Senator Obama spoke yesterday as the Texas and Ohio primary results were coming in. In the midst of the usual inspirational plea to change America, he said something that caught my attention (video: 00:25 seconds in):
We believe that a child born tonight should have the same chances whether she arrives in the barrios of San Antonio or the suburbs of St. Louis, on the streets of Chicago or the hills of Appalachia.
In a presidential primary where climate change is barely even acknowledged, and our nemeses King Coal and Big Oil buy blocks of commercial time at every political event, I was surprised to hear Obama mention Appalachia. What was more surprising is Obama’s insistence on our need for ‘clean coal’, and eventually, of developing the economic and environmental scam called coal-to-liquid fuel.
The only blocks in Texas that consistently voted for Obama were African Americans and youth, and this is very ironic. African Americans are disproportionately affected by pollution from coal fired power and climate change. Similarly, youth will be the ones that will have to deal with the incompetence of our predecessor. It is about time that we tell our candidate, the one that we are elevating to the nomination, that he needs to reshape his energy platform to reflect his people, the people of the future.
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Thanks for this posting. You are right to be shining a light on this. I’m an Obama supporter because I believe that he uniquely has the ability to create a coalition that can overcome the vested interests, including King Coal. And the more of us who support him with small contributions, the better he will be able to stand up to these powerful vested interests.
But I’d feel a lot happier if he would come out and challenge the coal lobby (he does bash Exxon, and he gets plenty of applause on that line).
Keep up the good work!
It IS about time we inject climate change into the debate (so to speak). I’m generally not one for advocacy, but our campus has been organizing a huge letter/email-writing campaign to Obama, asking questions about his policy and citing peer-reviewed sources. Some of our writers have gotten direct responses from Obama himself. Climate change is THE issue he needs to latch on to, and as much as I disagree with Al Gore’s methods, he’s right that the work needs to start NOW and not in a year.
Lots of us Back Barack, but don’t like the fact that he’s taken more than a 1/4 million in campaign contributions from coal. Last week, we started a new fundraising initiative called “Buy Back Barack” on Facebook. The goal: to replace coal’s contributions with our own. If Barack is unwilling to drop coal, we’ll ask him to give the money to the Campus Climate Challenge.
Consider donating 10 bucks and tell your friends.
Taazi,
I agree with you that Obama’s support of “clean” coal is troubling, but I have a few questions about some assertions you made.
Let’s start with “In a presidential primary where climate change is barely even acknowledged, and our nemeses King Coal and Big Oil buy blocks of commercial time at every political event, I was surprised to hear Obama mention Appalachia.”
First off, climate change is very much on the table — if you’ve been to any Clinton or Obama campaign events, you’d hear the candidates talking about green jobs, building a clean energy future…etc. To be sure, the debates have been funded in part by coal interests. But when Obama mentions places like New Orleans, Appalachia and others, he’s talking about rebuilding America and uniting the country for change.
Secondly, Saying that Obama only galvanizes black voters and youth is simplifying the issue. I think we should continue to bring up the issues of justice and climate change at campaign rallies, and make sure that our voices are stronger than those of the moneyed interests.