Fact checking Yglesias

Making an otherwise excellent point, Matt writes:

The Democratic presidential candidates each have a global warming proposal. What's more, they all actually have very similar proposals, featuring different quantitative degrees of ambitiousness in terms of where they want to set the carbon cap in a cap-and-trade system.

Well sort of. Climate change is actually one of the issues on which the leading candidates differ fairly notably. Readers--the few, the brave, the beloved--are probably sick and tired by now of hearing about how impressive the Edwards, Dodd, and Richardson plans are and about how Barack Obama has no ascertainable energy vision. Hillary Clinton, it turns out, is equally vague.

From the Obama website:

Obama is an original cosponsor of legislation to establish limits on greenhouse gas emissions. To remain below these limits, the bill encourages the market to determine how best to reduce greenhouse gases, rewarding cost-effective approaches through a system of tradeable allowances. Revenues generated from this program will be directed to helping industries and individuals most affected by the limits, and also to fund research and development of new, more efficient, energy technologies.

He's talking about the McCain-Lieberman bill here--two names which, for obvious reasons, he's a little bit hesitant to mention. It's a fairly strong bill. But his commitment to it to this point hasn't been, shall we say, overwhelming.

Likewise, Clinton's website says:

Hillary recognizes that global climate change is one of the most pressing moral issues of our time. She supports policies to reduce carbon emissions and other pollution that contribute to global warming.

In the White House, Hillary will lead the charge to stop global warming by investing in clean energy technologies, establishing a national market-based program to reduce global warming pollution, increasing our fuel efficiency, and restoring the United States' rightful place as a leader in international efforts to address the problem of climate change.

Nobody yet knows the details of this program and, given her ties to industry, there's reason to suspect that it won't be as robust as it should be. Under normal circumstances this type of variation (and occasional vagueness) wouldn't be much of a problem. But if you believe (as I do) that climate change is a looming calamity, then it's not unfair to expect more out of the two Democratic frontrunners than we've yet seen.