Where Did Global Warming Go?

[n2doc]

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: October 15, 2011


IN 2008, both the Democratic and Republican candidates for president, Barack Obama and John McCain, warned about man-made global warming and supported legislation to curb emissions. After he was elected, President Obama promised “a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change,” and arrived cavalry-like at the 2009 United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen to broker a global pact.

But two years later, now that nearly every other nation accepts climate change as a pressing problem, America has turned agnostic on the issue.

In the crowded Republican presidential field, most seem to agree with Gov. Rick Perry of Texas that “the science is not settled” on man-made global warming, as he said in a debate last month. Alone among Republicans onstage that night, Jon M. Huntsman Jr. said that he trusted scientists’ view that the problem was real. At the moment, he has the backing of about 2 percent of likely Republican voters.

Though the evidence of climate change has, if anything, solidified, Mr. Obama now talks about “green jobs” mostly as a strategy for improving the economy, not the planet. He did not mention climate in his last State of the Union address. Meanwhile, the administration is fighting to exempt United States airlines from Europe’s new plan to charge them for CO2 emissions when they land on the continent. It also seems poised to approve a nearly 2,000-mile-long pipeline, from Canada down through the United States, that will carry a kind of oil. Extracting it will put relatively high levels of emissions into the atmosphere.


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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/sunday-review/whatever-happened-to-global-warming.html

[kristopher]

1. Does anyone really think Obama can change the dynamics with speeches?

Considering Republican obstructionism he is clearly working on the problem through all available avenues. In fact it is the area I give him the most credit for wisely exercising the power of the Presidency.

[XemaSab]

3. "All available avenues"=

drilling in Alaska and the Gulf. :eyes:

[Kolesar]

8. No, the President is using EPA to set policy...eom

[GliderGuider]

4. Of course he can. Speeches are a powerful form of cultural story-telling.

Speeches transmit and reinforce cultural messages, and enlist different parts of the culture to act in accordance with the stories they tell. Speeches are necessary, if not sufficient, for cultural change. If the speeches don't get made, or are equivocal, public support for change cannot be enlisted. That's the reason corporations and then the Republicans targeted talk radio as part of their cultural takeover following the Powell Memo of 1971 - the broadcast airwaves are the primary medium for spreading cultural narratives.

[pscot]

15. The pipeline is his call

He can stop it with a word.

[hatrack]

2. Why, it was obscured by an enormous wall of "assets", of course!

Failed "assets", that is, and the consequences of that failure . . .

It also helps that the mortar in the wall was a nearly limitless quantity of denial.

[Leftist Agitator]

5. Gwubble Wubble?

:shrug:

[Nihil]

6. "America has turned agnostic on the issue"? No it hasn't - it's in full throttle denial!

Just look at the two paragraphs that followed that ridiculous claim:

> Alone among Republicans onstage that night, Jon M. Huntsman Jr. said that
> he trusted scientists’ view that the problem was real. At the moment, he
> has the backing of about 2 percent of likely Republican voters.
>
> (Obama) did not mention climate in his last State of the Union address.
> Meanwhile, the administration is fighting to exempt United States airlines from
> Europe’s new plan to charge them for CO2 emissions when they land on the continent.
> It also seems poised to approve a nearly 2,000-mile-long pipeline, from Canada
> down through the United States, that will carry a kind of oil.

There's no "agnostic" there: it is full-blown Dominionist exploitation of
planetary resources for short-term profit.

:grr:

[GliderGuider]

7. This is simply a "reversion to the mean" in terms of official commitment to the idea.

This looks like a sign that the corporate world is finally regaining control of the political sphere. The pols wandered off the reservation for a while, and started listening to scientists rather than accountants and economists, but that situation is now being brought back under control. The pols are being reminded who pays their re-election bills, and it's not the 99%. The loss of visibility of AGW in official public statements is the evidence that the corporate reassertion of political control is being successful.

Expect more mountain-top removals.
Expect more fracking.
Expect more Arctic drilling-and-spilling.

Do not expect any US support of international efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
Do not expect an official global warming agenda that makes one iota of difference.
Definitely do not expect a carbon tax.

[Nihil]

17. What he said ^^^ ! (n/t)

[bananas]

9. Face it - Republicans were just using it to push nuclear power

As it became clear that the "Nuclear Renaissance" wasn't going to happen even with all the government hand-outs, the Republicans dropped their charade about concern for global warming.

[kristopher]

10. +1

[The Croquist]

12. As opposed to the "Green Energy" Renaissance?

"Green Energy" gets so much in "government hand-outs" per kilowatt that it makes your head spin.

[zeaper]

11. Simple answer: Environmentalism requires big money which we don’t have

Global economics currently will not support an extra financial drain or the risks that new carbon free energy sources will require. Progressive environmentalism will only gain ground after the economy improves. Until then, throw another lump of coal on the fire.

[GliderGuider]

13. I only have one thing to say about that...

"Oops!"

[hatrack]

18. Oh, come now - don't you know that money is more important than anything?

And I do mean anything.

[Nihil]

19. He who dies with the most toys ...

... still dies.

Some people haven't quite grasped that yet.

[Edim]

14. Agree.

[pscot]

16. That's your opinion

What else have you got?