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Obama's Climate Plans Face Long Fight
An anonymous reader writes "He hasn't even given his Tuesday speech yet but Obama's plans to tackle climate change are already raising objections in Washington. From the article: 'When President Barack Obama lays out plans to tackle climate change in a speech Tuesday, including the first effort to curb greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants, he will unleash a years-long battle that has little assurance of being resolved during his time in office. The president has called climate change a "legacy issue," and his speech may head off a backlash from environmentalists should his administration approve the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada. But the address is unlikely to blunt criticism of Mr. Obama's approach from the left or the right.'"
lol, because what environmentalists want, after 4 years, is a speech... while his actions are the opposite of what he says he wants to do.
I'm voting 3rd party from now. Least of all evils isn't enough.
Shutting down all PRISM related datacenters will seriously reduce the US carbon footprint.
And that's what all of this is about... politics.
A long flight ... but that's so environmentally unfriendly. We should insist that his plans are subject to a long train ride, or even better a long trek instead.
If he approves Keystone it will be war.
Without comprehensive, cooperative, enforceable international standards and practices, it's all just political showmanship. Given the interwoven economic, i.e. selfish capitalist, constituencies of all the nations, unilateral grand-standing and token half-measures are futile.
When global issues are at stake, global cooperation is required. It might start with a less-corrupt, more efficient United Nations with unselfish participation by the member states to give it a sense of legitimacy. That would be the ideal.
My gut feeling is that nothing, if anything, substantial will be done until the international capital oligarchs sense a real financial threat. Good intentions create politics; money creates policy.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
... about the Global Cooling that has been going on for the past 15 or so years?
Is he just going use the NSA to spy on the weather until it behaves?
This post does not belong on Slashdot and is only newsworthy to the Left who think isn't a political issue. Slashdot moderators have become too tolerant to liberal ideology.
Since everything else seems to have gone in the shitter, I come back to you with a message that seemed to sell well in both campaigns: the environment.
I look forward to again gaining your broad support with a campaign of platitudes, anthemic one-word slogans, and statements that make me appear sympathetic to your issues, while actually resulting in policies that either ossify the current corporation-based lobbyist-driven structure, or expand the pervasive control of the Federal government ostensibly for good reasons but which will in fact be used to incrementally decrease your rights vis a vis that "Constitution" thingy, which I will continue to re-interpret as really not relevant to today's realities anyway.
Signed,
Your President.
-Styopa
The days of a 'D' having a chance are loooooong gone - Thanks Fox News!
Not sure why you're blaming Fox News - they're run by the Democrats.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
When New York starts getting flooded, then we'll see action.
New York DID get flooded.
The problem is that there isn't any action which can be taken. Right now, all this talk is simply to soothe the masses so they don't stampede before shit gets real.
Climate Change has little direct relationship to carbon emissions from human industry. It's not within our control.
The planet is changing. The sharp increase in volcanic and geologic activity, the weirdness with Sun spots and all these comet incursions are not the result of our automotive fuel of choice. Things are getting weird for entirely different reasons, and part of that is our unstoppable slide into the next ice age.
China isn't building empty cities in Africa for no reason.
Do all of you guys commenting have a subscription to get past the WSJ paywall, or are you reading the article from some other method?
Oh... wait. "Reading the article". LOL.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
He hasn't even given his Tuesday speech yet but Obama's plans to tackle climate change are already raising objections in Washington.
Yeah, so long as anyone with any differing opinion exists in Washington, anything any president ever does will raise objections in the modern political climate. If there's a Republican whose strings are pulled by the poultry industry, there'd be objections to an order by Obama for a roast beef sandwich on rye. Wake me when there's something interesting going on.
Obama's current->plan() || current->legislation() Face(s) Long Fight
Everything from gun legislation after massive shooting sprees to just keeping the government fucking running has been next to impossible for this guy. Instead, you can thank the party of no for making sure we reaffirm 'in god we trust' and try to repeal healthcare reform 33 times. because thats way more important.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Just shut up and roll over.
http://news.yahoo.com/singapore-malaysia-face-economic-hit-prolonged-smog-093307319.html
Really it doesn't matter what we do in the USA if Asia and the middle east are 1000x worse with a larger population.
There are 3 major obstacles to getting anything done with the climate change issues.
1 - USA: large portion of population, especially in the red states espousing a world view that is anti-science to the bone. This is being shamelessly exploitetd and nurtured by a powerful energy lobby and "conservative" (conservativism used to include environemental conservation in Teddy Roosevelt's era) politicians. In addition, US economy is facing competitive pressure from other countries and is worried that cleaning up environment means increased cost and loss of jobs. My view on this is that nothing will happen on the US end until after the final collapse of the republican party as we know it today. That is a few years out, but it will surely happen. US voters are by nature centrists, and the red state/blue state division won't last forever. Gerrymandering and politicized supreme court will extend the suffering though.
2-China. When China sets their mind to do something, it will get done,but their environmental policies are at the same level of their human rights policies, pretty low. They are smart enough, and tend to take the longer view, though, so I am sure they realizes that they can not fuel their economy USA-style for very long without ending up in a Mad Max-scenario. By the time the US republican party collapses, China might have turned around and become a climate change believer.
3-The developing countries. Energy is essential to increase the living standard, and it would be hypocritical by western nations to continue our high energy consumption, while these countries have a desperate need too increase their energy use. A country like Norway, who is a major oil producer, while being a poster boy for environment and climate change policies, spending a large portion of their GDP on rain forest projects, foreign aid and other environmental projects, needs to realize that until their privileged population does something about their massive energy usage, they will remain hypocrites. We need to budget for a dramatic increase in energy use by developing countries, which means we need to dramatically reduce our energy consumption in the west. I see soem good signs in that there are more and more small cars on US roads, but the SUVS,compact SUVS, and trucks, as well as assholes riding heavy BMWs, Audis, etc. are still dominating the landscape.
