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Bill McKibben: Climate change won't wait
...It's not at all clear that President Obama understands this.
That's why his administration is sometimes peeved when they don't get the credit they think they deserve for tackling the issue in his first term in office. The measure they point to most often is the increase in average mileage for automobiles, which will slowly go into effect over the next decade.
That's precisely the kind of gradual transformation that people — and politicians — like. But physics isn't impressed. If we're to slow the pace of climate change we need to cut emissions globally at a sensational rate, by something like 5% a year.
It's not Obama's fault that that's not happening. He can't force it to happen, especially with Congress so deeply in debt to the fossil fuel industry. But he should at least be doing absolutely everything he can on his own authority. That might include new Environmental Protection Agency regulations, for example. And he could refuse to grant the permit for the building of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline....
via http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-mckibben-climate-20130106,0,6917040.storyThat's why his administration is sometimes peeved when they don't get the credit they think they deserve for tackling the issue in his first term in office. The measure they point to most often is the increase in average mileage for automobiles, which will slowly go into effect over the next decade.
That's precisely the kind of gradual transformation that people — and politicians — like. But physics isn't impressed. If we're to slow the pace of climate change we need to cut emissions globally at a sensational rate, by something like 5% a year.
It's not Obama's fault that that's not happening. He can't force it to happen, especially with Congress so deeply in debt to the fossil fuel industry. But he should at least be doing absolutely everything he can on his own authority. That might include new Environmental Protection Agency regulations, for example. And he could refuse to grant the permit for the building of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline....
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