Alicia Silverstone, an environmental activist and actress best known for her starring role in 1995’s “Clueless,” showed her excitement and promoted Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s global warming policies during a conference call Monday.

Silverstone said her backing for Obama’s global warming policies started when she learned that “he was not taking money from lobbyists, which is ultimately corporate funding.”

“I was impressed when I heard him talking about how we give corporations free rides regarding their use of the environment,” Silverstone said. “Obama will make corporations pay for the harmful emissions that they put into the air and keep corporations responsible.”

Matt Lehrich, Wisconsin spokesperson for the Obama campaign, clarified Obama’s policies on global warming, especially his goal to fight foreign oil and develop renewable energy sources to create jobs in the United States.

“Sen. Obama wants to invest $150 billion in renewable energy sources in the next 10 years, which will be good for global warming and a huge step toward independence from foreign oil,” Lehrich said. “This will also create 5 million green jobs for Americans that will not be shipped overseas.”

As for Republican presidential nominee John McCain, Mark Bednar, co-chair of the University of Wisconsin Students for McCain, said McCain’s policies are also focused on decreasing global warming by working on alternative energy sources such as nuclear, solar and wind power.

Bednar said this decrease would affect coal emissions and other harmful gases and could lead to the formation of jobs in Wisconsin, which is another growing concern.

Kirsten Kukowski, communications director for the Republican Party of Wisconsin, said McCain also wants to enforce a cap-and-trade system, which would set limits on greenhouse gas emissions to encourage low-cost compliance options.

“This is basically an incentive program for people to get a permit to participate in attempting to lower greenhouse gas emissions which … will ultimately allow the market to decide and encourage the lowest-cost compliance options,” Kukowski said.

Bednar addressed the importance of the issue of global warming to students, saying while it is not fully affecting students yet, it could become an important topic in the next 20 to 30 years.

According to Bednar, while global warming is not an extremely important topic this election, students need to realize its possibility and take it as a serious issue.

Dietram Scheufele, a UW professor of life science and communications, said the importance of global warming in the election lies in the fact that “global warming is now acknowledged as an issue.”

“Conflict regarding global warming now lies in how to deal with the problem, rather than whether there is a problem at all,” Scheufele said.

Care about global warming also comes in other aspects, according to Scheufele, including gas prices and oil independence, which has caused global warming to gain recognition as a larger issue relating to the need of independence from foreign oil.