McCain: The New 'Captain Climate'?

The likely Republican Presidential nominee offered a climate-change proposal that opponents, including Obama, say is too little, too late

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By John Carey

May 13, 2008 at 4:05 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

John McCain's global warming journey started back in 2000, when a strange apparition named "Captain Climate" began to turn up at Presidential campaign events. Captain Climate was Dartmouth grad Matthew Stembridge, who wore red tights over orange long johns, a red knit stocking cap, yellow-painted galoshes, and a red cape. "What's your position on climate?" Stembridge would yell at event after event.

McCain was intrigued. The Arizona senator called up Captain Climate for a chat. After he lost his bid for the Republican Presidential nomination to George W. Bush, McCain probed further. He held hearings. He talked to scientists. And in a stark break with the Bush Administration, which quickly joined the ranks of climate-change deniers, McCain began to call for action. With his friend and fellow Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), he even drafted the pioneering McCain-Lieberman climate bill, which would have put caps on the emissions of global-warming-causing greenhouse gases in the U.S.