Obama on Climate Change - Conservative Lite

From the OP quote ...
When historians look back and assess his actions on what could be one of the biggest issues of his presidency, they will undoubtedly be using the term “disappointing” quite a bit.
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... with my fix.
 
Jrrarglblarg said:
Long , tedious and based on a particularly nonsensical What If.
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Millions of readers disagree with this description, but, everyone is entitled to their personal opinion about such issues. That said, what are your thoughts on Obama's efforts to address the issue of Climate change?

Personally, it was very refreshing to hear leadership in this nation speak out and discuss the subject matter in a generally intelligent and accurate manner. Unfortunately, words alone won't slow our rate of adding fossil carbon to the active carbon cycle, much less suck it out of the atmosphere.
 
From what I've seen Obama hasn't done much of anything productive in that regard. Getting ACA done used all the air in room and after that he seems to just be on cruise control.
 
Jrrarglblarg said:
From what I've seen Obama hasn't done much of anything productive in that regard. Getting ACA done used all the air in room and after that he seems to just be on cruise control.
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And even there, if you are going to expend every last erg of political clout your administration has, why not have pushed for single-payer, which would have actually done some good, rather than adopting the conservative's insurance industry welfare program proposed as an alternative to Hillary's health care plan of the mid-1990s? But again, this thread is about Obama's conservative lite approach to climate change legislation, not his conservative lite approach to Health care.
 
Trakar said:
And even there, if you are going to expend every last erg of political clout your administration has, why not have pushed for single-payer, which would have actually done some good, rather than adopting the conservative's insurance industry welfare program proposed as an alternative to Hillary's health care plan of the mid-1990s?
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Practical politics. He bought off the insurance industry by taking single-payer off the table. Of course, opinions vary as to whether that was a good, or even necessary, deal. Time will tell.
 
Trakar said:
If he had taken strong, compelling steps during those two years, what's happened since wouldn't much matter. Since he didn't, I give him no pass. You don't acknowledge the problem and then waste angst over a pipeline that should have never even been given consideration, just cancelled. You don't waste time on "clean coal," you institute a carbon tax. All he has done is try to pander to a fringe right constituency who doesn't want to agree with him on anything and would simply prefer that he confess his desire to destroy America and resign from office.
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When an existential crisis decades away meets an immediate crisis already affecting millions of people, the immediate problem almost always wins.

I don't fault Obama at all. He had huge political capital in 2009, and he spent it all on essentially five things: continued support of TARP, getting the Stimulus passed, getting budgets with trillion dollar+ deficits passed, reforming health care, and (to a lesser extent) supporting the Fed's QE program.

Those five things cost the Dems the House in 2010 (and for the foreseeable future), and the Senate in 2012. It's to Obama's credit he was even reelected in 2012.

As much as I would have liked him to work on the environment, there just wasn't enough time. I think it's a miracle he did what he did in just those two years. And when he ran out of political capital, he started issuing executive orders! History will look back at him as one of the most transformative presidents of all time.
 
Beerina said:
Is nothing happening? Good. A powerful economy driving technology forward saves magnitudes more lives, even with climate change and having to move inland slowly over hundreds of years, than slamming on the brakes will.

I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth. Why? Because I love poor people and want them to be better off in health and wealth.
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There's a lot of truth in this. I don't think we can prevent catastrophic warming. I think we should accept the inevitable: China and India have a little over a third of the world's population, their people don't want to live in poverty, and their growing middle and upper classes are going to continue to want to live the good life. And the more you live it up, the bigger your carbon footprint becomes. We're going to sail past the two degree warming threshold.

Our efforts now should go towards geo-engineering and mitigation of climate change's effects. The industrialized (and rapidly industrializing) nations should still transition away from fossil fuels, but at a pace that won't result in economic turmoil. In exchange for the freedom to emit more GHG's, industrialized (and rapidly industrializing) nations should set aside a small percent of their GDP's each year, and this should go towards helping out people in poor countries that are hit hardest by climate change. A tenth of a percent of U.S. GDP is $17 billion dollars a year. That alone is a lot of money and can fund a lot of geo-engineering R&D, and actual mitigation projects (foreign levee building, population relocation, etc.)
 
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HumanityBlues said:
So? A good bargainer doesn't start off by bargaining against themselves and making concessions right away. Go for what you want, and make concessions if you have to. When you have both houses of congress on your side, let the GOP cry about how you won't negotiate.
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You don't just have to have both Houses. You have to have a filibuster proof Senate majority. If you don't have that (and Obama only had that for, at most, five months), you have to make concessions.

Given the insane opposition Obama faced, you have to give him a lot of credit for getting his policies passed. Don't kid yourself- a lot of the Dems in Congress who went along with Obama knew there would be hell to pay in 2010.
 
SezMe said:
Practical politics. He bought off the insurance industry by taking single-payer off the table. Of course, opinions vary as to whether that was a good, or even necessary, deal. Time will tell.
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It was necessary. The ACA, as it was, barely got passed. Was it a good deal? Yes. We're never going back to the days when preexisting conditions could totally price a person out of the health insurance market.
 
Fudbucker said:
It was necessary. The ACA, as it was, barely got passed. Was it a good deal? Yes. We're never going back to the days when preexisting conditions could totally price a person out of the health insurance market.
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Unless the whole thing disappears because of a typo.
 
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