With Obama we get fireworks, pomp, dancing girls, singers, and speeches, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Brad Friedman wrote...
[quote]The audio is difficult to hear, but he appears to say "I want to take one more look. I'm not going to see this again"...[/quote]

That is eerie, Brad. I even heard someone who used to be in the secret service worriedly suggest that if Obama is too brave...things might happen. Ray McGovern said something to that effect as well. I hope it is untrue.

Let's give it our all for climate change. This is our best opportunity and Obama is not running for re-election. The status quo is unacceptable and must change now. Push back.

I'm not going to see this again.

You got that right, O! You are no FDR.

I noticed that too Brad, and I hope he can pull off a serious environmental movement renaissance.

There are a lot of suicidal / ecocidal foes who seem to want us all dead, but it is more likely that they are psychopaths.

Obama does have substantial talking points now that The Climate Change Report, mandated by a 1990 law has been published for public comment.

OK, so Obama talked about climate change.

But what's the solution?

Tax everyone and every productive endeavor to the extent that industrial activity mostly ceases because people can't afford to buy anything?

Continue to massively subsidize the oil industry?

Fight and foment wars all over the world (an ecological disaster in its own right) to control and ensure the continued supply of oil? This is important because these wars and strategic positioning become moot if the world didn't need oil to produce electrical or locomotive power, and the government wouldn't want to lose such an important lever of imperial control.

Does anyone believe anything Obama or any president says anymore? Does anyone believe that they actually want to solve any of these problems, or give two shits about you? The way the US government and our representatives conducts themselves, it doesn't seem likely.

If the government was even minimally serious about combating climate change, it would have required existing renewable tech to be distributed to individual households and urban centers, through grants or interest free loans to individuals or local governments. It would have built massive solar arrays in the desert, with accompanying storage infrastructure that could provide power to everyone and every industry in the country that couldn't produce all its own power locally.

It would have invested in exotic energy technology research, such as cold fusion, or at least mandated that any university receiving any government funding from any source (i.e. even student tuition grants) must devote some small percentage of its research budget to these techs. http://e-catsite.com/201...xes-cold-fusion-funding/ To be fair, NASA has been looking into it to some extent recently, and DARPA has as well. http://www.wired.co.uk/n...7/rossi-roundup?page=all

We are in the midst of a depression now, if Obama started fighting for these solutions when he came into office, maybe our economy would not be in such shambles. It would have been a New Deal for a New Era.

Instead, we get Solyndra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra and continued Hot Fusion research. http://focusfusion.org/i...dex.php/site/reframe/373 This article argues that Fusion is worth it, and it brings up the incredibly important point that military and other spending makes the 29 billion in government funded fusion research look like a drop in the bucket. However, I think 57 years of research would have yielded something worthwhile. Perhaps we should allocate 500 million a year to other forms of energy research, where a breakthrough is much more likely.

If an individual wants to help the environment and prepare for potential climate change disaster, one should learn to grow their own food year round (lowering not only carbon output but also hopefully minimizing the disastrous environmental damage of modern industrial agriculture), stop eating or using anything that needs to be transported more than 100 miles (using gasoline), and promote awareness in and demand our representatives fund potential earth saving technologies, such as cold fusion.

The government should help fund these developments as well, if it is really worried, but of course the government attempts to foster dependence, not independence. It is not trying to help build sustainable local economies and ecologies. Instead, it promotes globalization and centralized control. Powerful interests essentially own the government, and don't really want people to be self sufficient. Thus, the government doesn't promote these goals.

Instead, we get indefinite detention, murder lists and endless wars. Good job Obama, nice values, great focus.

But forget all of that, let's just be grateful that Obama uttered some [more] empty words.

Sam said @ 6:

Tax everyone and every productive endeavor to the extent that industrial activity mostly ceases because people can't afford to buy anything?

Of course not. You listening to fossil fuel propaganda again there, champ?

Continue to massively subsidize the oil industry?

Nope. Opposite of that would be nice. Massively subsidizing renewable energy would be swell though!

Does anyone believe anything Obama or any president says anymore? Does anyone believe that they actually want to solve any of these problems, or give two shits about you? The way the US government and our representatives conducts themselves, it doesn't seem likely.

Well, you're in luck! We happened to discuss exactly that on today's BradCast with Joe Romm of Climate Progress! Listen up right here!

If the government was even minimally serious about combating climate change, it would have required existing renewable tech to be distributed to individual households and urban centers, through grants or interest free loans to individuals or local governments.

Actually, Obama's original stimulus bill did much of that to the tune of about $60 billion.

It would have built massive solar arrays in the desert, with accompanying storage infrastructure that could provide power to everyone and every industry in the country that couldn't produce all its own power locally.

They have been building massive solar arrays in the desert. The U.S. Army just opened their largest solar photovoltaic system at the White Sands Missile Range last week. The Administration has also been using executive powers for some time to do the same on federal lands all over the country.

We are in the midst of a depression now, if Obama started fighting for these solutions when he came into office, maybe our economy would not be in such shambles. It would have been a New Deal for a New Era.

