Big money kept climate change out of the campaign
President Barack Obama was a clear winner tonight. But who was the big loser? The planet.
Former Vice President Al Gore points out that with oil and coal money infusing both campaigns, the issue of climate change, which was on everyone's mind again after Hurricane Sandy, was a glaring omission in the debates.
"What I regard as by far the biggest issue we’re facing — climate change, global warming — was not even discussed in this campaign. And why not? One of the main reasons … is that the large carbon polluters and their ideological allies have provided funding in both parties,” Gore said.
Now, with Obama securing another four years, the issue must be taken on full force.
"This is a big victory for Democrats tonight," Gore added. "It is a big victory for President Obama. But it is a victory achieved without a meaningful proposal about how we will go into the future on the biggest issues we are facing.”
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- news blog, Climate Extremes
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taopie
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When my bright and earnest little grandchildren ask me about global warming, I can't even look them in the eye. Grown-ups are supposed to take care of little kids, but we are betraying them.
- 6 months ago
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taopie
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JanforGore
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Mr. Gore you know full well from experience that when the status quo wins the planet loses. How will we now keep Transcanada from building the upper leg of the Keystone XL dirty tarsands pipeline (they've already worked out another route) now that Obama has already approved the Southern leg? Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate (who I voted for because of her stance on this and the Green New Deal she is proposing) was arrested for entering the camp of the treesitters in Texas who have been opposing this climate catastrophe literally in the pipeline because she had the guts to go in there to support them and not Transcanada as Obama has done. Will we now see Obama do the same? Will we see him call for a national revenue neutral carbon tax? A national reforestation effort? A global climate agreement that actually gets ratified which addresses this now instead of giving us politically set thresholds not based on science to keep the status quo in place?
Scientists have stated it clearly: we must wean ourselves off fossil fuels entirely or Hurricane Sandy is going to look like a rain shower compared to what will ensue. I was at ground zero of Hurricane Sandy and living through its aftermath and I can tell you that we are running out of time. You know that as well as the scientists and yet what will we really get now? An "all of the above" strategy that saw the Obama administration drill more public lands than even Bush? More fracking that toxifies our water? Arctic drilling? More tarsands?
I can't thank you enough for telling it like it is regarding both parties and now that the corporate Democrats have gotten their "win" maybe now they will look to the true Progressives they shunned and see that we are right about this. People are dying because of climate change. Biodiversity is dying. So I will say this: if Obama and this Congress (and no more rhetoric about republicans blocking him) still has done nothing to adequately address this global crisis by next spring (and I don't mean just upping fuel standards on cars that still run on fossil fuels that don't go into effect for 12 more years) then we need to occupy Washington DC a million plus strong for climate justice and not leave until they hear us and do something!
- 6 months ago
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JanforGore
