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Obama Proposes 'Meaningful Progress' On Climate Change
astroengine writes "President Barack Obama called for 'meaningful progress' on tackling climate change in his State of the Union speech in Washington, DC on Tuesday night. While acknowledging that 'no single event makes a trend,' the President noted that the United States had been buffeted by extreme weather events that in many cases encapsulated the predictions of climate scientists. 'But the fact is, the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods — all are now more frequent and 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,' Obama added."
Other significant statements from Obama's speech: 34,000 troops coming back from Afghanistan over the next year; new gun regulations "deserve a vote"; rewards for schools that focus on STEM education; increases in tech research; a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $9.00/hr and tie it to inflation; and a proposal to use oil and gas revenues to fund a move away from oil and gas,
Our Dear Leader has spoken: spend spend spend and don't argue about how to pay for it. Just keep spending and everything will work out ok.
Best set of policies I've ever seen from an American President. Hope he manages to get some of them through.
Well, if he was a Republican... he'd do the same, then lower taxes. Maybe a hair different on what exactly he'd spend it on, but otherwise, very little difference.
There's so little actual difference left between the two parties' stances that the strife and "you people"-ing has long since ceased to make sense. Why then even do it? Clearly it's not about any actual issue, and hasn't been for a long, long time.
It strikes me that if you just let this man run the country for the remainder of his term without obstruction America could be the country that most people in the world have been told it is. And the whole world would be a better place.
Alternatively you can obstruct him at every turn and show that you are hypocrites that talk democracy and freedom, but are nothing more than corporate shrills doing the bidding of lobbyists, none of which are working for the American people, let alone the world.
And if you won't, for fuck sake let him run another country. Australia would love to have Obama as the leader. People of his mien come once a generation FFS.
Giving a nice speech doesn't really convince me of his intentions after sabotaging Kyoto.
Talk is cheap, and the State of the Union address is about pageantry and blowing hot air, not anything that will actually happen. Come back to me when you have a serious effort, which will probably involve legislation, a budget, an actual agency, probably some grant programs, and other tangible steps. Come back to me when thanks to some serious efforts and funding, we have solar or geothermal or hydro power that could handle the entire energy needs of the US. Come back to me when you have serious conservation efforts that make Americans not the most wasteful people on the planet.
You know, people made fun of Jimmy Carter suggesting things like turning down the thermostat and wearing a sweater, and for installing solar panels on the White House, but he was basically right about the necessary course of action.
I am officially gone from
Now, I'm no economics expert... But aren't minimum wage increases one of the (albeit small) contributors to inflation? And as such, wouldn't tying minimum wage increases to inflation create a circular reference of sorts?
Common Sense (+1)
There was a certain King Canute who went to the beach one day and ordered the tide to stop flowing. I can imagine Obama's ideas and efforts will have exactly the same effect.
Your analogy is terrible. History and other countries have shown that industry and consumers don't give a shit about the environment. And that goes for both capitalistic and socialistic societies. We've shown in the past that government regulation can fix things like CFCs and the pollution of drinking water so what's so batshit insane about proposing we fix this with regulations?
Your analogy would work if King Canute had previously ordered a lake to split in two and it had worked.
While he's at it he should make tornadoes, earthquakes and hurricanes illegal.
I don't know what this is? Some throwback to that bullshit logic about gun control? I guess people are still being murdered so we should revoke all the laws outlawing murders? I mean, when murdering is outlawed then only murderers will have the ability to murder people!
... is this some new parroted right-wing narrative you're getting from Facebook or something?
It's not about controlling the weather. The weather is a symptom of the problem of spewing tons and tons of carbon and greenhouse gases into the air and environment. So he's tackling the root cause of the problem, not making a symptom illegal
My work here is dung.
Yeah, god forbid Congress set our tax levels back up to the high rates of the Ronald Reagan era. That Reagan dude was clearly a fucking socialist.
If we don't need hundreds and thousands of workers as cheap labor, then we don't need to outsource of jobs.
