US president-elect Barack Obama made history, as he will be the first ever African American to lead the most powerful nation on this planet. Obama made his way towards the throne by defeating heavyweight politicians Hilary Clinton and John McCain.
His victory marks a pivotal point in American history. Many people might also re-evaluate what they expect from the American Dream. As Madonna states in her song American Life, "I'm just living out the American Dream and I just realized that nothing is what it seems."
High on Obama's agenda are determinations to pull his country out of the mire of economic crisis, and pledges to take actions to combat climate change. However, today's politicians are judged not only by the way they deal with the environment, but also by their personal carbon footprint.
Both of the main US presidential candidates, Obama or McCain, have conducted a high-emissions political campaign.
They both failed to pioneer the use of modern electronic approaches to minimize their carbon footprint when wooing green supporters of their low-carbon visions.
Statistics by StandardCarbon show that the flights alone, by Obama and McCain and their entourage, had burned more than 757,000 litres of jet fuel, resulting in more than 2,000 tonnes of emissions. Travel accounted for more than half of their carbon footprint during the campaign.
Around 130,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide were produced during their campaign activities, including travel, postage, shipping, use of utilities, food and fundraising events. The Obama group alone is blamed for 59.9% of the emissions.
To offset the emissions, the Obama group would have needed to plant more than 1.8 million trees, as against the 1.36 million by McCain, a small forest by anyone's standards.
In an era with modern communications facilities at hand, unnecessary emissions can be avoided in transportation and fundraising, by means of teleconferences, emails, and even online virtual communities such as Second Life.
Those conducting such campaigns need courage to embrace these modern initiatives, to embark upon a revolution of political performance. However, most politicians see this technology as the stuff of science fiction.
In reality, there are often double standards applied by the decision makers, who set the rules for others to follow, but rarely abide by them themselves. The public sees this hypocricy, but is unable to effect a change.
Former US Vice President Al Gore has been called "hypocritical" as he advocates environmental protection, while at the same time living a life in which he consumes large amount of energy and resources. In respose to this criticism, he has claimed to have made offsetting efforts.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been criticized recently for having a carbon footprint equivalent to 1,000 of his citizens. His global travels in his presidential jet during the past 11 months produced 7,061 tonnes of carbon dioxide, the magazine Terra Economica reported .
The UK broadsheet Independent revealed in early 2007 that Tony Blair's personal carbon emissions were 700 times of the average Briton and his air travel alone contributed as much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as a medium-sized business. When we look at the issue from a global perspective, travel by officials needs addressing by governments of each country, so that civil servants may set good examples of green practices for their electorate to follow.
Copyright Dongying Wang
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