Is Obama an Environmentalist?

[In These Times]

As a candidate for president, Barack Obama often said a top priority for his administration would be to address the interrelated environment, energy and climate change issues. In his first months in office, he delivered on the hope he had inspired, starkly breaking with Bush-era policies. Through legislation and executive actions, Obama dramatically increased auto fuel efficiency standards, directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and invested in both energy efficiency and clean, renewable energy. League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski hailed "the full court press" on critical issues by the president and his "Green Dream Team." In early 2009, Gallup reported, 79 percent of Americans approved of Obama's environmental policies. Now, two-and-a-half years later, the tone has changed as prominent progressive political figures with strong environmental credentials are cautiously criticizing Obama's leadership on energy and environmental policy. Only 55 percent of voters say he's doing a good job on the environment. In a June Rolling Stone article, former Vice President Al Gore credited Obama with making significant progress on some key environmental challenges despite hardened opposition from big, polluting industries and their allied Republicans, whose leaders and core voters are increasingly ideologically right-wing and…http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/InTheseTimes?d=yIl2AUoC8zA (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/InTheseTimes?a=-XlAR_sQpa4:2OdmxjzhaoE:yIl2AUoC8zA) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/InTheseTimes?d=dnMXMwOfBR0 (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/InTheseTimes?a=-XlAR_sQpa4:2OdmxjzhaoE:dnMXMwOfBR0) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/InTheseTimes?d=7Q72WNTAKBA (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/InTheseTimes?a=-XlAR_sQpa4:2OdmxjzhaoE:7Q72WNTAKBA)
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[blindpig]

Unbelievable. How can this twerp claim to assess the Administration's environmental record without mention of the Gulf Oil Spill and it's subservient posture towards British Petroleum?

As for the 'initiatives' and all the rest of the green energy hokum, they are all predicated upon being profitable, and that constrains all other aspects of the projects. Profitability will decide success or failure with effectiveness taking a back seat. That ain't science but it is capitalism. Never before has a rational economy been more necessary, so-called environmentalist who do not recognise this are either fools or hypocrites.

[Nikos]

Still, not as cool as giving the Nobel peace prize to someone who is conducting 2 wars simultaneously. "War is peace, Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is strength".

[Dhalgren]

Still, not as cool as giving the Nobel peace prize to someone who is conducting 2 wars simultaneously. "War is peace, Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is strength".

Add "destruction is conservation, carbon is green" there are a myriad of them...

[blindpig]

It really is all of a piece. It angers me that these so-called environmentalists cannot see the futility of their efforts. Forty fuckin' years and what they got to show? A retrograde holding action on the verge of collapse. Ain't no panacea but nothing can benefit our environmental woes more than ending capitalism.

[PinkoCommie]

It really is all of a piece. It angers me that these so-called environmentalists cannot see the futility of their efforts. Forty fuckin' years and what they got to show? A retrograde holding action on the verge of collapse. Ain't no panacea but nothing can benefit our environmental woes more than ending capitalism.

Don't forget the fleetingly "successful" Green revolution and the mass starvation it will proximately cause as petro-fertilization and climate change will combine to cause.

[meganmonkey]

It really is all of a piece. It angers me that these so-called environmentalists cannot see the futility of their efforts. Forty fuckin' years and what they got to show? A retrograde holding action on the verge of collapse. Ain't no panacea but nothing can benefit our environmental woes more than ending capitalism.

There's an organic garden on the WH lawn, what more do you want, you greedy little pig (sorry for the last, it's from a song that is now stuck in my head)

[BitterLittleFlower]

There's an organic garden on the WH lawn, what more do you want, you greedy little pig (sorry for the last, it's from a song that is now stuck in my head)

Hey, and they want to switch to natural gas!!! It's so clean...

[blindpig]

That was a big score for the agro-industrial complex and it sure looked good in magazines and on the tube. Long term planning, nah, we're all dead in the long run, eh?

Capitalism is insanity to any and all except the capitalist.

[Allen17]

Here's an article about an environmentalist that is so typical.


David Gessner writes in My Green Manifesto, Down the Charles River in Pursuit of the New Environmentalism, “We need stories, told outside, told in a way that links activism to beauty, wild beauty. They should be told in the open air so that we remember that loving and fighting aren't two specialties, but one thing.”

His story weaves a tale of environmental planner Dan canoeing down the Charles River near Boston, Mass. Gessner tells Dan's story: how one government employee fell in love with a place and then fought for it. He tells how Dan restored the polluted Charles River and turned it into an urban haven for wildlife and wild people. Thus begins Gessner's premise for the manifesto: Despite all odds, one person just might change the world.

As he builds up to his new environmentalism, Gessner addresses a potential accuser of “burying his head in the sand.”

“I am not Henry David Thoreau; I get that, and I live in a limited, depraved, depressing time; but I am here to say that I can still experience joy and yes, maybe even a little transcendence … I do want an environmentalism that I can live with; one that is part of my everyday life.”

More: http://www.skyhidailynews.com/article/20110731/NEWS/110729940/1079&ParentProfile=1067

See, folks, we just gotta "transcend" our shitty lives. And it only takes ONE of us!

[blindpig]

What it comes down to is that they are simply not really serious. For that I despise them, their piddling feel good distractions have diverted the conversation from it's proper course, an unforgivable waste of time.