Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Al Gore wants Obama to defend climate change action

Former vice president Al Gore will be hitting President Barack Obama on climate change in an upcoming article in Rolling Stone magazine.

First of all, Gore comes out an recognizes what Obama has done to reverse previous environmentally-destructive policies.  Definitely the president has done quite a lot for green causes even though he has disappointed many on issues like coal and nuclear energy.

In fairness to Obama though, he has always supported "clean" coal along with nuclear energy if the storage problem could be solved.  On these issues though the president seems to have capitulated in terms of specifics.  For example, while there still is no long-term nuclear waste storage plan, the president is supporting loan guarantees for the building of new nuclear power plants.

One of the problems may be the tremendous pressure the president is facing due to the tough economy.  Obama suffered a tough loss in Congress after the 2010 elections with Democrats losing control of the House and losing some important seats in the Senate.

On the subject of climate change, it seems as though the issue has been pushed to the sidelines.  In this sense, Gore is right in that Obama no longer seems to publicly recognize climate change as an urgent issue.  On the other hand though, Republicans have been denying the science altogether.

What can be done to get climate change back on President Obama's agenda with the UN's climate summit coming up in Durban, South Africa in late November?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i understand where obama is coming from with all the money that needs to be accounted for. but at the same time, we have spend 9 billion dollars so far with NASA. shutting it down is a waste of money and our time. if the government is so worried about money why not cut some of the earnings our government officials make. NASA is a must need in our society if we are to grow and evolve. without our space program we will be stuck further back in more debt and war.

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