Coverage of Kerry's speech in NC on climate change

[karynnj]

" Americans should treat the fight against global warming as this generation’s version of the Civil Rights Movement, rising up agasint business interests that are planning a massive lobbying campaign to block the Obama Administration’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions, U.S. Sen. John Kerry said Friday afternoon at a speech on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus.

Kerry, the 2004 Democratic candidate for president and current chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the argument some in Congress are making — that a global economic meltdown is not the time to enact restrictions that could be a further financial drag on industry — is simply wrongheaded.

A serious national push toward a greener economy, with all the technology and jobs that could be created, would boost economic opportunity rather than destroy it, he said. "

He also scored points with crowd by claiming to have predicted UNC-Chapel Hill's men’s basketball team would win the national championship before the president announced this week that it was his pick."
http://www.newsobserver.com/264/story/1451038.html

As it was near JRE's home, he was asked if he planned to meet with John Edwards and said he had spoken to Elizabeth Edwards by phone "Friday morning" but his schedule was too tight to meet with either.

http://www.newsobserver.com/264/story/1451038.html

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I am glad that he is trying to get people to see that this is important and that there is opportunity as well as cost. It was nice that he phoned Elizabeth Edwards, who likely needs the support of past friends.






http://www.newsobserver.com/264/story/1451038.html

[Island Blue]

1. I would love to have seen this speech.

Chapel Hill is about 4 hours away from me though so not doable, especially on a work day. Smart man though, picking the Heels. ;-)

[karynnj]

2. Their bio of Kerry is the best one I ever saw at any of the events he was at

An excerpt:
"In his role as senator, Kerry has helped provide health insurance for millions of low-income children. He has also worked to improve public education, protect the environment and strengthen the economy.

From his work on the Iran-Contra scandal to his leadership on global AIDS, Kerry has become a respected voice on national security and international affairs. He worked on a bipartisan basis to craft the American response to 9/11 and has been a leading voice on American policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, counterterrorism, and Middle East politics and peacemaking.

Kerry now chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which addresses the key foreign policy and national security issues facing the United States, including Afghanistan and Pakistan, nuclear nonproliferation, global climate change and a responsible conclusion to the war in Iraq.

In his 23 years on the committee, Kerry has chaired the Asia and Middle East subcommittees and authored and passed major legislation on international drug trafficking, global AIDS, international money laundering, humanitarian aid and climate change. He also negotiated the United Nation’s genocide tribunal to prosecute war crimes in Cambodia’s Killing Fields."



http://iah.unc.edu/calendar/weil2009

but I can't find video :(

[JI7]

3. great bio

really gets into the issues and shows his leadership on a range of issues. this is why he can't do similar to Gore on the environment because so many other things are important to him.

i still wish he would get more attention for it. but in some ways when you look at people who come and go,Kerry is really building up a list of accomplishments. even when you look at years before he ran for President he had done more than many would do in their lifetimes.

it's also nice to see that he is talking to Elizabeth Edwards. i wonder if she will make any mention of the Kerrys in her new book. and how she feels about some things said before.

[karynnj]

4. It is a really bio

I think that Gore's situation is different - one is that Kerry has opted to stay within the government working for change from within. Gore has made it clear that he has lost his love for politics. The other reason is that what Gore did and the world's reaction is unique. He used the fame he had to educate people on a difficult scientific topic. Though there are scientists, who understand it better by far and there are other politicians who might be better at crafting a solution - the combination of how he was and the amount of work he put into it made him uniquely important on this. BUT, to succeed Gore needs the people within government to act.

As you say, Kerry's work within government has enormous value - the blueprint Obama is following in Iraq is a stretched out version of Kerry/Feingold. Everyone now accepts his way of dealing with non-state terrorism. Many Kerry provisions were in Obama's small business plan and Kerry's high speed rail was in the stimulus. Kerry has gotten funding for Youthbuild since 1992 - changing in a good way the lives of many. He is one of those with EMK responsible for poor kids having heath insurance and he was the one who pushed for and got an affordable housing fund. These are real things that made the country safer or helped people. Only in comparison to what could have been in November 2004 is he not an enormously successful 5 term Senator and elder statesman.

I would bet that her book will not speak to the things she said in her book. It is clear to me that the earlier book said those things to separate the Edwards from the Kerrys and to present themselves as the real, genuine future President and First Lady, from the working class - while labelling the Kerry's as elite. Judging from things written or said when JRE's scandal erupted, I would assume that this book will be her attempt to write something inspirational for people who loved her and especially for her kids. It will also likely make an effort to show JRE in the best light - except for the affair. Going back into the things she said of the Kerrys would surprise me because it (like comparing JRE 2004 and 2008) do show a bad side to both. (Even in her book, she spoke of Kerry as very supportive of her in 2005 when she got cancer treatments.)

[karynnj]

5. Very nice article on the speech in Duke's paper

The author quotes extensively from the speech and got some very good student reactions.

"Kerry focused on global climate change and citizen engagement during the Weil Lecture on American Citizenship at Hill Hall Auditorium. The 2004 Democratic presidential candidate said he considered global climate change to be this generation's primary challenge.

"I believe we have to make this the new civil rights movement, it's that important," Kerry said. "I believe people have to be prepared to go out and organize in their communities and hold congressmen and senators accountable."

<snip.
UNC senior Catherine Cranfill said Kerry's speech inspired her to engage in the movement.

"When he called us all to action, it really spoke to me because I never really do anything, and this makes me want to," she said.

http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2009/03/23/News/Kerry.Addresses.Climate.Change-3679078.shtml

Though Kerry is also quoted as comparing this to other challenges, in a way the civil rights one might work best. At Take Back America, there was a panel that included Roger Wilkins, who had been a lawyer in the Kennedy administration (and the son of Ray), a biographer of MLK, and Jesse Jackson. One point they made was that change would not have occurred without the activist grassroots energy to push for truth or without the people inside government who wrote the legislation.

Addressing climate change involves costs and giving up ways of living that people are accustomed to - without activists actually convincing people that it could be done and that it is worth doing, the majority of politicians won't do it.