So what are you going to do with the people who can't hold down a high-tech/creative job? They don't magically vanish, and putting them all in prison would be horribly expensive.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
I like Victor Davis Hanson's take:
He wrote that about the inaugural address, but frankly it also applies to the State of the Union, and pretty much every other public utterance by this President.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
I agree, lets also trim government down to the same size as it was then. Oh wait - can't have that, can we?
Coming up on this last election, I made the mistake of thinking the appropriate question was really, "why vote for either of them". For this reason, among others.
But now I'm left wondering if I screwed up. Not that my vote matters more than anyone else, but I was listening to the Address and thinking, as much as I disliked Romney, would his Address have been, "spend billions, raise taxes, ban guns, spend billions more"? I don't think it would have been. His platform, for all the things I disagreed with, was more like, "curb spending, close tax loopholes, that's all." I mean, he wasn't going to get to shut down PBS, or any of the other hyperbole we ate up.
Honestly, I feel like a sucker.
It should be noted that it was his Democrat buddies that put the kibosh on closing Gitmo.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Honestly, I feel like a sucker.
If you believed the math on his tax plan worked, you damn well should feel like a sucker.
Do people actually believe that nonsense? Obama is left, not left center, not center, left. The majority of what he does is extremely partisan, which is why many believe he may officially be the most divisive president in history.
Unfortunately, people to believe this. It scares me on how extreme that means a lot of our people are.
There is never a good reason to vote Democrat - OR Republican.
My vote, this time and last, happened to be for the Democrat. But, I wasn't voting "for" the democrat, so much as I was voting "against" the other guy.
Give us some mainstream, centrist choices, who aren't bought and paid for by corporate interests, then I might vote for that choice. Until then, there is no difference between the parties. The single most important issue in America today, is that idiot "War on Terra". Has Obama attempted to have the Patriot Act repealed? Nope. Has he attempted to reign in Homeland Security? Nope. Has he renounced any of the special powers that the Bush administration pushed for? Nope. Has he fought for internet freedom? Well - sorta. Internet freedom was a great thing when the Arab Spring was blooming, but it's no longer a good political tool, so Obama follows Bush's lead now, pushing for more and more control.
The same corporations own both parties, so there is no reason to vote "for" either one.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
http://civilliberty.about.com/od/guncontrol/a/Gun-Rights-Ronald-Reagan.htm The lone piece of significant legislation related to gun rights during the Reagan administration was the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986. Signed into law by Reagan on May 19, 1986, the legislation amended the Gun Control Act of 1968 by repealing parts of the original act that were deemed by studies to be unconstitutional. The National Rifle Association and other pro gun groups lobbied for passage of the legislation, and it was generally considered favorable for gun owners. Among other things, the act made it easier to transport long rifles across the United States, ended federal records-keeping on ammunition sales and prohibited the prosecution of someone passing through areas with strict gun control with firearms in their vehicle, so long as the gun were properly stored. However, the act also contained a provision banning the ownership of any fully automatic firearms not registered by May 19, 1986. That provision was slipped into the legislation as an 11th hour amendment by Rep. William J. Hughes, a New Jersey Democrat. Reagan has been criticized by some gun owners for signing legislation containing the Hughes amendment.
Sorry, but that doesn't prove we're spending too much. In fact, we may still be spending too little. The optimal amount is the amount where spending an additional dollar brings less than a dollar in economic benefits. Only when you can prove we're past that point will you be able to truthfully claim that we have a spending problem.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
The optimal amount is the amount where spending an additional dollar brings less than a dollar in economic benefits. Only when you can prove we're past that point will you be able to truthfully claim that we have a spending problem.
Your standard of evidence is backward. It's always safer to assume that spending is just consumption, not investment, unless there is evidence to support the position that it produces more in economic benefits (net present value, of course) than it costs. Those who claim that additional spending will result in a positive ROI are the ones with something to prove.
This is an impossible task, of course, as economic benefit is not something you can aggregate and measure across individuals in a non-voluntary system. Voluntary trade may not result in an ideal allocation of resource, but no non-voluntary system can objectively be said to produce a better allocation—just one more in line with the preferences of the few specific individuals in charge.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat