This is an overview of the changing, up and down position of the administration on Climate Change ending on a high note, sort of. It's our most pressing issue today everywhere and anywhere.
In 2008 Obama's strong statements at an international conference in Los Angeles on climate change:
"Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all," Obama said. "Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high; the consequences, too serious."
"Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change," Obama said. "The science is beyond dispute, and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We've seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season."
"When I am president, any governor who's willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House. Any company that's willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington. And any nation that's willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America."
These statements were welcomed by environmentalists and climate scientists around the world.
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The reality of the period was that the economy was first and foremost on most peoples' minds. It seems the economists' warnings tempered the President's initial bold attitude on climate change. The administration began to see protecting the environment in opposition to the economy. After Obama became president he said, "I have business on my right and environmentalists on my left" and this explains somewhat how as president, he began to see protecting the environment as a leftist political issue in opposition to the economy .
In the spring of 2009 there was the day [26 March 2009] Obama's Green Team chose a strategy of silence on climate change. Those green allies of President Obama receiving the invitation to the White House from the White House Green Team thought it was a "big moment" and would offer a chance for the WH to share plans for climate change law. Imagine their disappointment when they were handed a sheet of talking points indicating that the term "climate change" would lose elections.
2009 was a year when the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress - a year of great expectations. But the moment was lost and an opportunity was missed.
"My most vivid memory of that meeting [26 March 2009]is this idea that you can't talk about climate change," said Jessy Tolkan, who at the time was a leader of the climate youth movement, Power Shift. "The real sense at that time was that talking about clean energy jobs, green jobs, was the way we were going to be able to gain momentum and usher in real change. Talking about climate change and global warming was not going to resonate as much."
"I thought it was a mistake and I told them," said Bill McKibben, who heads the 350.org group, who was one of the few people at the meeting to voice his misgivings. "All I said was sooner or later you are going to have to talk about this in terms of climate change. Because if you want people to make the big changes that are required by the science then you are going to have to explain to people why that is necessary, and why it's such a huge problem," he said.
In the 2012 State of the Union Speech, climate change was not mentioned.
Fast forward to October 2012 when Hurricane Sandy, the Frankenstorm hit the east coast of the United States. A distraught looking President gave a statement saying this tragedy was not an election issue and demanded bipartisan support to help the storm's victims.
January 2013 in the State of the Union Speech the President said:
But for the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change. (Applause.) Now, it’s true that no single event makes a trend. But the fact is the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods -- all are now more frequent and more intense. We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science -- and act before it’s too late. (Applause.)
No more talk of "cap 'n' trade." Here's what Annie Leonard the author of "Stuff" and the new leader of Greenpeace USA.
The President's commencement address at University of California at Irvine brings us up to the present. He talked about war, economy. jobs, middle class, inequality, immigration but for the most part, climate change.
So the question is not whether we need to act. The overwhelming judgment of science, accumulated and measured and reviewed over decades, has put that question to rest. The question is whether we have the will to act before it’s too late. For if we fail to protect the world we leave not just to my children, but to your children and your children’s children, we will fail one of our primary reasons for being on this world in the first place. And that is to leave the world a little bit better for the next generation.
The President has to balance his support for the fossil fuel industries and his passion for alleviating climate change. They are in direct opposition as far as I can see.