rssObama Finally Uses Oil Spill to Push for Climate Action; Greens Cheer
Thursday, June 03, 2010 at 9:54 am
- 18 Comments
Speaking at Carnegie Mellon University yesterday, President Obama did what environmental advocates have been urging him to do for weeks now: He turned public anger at the BP oil spill to his advantage, using it to push for comprehensive climate legislation.
“We have to acknowledge that there are inherent risks to drilling four miles beneath the surface of the Earth, and these are risks — (applause) — these are risks that are bound to increase the harder oil extraction becomes,” he said, according to the White House transcript. “We also have to acknowledge that an America run solely on fossil fuels should not be the vision we have for our children and our grandchildren.”
“Without a major change in our energy policy, our dependence on oil means that we will continue to send billions of dollars of our hard-earned wealth to other countries every month — including countries in dangerous and unstable regions,” he continued. “In other words, our continued dependence on fossil fuels will jeopardize our national security. It will smother our planet. And it will continue to put our economy and our environment at risk.”
As Dave Roberts points out, Obama avoids using the terms “climate change” and “global warming” these days. “Smother our planet” is about as close as he’ll come.
Shortly thereafter, Obama explicitly pushed to end the era of free carbon pollution. “The only way the transition to clean energy will ultimately succeed is if the private sector is fully invested in this future — if capital comes off the sidelines and the ingenuity of our entrepreneurs is unleashed,” he said. “And the only way to do that is by finally putting a price on carbon pollution.”
And the big applause line: “I will work with anyone to get this done — and we will get it done.”
And applaud they did. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who’s led the charge in the Senate to craft and pass comprehensive climate legislation, tweeted yesterday, “Legislator in Chief! Pres Obama pledges ‘to find the votes’ for comprehensive climate/energy – we can pass this.” A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told The Washington Post that Obama’s remarks were “extremely helpful” and that “he’s turning up the volume.” And in Grist, Roberts cheered, “He delivered a hell of a speech today,” adding, “He finally seems to be waking up to the historical opportunity that has, um, spilled into his lap.”
Update: On cue, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is signaling that he wants to move on the Senate climate bill in July.
Follow Aaron Wiener on Twitter
18 Comments
Pingback posted June 3, 2010 @ 10:07 am
[...] full post on The Washington Independent Don't miss a single post! Subscribe to my RSS [...]
Pingback posted June 3, 2010 @ 10:27 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by TMC Member Feed, WashIndependent. WashIndependent said: Obama Finally Uses Oil Spill to Push for Climate Action; Greens Cheer – http://bit.ly/9ex0pN [...]
Pingback posted June 3, 2010 @ 2:20 pm
[...] Read the original: Obama Finally Uses Oil Spill to Push for Climate Action; Greens … [...]
Comment posted June 3, 2010 @ 2:56 pm
Go, Obama! A great speech in other ways, too, and completely ignored by the news media
Comment posted June 3, 2010 @ 2:59 pm
air max 1
air max 2009
cheap air max
air max for sale
max 90 shoes
air max 90
air max plus
air max wright
air max tl 2.5
air max light
air max 93
air max 180
air max stab
air max 91
jordan 6 rings
jordan retro 5
jordan retro 3
cheap jordan shoes
jordan retro 1
jordan dub zero
jordan retro 4
jordan fusion 6
Pingback posted June 3, 2010 @ 4:01 pm
[...] Obama Finally Uses Oil Spill to Push for Climate Action; Greens … [...]
Comment posted June 3, 2010 @ 3:17 pm
Could you imagine the public sentiment twenty years form now if Obama brought the economy out of the second great depression by retooling our factories to produce goods that would move us into a renewable energy reality all while limiting our dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuels as a whole?
Comment posted June 4, 2010 @ 12:59 am
Dr. John S. Theon, retired Chief of the NASA Climate Processes Research Program, made his own views on global warming public on January 15, 2009. “I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man-made,”
His major concern was the models. “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,”
He made a disturbing comment about the data, which beyond the models is at the very heart of the climate problem. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,”
Dr. Theon explains the limitations of his position with James Hansen. “I was, in effect, Hansen’s supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results. I did not have the authority to give him his annual performance evaluation,”
Theon describes Hansen as a “nice, likeable fellow,” but worries “he’s been overcome by his belief—almost religious—that he’s going to save the world.”
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/23762
Pingback posted June 4, 2010 @ 11:16 am
[...] would include a nationwide cap on greenhouse gas emissions or a price on carbon, which President Obama directly called for in his Pittsburgh speech on [...]
Comment posted June 13, 2010 @ 9:39 pm
Great job. Using the disaster in the gulf to push his agenda forward while doing nothing to address the disaster. Obama gets his agenda passed while the gulf coast is destroyed.
Comment posted July 10, 2010 @ 5:39 am
Why is there NOTHING on this topic on this website?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QtRIOSzxEU
Trackback posted March 10, 2011 @ 5:45 pm
My Recommended Websites…
[...]some new websites on the web we love, even if they are not related to ours. Check them out[...]…
Comment posted September 3, 2011 @ 4:47 am
Want good backlinking and seo for your site? Than go here
Comment posted September 3, 2011 @ 8:04 pm
Finally a smart blogger-man…I love how you’re thinking…and writing!
Comment posted September 3, 2011 @ 9:41 pm
I was been after the Internet for this information and i wanted to say thanks to you for this post. By the way, just off topic, how can i download a version of this theme? – Regards
Comment posted September 4, 2011 @ 5:55 am
As Embarrassing as it is to have to go to the store and buy Hemorrhoids Relief Cream Why not just buy
it online? You can get it for what $10? And it goes right to your door! Try it out! You will not be upset at this service.
Comment posted September 5, 2011 @ 2:18 pm
Hi,
As a way of advertising our new cloud related services at cloudgeeks.net we will be providing free setup, configuration, optimization and migration services to new forum members. At this moment we support Amazon EC2, Rackspace cloud and Microsoft Azure services.
Here is what is included:
- Setting up of server instances, server software (such as apache, php , sql and so on), Data storage and related items
- Configuration of scaling, load balancing, data synchronization, data backup and monitoring
- Optimization of server software, number of instances and other features
- We will migrate your server data from your old server to the cloud. There is a limit on the data we can migrate for free.
If you are not sure about migrating to the cloud you can talk to one of our server admins about your requirements and expectations and receive a informed opinion.
If you have any other related questions or to request this free service you can contact us at contact (at)cloudgeeks.net or visit our website http://www.cloudgeeks.net to chat with a customer service rep. Since this is a free service the amount of time that can be spent on your project will be limited but we will ensure we have you setup and running.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
