I need to speak to you about my papers that I sent to you.

Hope you are not too busy.

BTW, good article, but let us go back to coal-period.

No more nukes.

Grbie

Go and read the article:

Obama didn’t say “NO TO LIQUID COAL!!” he actually said it was ok if it “adhered to strict environmental safeguards” and, expanding on that, said that “20% less life-cycle carbon than conventional fuels” would apparently make coal ok for him.

Half of what passes as green these days is just greenwashing, or even outright lies, upon closer inspection: this is suspicious at FIRST GLANCE and should not be called a victory, just because it feels good to call it one. Politicians frequently lie and distort the truth, doing the absolute minimum to fool the maximum number of people - I for none am pretty convinced thats all that is here.

The only clean coal is the coal left in the ground. Coal can NEVER adhere to strict environmental safeguards, and unless Obama says so explicitly we should not be supporting him.

Obama didn’t say “NO TO LIQUID COAL!!” he actually said it was ok if it “adhered to strict environmental safeguards”. Why would Obama possibly include that caveat unless he intended to find a way to make coal “clean”.

Wondering how could coal EVER adhere to strict environmental safeguards??? Probably much the same way a lot of other stuff the government says is safe, clean and green. The problem isn’t that we don’t have environmental safeguards ALREADY that would prevent coal (ever heard of the Clean Air and Water Acts?), it’s that that are constantly distorted and abused while claiming to “adhere to strict environmental standards”).

Half of what passes as green these days is just greenwashing, or even outright lies, upon closer inspection: this is suspicious at FIRST GLANCE and should not be called a victory, just because it feels good to call it one.

Politicians lie and distort the truth - are you really convinced that is not happening here?

Hold on a tick, Gabriel! Like Julianna aptly points out, just because Obama is apparently no longer supportive of coal-to-liquids unless it is at least 20% better on a GHG-intensity basis than gasoline doesn’t mean he is fully committed to the kind of comprehensive action to tackle climate change we’re going to need from our next president.

This is a step in the right direction for Obama, but we’re going to need to keep the pressure on him and make it clear that this isn’t enough. Obama has still yet to distinguish himself with a very comprehensive or innovative energy and climate change strategy and his policy proposals on his websites’ energy and climate page displays the kind of incremental, ‘inside-the-box’ thinking that doesn’t inspire much confidence in me.

And while he has now committed to supporting the Boxer/Sanders-bill calling for an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050, he originally only supported the much weaker (and insufficient) McCain-Lieberman bill and didn’t sign on to the Boxer/Sanders bill until four months after the bill was introduced and 11 other senators had already co-sponsored it. (The same can be said for Senator Clinton as well; John Edwards was the first major candidate to support the 80% by 2050 goals, as IGHIH was the first to report). And at a fundraising luncheon in Silicon Valley in March, Obama told attendees that his support for the Boxer/Sanders bill was largely symbolic since it probably wouldn’t pass! (See this post for the details)

The question really is this: is Obama - or any other candidate for that matter - exhibiting leadership on climate change, or followership? Is he proactively leading our country to solving the climate crisis, or is he simply responding to grassroots pressure from folks like us who he knows are going to be a key part of his primary election voter base?

What we need is a strong leader, someone committed to making a bold and aggressive greenhouse gas reduction goal the centerpiece of his or her campaign and presidency. The next president of the United States will not only have to deal with undoing eight years of heel-dragging and back-sliding during the Bush Administration, but will also have to lead our nation and the world to tackling climate change, a monumental task requiring a true leader.

If, by the end of the next president’s term in 2012, the United States doesn’t have a comprehensive greenhouse gas reduction plan well in place and we aren’t leading an international response to the climate crisis with buy-in from developing countries like China, India and Brazil, we’re basically sunk - we’ll be too late to adequately respond to climate change and we’ll be faced with adapting to a drastically different - and harsher - world.

That’s why this election should be SO important to young people like us, concerned about climate change and the fate of the planet.

Please put a little more thought into which candidate you ultimately choose to support. Let’s not go run off and yell “OBAMA in 08″ until we’re sure he’s the kind of leader we’re going to need, and if he’s not, we should be taking equally focused looks at each of the other candidates positions.

And in the meantime, we should keep up the pressure and hopefully help transform each of the candidates into champions of climate solutions. Clearly we’re making progress, and wherever a candidate is, they can certainly afford to be pushed further to take bold action on climate change!

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-energypol13jun13,0,214084.story?coll=la-politics-campaign

A little well times grassroots action can make a difference.