A mission on climate change Eugene Robinson

[xchrom]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-obamas-mission-on-climate-change/2013/05/23/fee2f5a2-c3e7-11e2-914f-a7aba60512a7_story.html

President Obama should spend his remaining years in office making the United States part of the solution to climate change, not part of the problem. If Congress sticks to its policy of obstruction and willful ignorance, Obama should use his executive powers to the fullest extent. We are out of time.

With each breath, every person alive today experiences something unique in human history: an atmosphere containing more than 400?parts per million of carbon dioxide. This makes us special, I suppose, but not in a good way.

The truth is that 400 is just one of those round-number milestones that can be useful for grabbing people’s attention. What’s really important is that atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased by a stunning 43 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

The only plausible cause of this rapid rise, from the scientific viewpoint, is the burning of fossil fuels to fill the energy needs of industrialized society. The only logical impact, according to those same scientists, is climate change. The only remaining question — depending on what humankind does right now — is whether the change ends up being manageable or catastrophic.

[kristopher]

1. Rec

[snappyturtle]

2. Well, this post is illustrative of the problem. Right now there have been

18 views and1Rec. Where's the outrage on climate conditions? How can we honestly observe the worsening of natural storm events and not question climate change as a factor? What is more important than this?

I saw little written after the horrific tornado in Moore,OK that addressed climate change. However, I heard much about how to hide from its monsterous horror.....safe rooms? underground shelters? Run for your life scenarios? Those I heard about. We should have heard in addition what we should be doing and demanding to reduce the pestilence of devastating storms.

Eugene Robinson has written an important piece stating that the President must lead and probably go it alone. If I were the President and interested in legacy....I would use the power of the office to enact policies that will benefit ALL.

Edit: I think this needs to be posted in General Discussion. Yesterday an article from Grist on cities that will be effected the most was originally posted in Environment and Energy only to be reposted 40 min. later in GD where it finally got a decent number of hits. imho

[daleanime]

3. K&R....

Nt