Thursday, June 27, 2013

President Obama publicly announces plan to confront climate change (hint: King Coal isn’t happy)

President Obama officially launched his “ambitious” campaign against the rising threat of global warming and climate change on Tuesday, a move that environmentally and human health conscious individuals like me have been waiting five years for.

While making the decision to confront some of America’s biggest offenders in the climate change human drama could have been made sooner, it took an enormous amount of personal courage and political stamina to do what President Obama has done: attack King Coal and other powerful interests in the country that have and are significantly adding to our planet’s warming dilemma.

According to former Vice President Al Gore, “I applaud the new measures announced by President Barack Obama this afternoon to help solve the climate crisis — particularly the decision to limit global warming pollution from existing as well as new power plants.”

For all of the vitriol that will spew from the political right in reaction to President Obama’s climate change 
speech and subsequent plan to confront it, America and the world will be a better place to live in, a world that our children and their children can inherit with as much opportunity to breathe clean air that we’ve had. What price can anyone put on this precious gift?

In their focus on the almighty dollar, many individuals in the conservative camp, in particular, have lost sight of the incalculable monetary benefits of a planet further away from the precipice of self-inflicted human and ecological disasters. That is, these individuals have failed to take account of the enormous financial benefits of a healthier planet. And maybe they won’t see or ever care to see what we’ve gained as a result of moving away from our most greenhouse gas intensive industries and practices.

While I’ve had much to criticize President Obama for recently (e.g., the unfounded and dangerous use of the 1917 Espionage Act and the publicly unacknowledged collection of communication data from Americans, among other issues), America’s 44th president has once again proved that big ideas, big dreams, and “hope” can lead to big and positive changes in our own lifetimes.


Cut from the mold of John F. Kennedy, President Obama believed in making tough decisions and working together to form a brighter future for ourselves and generations yet to be. This is the President Obama millions of Americans voted for. This is the President Obama I’m proud to say I support. 

No comments:

Post a Comment