Bishop Hill Obama BAU
Jan 23, 2013 Climate: Parliament Energy: coal Energy: gas Having got the hopes of the faithful up with an AGW-bashing speech at his inauguration, President Obama seems to be resiling from the climate crusader position he persuaded everyone he was going to adopt. Here are his spokesman's remarks at the first White House press conference of the second term:
Q And then just quickly on climate change. The President was pretty extensive in his remarks on climate change in his inaugural address yesterday. What was he trying to signal about where climate change would fall on his priority list in a second term, and is there any upcoming action that you can point to that he's going to take on that topic?
MR. CARNEY: The President has been clear since he took office that tackling climate change and enhancing energy security was and will be among his top priorities -- will be among his top priorities in a second term. And yesterday he reiterated that commitment, as you said, in his inaugural address.
Let's take a step back and look at what the President was able to achieve in a first term. He took historic action -- his administration did -- to confront climate change, including proposing the first national standard for harmful carbon pollution for new power plants, as well as establishing unprecedented standards for cars and trucks that will slash emissions of carbon pollution while, at the same time, saving consumers billions of dollars.
And it's often forgotten because this is an executive action that he did in concert with major automobile companies, but taken by itself this single action did more to reduce carbon pollution than any other action that has been taken, in our view. And we need to continue to build on that. And the President intends to continue to build on that progress in the second term.
This is not only an issue of helping our climate and the environment, but it's one of our national security. So when we pursue energy independence, when we continue to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by increasing domestic production of fossil fuel energy but other forms of energy, we enhance our security and protect America's future in that way. And we also contribute to the effort to deal with climate change and all the impacts of climate change.
Increasing domestic production of fossil fuel energy eh? Sounds like business as usual to me.
Reader Comments (8)
Obama is pragmatic and just doing what he needs to do to keep his base happy, just like any politician, left or right. Expect the Keystone XL pipeline to be approved in April.
I could be wrong but i'm pretty sure he meant to say this
"This is not only an issue of helping our climate and the environment, but it's one of our national security. So when we pursue energy independence, [we can] continue to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by increasing domestic production of fossil fuel energy but [better if we use] other forms of energy, we [than] enhance our security and protect America's future in that way. And we also contribute to the effort to deal with climate change and all the impacts of climate change.
Somehow when i read it as spoken it sounds like words that should be there aren't and words that shouldn't be there are... and not just talking the propaganda angle but simple syntax and such.
Good analysis of Obama's advisers and possible plans: http://reason.com/archives/2013/01/22/obama-determined-to-make-confronting-cli
Barry has consistently linked climate change to energy concerns with the latter usually given a slight but significant edge. It's actually difficult to find any speech by him with the former but not the latter set of worries.
"but other forms of energy" - this reads like gibberish. Something is missing.
Perhaps it is not intended to make sense, then you can make of it whatever you want.
Its fun to watch the way the Greens on jumped on this speech to claim Obama is now going to lead us to the eco- promised-land . The question is how long before they attack him for failing to do what is not actual promised to do, and has no public support for , in the first place/ For they proved time and again how quickly they can turn on even their own should they stray from the path of 'righteousness'
Just like the fiction aka CAGW, "Obama speak" is all smoke and mirrors, ifs and buts.
Yeah - I can just see Americans giving up their SUVs to help stop 'climate change'....