I think all rational persons have a pretty good idea what needs to be done. Obama needs to try, to make sure it gets put out there in the public, so that we know what direction to turn when the rest of the world is ready to advance from the middle ages. And by those, I include the republicans that espouse a pre-Copernicus world view.
Obama's climate change speech will blow in tomorrow night. It'll be a classic gong show moment as soon as he says" Super Moon". Too bad I won't hear it, I'm on mute when his lips begin to move......
http://youtu.be/kVFdAJRVm94
Obama's numbers are going south like a goose in Fall. Good thing. The goose will return and Obama will not.
The only science with no outliers, so every catastrophe is direct consequence of CO2. Hello, CO2 has been rising for 10,000 years!
how long is a face-long fight, and why does Obama's climate plan one?
Great article in Rolling Stone the other day - laying out how our decades of not doing anything (fossil fuel companies love it) has already cost us Miami and southern Florida, its just a matter of time at this point:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-the-city-of-miami-is-doomed-to-drown-20130620#ixzz2X0NGzxLY
The President will be talking about 17% CO2 emissions reductions from 2003 levels (if memory serves, but it should be 1990 levels) by 2020 which is a joke - and totally inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. He'll probably be doing this talk while approving the XL expansion (he approved the 1st two tar sands pipelines, Keystone 1 and Alberta Clipper in 2009).
Five minutes of reading about volcanic gas emisions and sun spots should convince you that your claims are false....
Except I wasn't talking about gas emissions from volcanoes.
I was talking about the basic frequency of volcanic and geologic activity. Let's just say "Earthquakes" so we can stay clear of preconceptions.
Earthquake frequency is steadily rising, and this, among the other non-emission related items indicated, are tightly linked to the climate change events we are experiencing today.
People are clinging to the belief that climate change MUST be our fault, and therefore is also within our power to fix.
It isn't.
As for reading about sun spots. . , I suggest you do some.
The government has the fix for everything. Just let them confiscate more of our wealth and give them more power to micro-manage every aspect of our lives. That's the solution to this problem and apparently every other problem.
The halving of coal-powered electricity was due to a combination of expensive coal metal-pollution laws the availability of cheap, clean alternative- fracked natural gas. This cut US CO2 emissions 20% since the early 2000s. But that is only a band-aid. If leveraged right that will buy us a decade or two to R&D even cleaner energy. The world is about to imitate the USA in this changeover, mainly for economic reasons.
This feels like a classic misdirection. With all the recent controversies lately, Obama needs to change the dialogue to something that he feels is a Democratic Party strength. This will rally his base, and return him back into their good graces. He needs them to forget the NSA gathering of every American's phone records, Benghazi, the IRS scandal and pleading the 5th of a major IRS exec. He needs to get his popularity rating back up.
He will propose a large set of new regulations of current energy producers/users, plus pledge increased government spending of your tax dollars are 'green' energy programs. He is a politician. That's what they do. You will feel good about this.
because "man-made climate change" is bogus. this green initiative is nothing other than financially incentivizing "green" energy
It will be interesting to see what he says tomorrow. Obama has made climate change a focus of previous speeches, including his second inaugural address and the 2013 State of the Union speech.
Here's a link to analysis of his previous remarks on climate change, and a preview of what he might say tomorrow:
http://energypolicyupdate.blogspot.com/2013/06/obama-to-unveil-climate-change-plan.html
Here is what I've learned about politics in America:
1. The right hates the left.
2. The left hates the right.
3. Everybody hates the center.
Compromise is evil. If you didn't get everything that you want, then you've lost. When people say that they're hoping for a "moderate", they mean somebody who agrees with them on everything meaningful and gives up only trivial things that you don't care about at all.
This sarcasm isn't really about trying to defend the plan, or pick out the parts I think are good from the parts I think are bad. It's just that I can't think of any plan, on any topic, that won't be declared "dead on arrival" by both sides. I can't be bothered to see whether this plan is good, bad, or indifferent because it doesn't matter: everybody objects to it even before it's written down. It will be scrutinized only for the things to object to, and they will be found. Politics, as the "art of the possible", no longer exists because there is no longer any "possible", and nobody wants there to be any.
Candidate Obama debates President Obama on Government Surveillance
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BmdovYztH8&feature=youtu.be
The winter is coming.
Obama announces plan to fight entropy
which will be just as effective.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
There is a mentality that assumes that because The Bible says that the end of the world will happen when God wants it to, there is no point doing anything to protect the world. If you can destroy the environment in order to gain wealth and power (and it's really about power, power to abuse other people and impact their lives in negative ways), then that's a good move because The End is foretold and you just want to get what you can before that happens because wealth and success are the keys to the gates of heaven.
It's no surprise that the ultra-conservatives are gaining so much support. People want change, but they don't want to do anything to make it happen themselves - so they put their trust in the people who scream God the loudest.
Aaron Sorkin said it the best in the Newsroom. "The Tea Party are the American Taliban". They only want to destroy, because then they can prove they are right.
hint it looks more like the Flintstones and less like the Jetsons
That is just baloney. As of 2013, solar and wind are about to cross the cost of coal/oil, and that's even when you discount the cost of carbon pollution. Germany has moved a huge portion of its electricity infrastructure to renewable, and their economy grew strongly over the past decade despite the EU crisis and world recession.
The only people who will suffer from renewable are Koch and their allies. You're probably a conservative, which means you are the party of crony capitalism. As in you support Koch using the atmosphere as a free exhaust pipe if they funds GOP politicians.
You don't know what you are talking about.
Price the cost of energy out of existance..But who will get all the money before the wheels of the economy fall off?