To his credit, he attempted to do exactly that. To his discredit, while he succeeded in some measure, he should have fought way harder for much more.

Instead, we get Solyndra

That's just stupid. Solyndra was exactly about "fighting for these solutions". To suggest otherwise is to suggest, as you did at the top of your comment, that you have fallen for at least some of the fossil fuel industry scam.

The government should help fund these developments as well, if it is really worried, but of course the government attempts to foster dependence, not independence. It is not trying to help build sustainable local economies and ecologies. Instead, it promotes globalization and centralized control.

Again, silly argument. (With all due respect.)

But forget all of that, let's just be grateful that Obama uttered some [more] empty words.

We'll see how "empty" they are. You may very well be right on that point, but I don't have the crystal ball that you seem to have.

Thanks Brad.

Increasing Taxes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax It isn't really propaganda. To make a carbon tax non regressive would require abolishing or lowering some other tax that effects the poorest members of society. It would effectively make things more expensive because, of course, the producers of goods would pass on the extra cost, and it is largely lower income people who buy the most carbon intensive goods. (At least according to wikipedia)

Oil subsidies: That was sarcastic, and I agree that they should be abolished, though I would argue that it would also hurt people because then gas and plastics would likely become more expensive, driving up prices of goods. This would be compounded with a carbon tax.

Obama's Stimulus: You are right that he did do a lot here. I am happy for that and I respect that he did put our money where his mouth is in this case to do something unequivocally good for the country. Nonetheless, 60 billion for probably the most important issue of our age (not climate change per se, but more broadly the destruction of a sustainable biosphere) is kind of a joke. So we definitely agree that he didn't do enough.

How many solar and wind farms, tidal power, river turbines, geothermal plants etc could we have built with the money that went propping up the criminal organizations we call the big banks? How much experimental research? What kind of breakthroughs might we have achieved? The president/government/powers that be exhibit the same kind of pathological behavior as a person who beats their wife 360 days of the year, but takes her on a wonderful vacation those last five days. It is beyond insulting.

Centralized control: Not a silly argument. The government has set the conditions, both regulatory and economic, which promote increasing centralization of essential economic and survival functions like oil extraction and food production. This is a fact.

I was lucky enough to go to an elementary school where we went out once a week and tended a garden. It was an awesome experience and taught kids the importance of growing our own food. Why does the government allow the poisoning of the food supply through pesticides, why not mandate that everything must be organically produced. It seems to me that this would promote decentralization of food production, since heavy chemical fertilizer and pesticide use is the hallmark of centralized industrial agriculture, and such a system could not exist without being able to use these harmful chemicals.

And let's not talk about approval of GMO suicide seeds of Monsanto, allowing the judicial system to be corrupted in the interest of Monsanto by allowing them to pollute other crops and then sue the farmers for patent infringement. This is simply unacceptable in any kind of humane forward thinking sustainable society. Giving huge corporate interests this power will of course promote centralized control.

Thanks for responding, always great to learn new things and refine my perspective.

Sam @ 8:

Increasing Taxes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax It isn't really propaganda.

Actually, it is. Since (unfortunately) nobody is calling for a carbon tax. Even if they were, however, as we learned when Australia put the first carbon tax in place last year, no, it didn't lead to "industrial activity mostly ceases because people can't afford to buy anything".

To make a carbon tax non regressive would require abolishing or lowering some other tax that effects the poorest members of society.

As with the proposed Cap and Trade bill that failed in the last Congress, subsidies are offered to off-set higher costs to poorer households. Problem solved. Society doesn't collapse. Imagine that? (Of course, we have experience with similar Cap and Trade plans from Reagan/Bush etc. It was a conservative, market based idea to deal with these things. It didn't lead to societal collapse when they instituted it either.)

Obama's Stimulus: You are right that he did do a lot here. I am happy for that and I respect that he did put our money where his mouth is in this case to do something unequivocally good for the country. Nonetheless, 60 billion for probably the most important issue of our age (not climate change per se, but more broadly the destruction of a sustainable biosphere) is kind of a joke. So we definitely agree that he didn't do enough.

To be fair here, he was forced to divert some 40% of the Stimulus to wasteful, unhelpful tax cuts to get R support to get the Stim through. Woulda been nice to use that money for actual stimulus. Moreover, his proposed jobs bill and later stimulus also included a lot of green money, but he was topped by Rs.

How many solar and wind farms, tidal power, river turbines, geothermal plants etc could we have built with the money that went propping up the criminal organizations we call the big banks? How much experimental research? What kind of breakthroughs might we have achieved?

He made clear that he would have liked to have spent a LOT more money on all of that stuff (even though he did spend substantial sums on it already). But, unfortunately, it was never a matter of "give it to the banks or to renewable energy". It wasn't either/or.

I was lucky enough to go to an elementary school where we went out once a week and tended a garden. It was an awesome experience and taught kids the importance of growing our own food.

And yet look at the years of crap that the Obama's caught when Michelle tried to set that same example with an organic WH garden!

Why does the government allow the poisoning of the food supply through pesticides, why not mandate that everything must be organically produced.

