storage underground makes as much sense as launching nuclear waste into outer space. Obama seems to be pandering to the demand for more energy. He is not standing up for conservation quite as strongly as he should. While I'm generally in concert with most of his other plans, on this I can't figure him out. On my wishlist is to see the OSTP come back (an Office that was nixed under Clinton's administration), NIST's ATP program (an unfortunate casualty of the recent administration), and much more funding for NSF (balanced by less for DARPA). The idea for a nation's CTO is interesting, but likely too much power in one person's hand.
I believe that terminal sequestration of CO2 is very hazardous; there are deep lakes with sequestered CO2 naturally which kill villages for miles around when they become unstable. A much better answer would be to use "Focus Fusion" (see Dr Eric Lerner) or "Inertial Electrostatic Confinement" (see Dr Robert Broussard http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606). Both methods use boron and hydrogen to make 3 helium atoms and no neutrons or radioactive nucleons. Both are proven science and ready for engineering development. Each would take a measly $200 million to get to commercial production. They could power mankind for several billion years. And they show Tokomak to be an obscenely expensive and destructive dead end.