I awoke to the news that Barack Obama has been re-elected as president of the U.S. In his victory speech he finally said something relevant to the climate debate:
President elect Barack Obama does a bit of handwaving
From his 2008 speech
For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime — two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.
There’s new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair.
And from today’s speech:
We want our children to live in an America that isn’t burdened by debt, that isn’t weakened by inequality, that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet
What might this ‘unexpected extra’ signal in terms of policy decisions and implementation? Or is it empty rhetoric providing a fig leaf to cover inactivity in the climate policy arena?
Place bets now!
A politician’s record ought always to speak for itself
Obamas record seems to be stuck in the warming groove
“… threatened by the constructive power of a warming planet.”
Obama’s team of AGW activists now get another six years – Chu at DOE, Holdren as science advisor and Jackson (CO2 is a pollutant!) at EPA.
The ‘warming planet’ bit appears in this version.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/usandworld/transcript-of-obamas-victory-speech-lc7hqud-177600751.html
The ‘new energy to harness’ bit looks like an old quote if this is anything to go by.
http://www.thequotefactory.com/quote-by/barack-obama/theres-new-energy-to-harness/38429
OTOH since climate was not mentioned in the campaign, one can argue that Obama has now no mandate to do much about climate change.
Ah, thanks Oldbrew, I screwed up and quoted the first bits from his 2008 speech.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/obama.transcript/
I’ve edited the post to clarify.
I thought CNN were a bit quick off the mark.
“We want our children to grow up in a country… that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.”
Is from today’s speech though – I saw his lips move and everything.
‘I saw his lips move and everything’ – someone said that’s how you tell when a politician is…er, trying to pull the wool over your eyes
Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard,
To give the poor dog a bone;
When she came there,
The cupboard was bare,
And so the poor dog had none.
To be fair, maybe he had it drilled into him everyday that it was something the electorate didn’t want to hear about, producing a paradoxical effect in the excitement of winning.
Or maybe after the event the regular advisers and speech-writers may be exhausted and taking a break, so the interns get to have a little practice when it doesn’t matter.
Either way, the perils of a warming world still seem less than the perils of a cooling world. He’ll have four years to look at the data for himself, without the pressure of re-election distorting his faculties.
That didn’t take long – the bone has been grabbed…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/07/barack-obama-climate-change-action
Looks like he fixed one of these problems before even leaving the podium. No significant warming in 16 years.
I’m afraid that NObama is going to order the government to purchase 100 million billion Chevy Volts to save the planet.. (payback to his croney buds at the UAW)
We live in a country burdened by debt that is rapidly getting worse, the fabric of society being rotted by socialism and beset by strangling Regulatory grid lock on the economy.
It must get worse before it will be corrected. pg
Whether climate change is happening or not, Sandy convinced Mayor Bloomberg, and possibly a number of other voters, that climate change was an issue. Romney’s sceptical stance during the primaries, and his subsequent silence on the subject, may have damaged his vote.
Obama was also quiet on climate change, but had a past record of acceptance to fall back on.