The man accused of preventing Al Gore from becoming the greenest president in history has entered the presidential race cloaked in green.  Ralph Nader announced his Green Party candidacy for president this morning on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” vowing, among other things, to ”crack down on corporate crime.”

“…you go from Iraq to Palestine/Israel, from Enron to Wall Street, from Katrina to the bungling of the Bush administration, to the complicity of the Democrats in not stopping him on the war, stopping him on the tax cuts, getting a decent energy bill through, and you have to ask yourself, as a citizen, should we elaborate the issues that the two (Democratic candidates) are not talking about?”

Among the environmental issues, Nader is anti-nuclear, proposes “solar energy first,” and favors a carbon-tax that none of the other presidential candidates support.  He distinguished himself in the 1960’s as an advocate for automobile safety, and more recently has campaigned for higher fuel-efficiency standards, while at the same time criticizing subsidies for auto company research and development (something he says is the responsibility of automakers).  Most notably, he has labeled automobiles the “greatest environmental hazard.”     

“In terms of unused capacity, fuel consumption per passenger, injuries, pollution, and total time displacement of drivers and passengers, automotive travel is probably the most wasteful and inefficient mode of travel by industrial man.” (source: www.votenader.com “Auto Safety” Feb. 21, 2000) 

The most recent statistics from the Department of Energy show a third of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions come from the transportation sector.  Just something to think about.