While I'd be in favor it! I'll remind you that that is exactly the sort of thing you said just a few grafs back would cause insane increases in prices that would mostly affect poorer people!

And let's not talk about approval of GMO suicide seeds of Monsanto, allowing the judicial system to be corrupted in the interest of Monsanto by allowing them to pollute other crops and then sue the farmers for patent infringement. This is simply unacceptable in any kind of humane forward thinking sustainable society.

I concur.

Brad,

I don't think that industrial activity would immediately cease, and I was indeed being grandiose. However, I do think that things would become more expensive. The only fair way to offset this with the poor is to give them tax credits so that they can be reimbursed in real cash instead of tax deductions which are useless if you don't make enough money to pay taxes in the first place. So essentially the companies that profit off of the warming activity lose no money, and the non-poor taxpayers (however you define that) will have to make up the difference twofold, first with increased prices and second with increased tax burdens. I doubt an unmarried individual making 50k or more a year will see any kind of tax offset, though such a person could not be considered "wealthy." But this is all speculation and (fortunately) there is no carbon tax. On the other hand, as I mention briefly below, perhaps we should take the externalities into account and pay the true price for these products. That would probably quickly motivate people to demand more efficient and less destructive means of production.

Also, it may not have been seriously considered in the US Congress, but the fact that major developed countries are going the direction of carbon taxes leads me to think that it will eventually spread everywhere, like the smoking bans in Europe (I seriously can't believe that you can't smoke in a bar in France anymore!).

W/r/t more action by Obama, I question, as do you in your recent article regarding the filibuster and Harry Reid, whether the President would have pushed for more sweeping green energy/environmental measures if there wasn't a Republican party to play the bastard opposition.

W/r/t the either/or of bailouts or more environmental spending, I agree that it isn't an either/or situation. To me it is more of a "never should have / definitely should have" dichotomy.

I agree about the organic WH garden being a great idea, and I can't fathom why anyone would find fault with that idea (unless they are corrupt or brainwashed). On the other hand, perhaps this is the real reason the garden was not so successful ( http://www.dailyfinance....white-house-organic-gar/ ) If you take a peek, look at the last line of this article, extremely ironic.

W/r/t mandating organic, I agree it would have a tremendous impact on prices, at least initially until the family commercial farm was again the dominant paradigm in food production. However, much like with carbon taxes, the taxpayer could subsidize these farms like we still do for dairy producers.

Consider it preventative medicine which would save taxpayer money in the future as it probably would promote a much healthier population. This is especially true with the poor who can't afford organic at all at this time, but who also depend upon government paid healthcare. But beyond all of this, check out "aquaponics," which is claimed to be able to produce ten times more food, year round, in the same amount of space as traditional farming techniques, and it is 100% organic. it is also apparently quite inexpensive, even on a commercial level.

Finally, we have to consider externalities. There are costs that are not taken into consideration. These costs probably far outweigh the cost of responsible organic farming in the long run.

Check out this brand new development as well, is this the answer to dirty energy? http://www.sciencedaily....2013/01/130122143224.htm Let's see how long it takes for the government to try to develop and promote this technology instead of more expensive wind farms and solar arrays (which have their place but will probably never be the linchpin to energy decentralization because it cannot be universally distributed without a massive electrical grid to supply electricity to less sunny/windy climes).

In my opinion, this is what the government is supposed to do. Not protect obsolete industries, not to pander to special interests, not to reap death around the world and throw us average dogs an occasional bone, but to promote a better world with more security, prosperity, individual self sufficiency, love and respect for others, better health and the most pristine environment possible, without screwing people over.

Here is a wonderful (alarming) article from Paul Craig Roberts: http://www.paulcraigrobe...urce-paul-craig-roberts/

With the breakthrough mentioned above, do we need fracking at all anymore? There should be an immediate nationwide injunction against further fracking until we figure out if this new breakthrough can replace all other forms of energy. Maybe you can use your considerable platform here to promote a WH petition to end fracking (if one doesn't already exist)!

Thanks for engaging.

Sam @ 10:

Apologies that I don't have time for a complete reply this time, but one major point in your comment needs responding to. While a Carbon Tax is not likely in the near future here, it certainly should be. Right now, huge corporations are allowed to pollute for free. You and I pay for the clean up in myriad ways. That's an enormous subsidy to them, courtesy of us.

Yes, as previously noted, both Cap & Trade or a Carbon Tax would necessarily require offsets for the poor (and that was a part of the Waxman/Markey Cap & Trade bill as I recall.) None of that is a problem, and none of it leads to the society ending nightmare you offered at first but have, mostly, now backed off of.

But here's the ironic part. You offered this as part of your argument for mandating the use of only organic fruits and vegetables despite the considerably higher costs to tax-payers (which would be felt most by the poor):

Consider it preventative medicine which would save taxpayer money in the future as it probably would promote a much healthier population. This is especially true with the poor ... who also depend upon government paid healthcare.
...
Finally, we have to consider externalities. There are costs that are not taken into consideration. These costs probably far outweigh the cost ... in the long run.

Great argument! For a Carbon Tax!

Thanks!