Clinton warming up to work on climate change

[IrateCitizen]

License to Bill
Clinton, late convert to climate-change cause, now preaching up a storm
By Amanda Griscom Little
13 Dec 2004

He wasn't known as the eco-warrior president. Nor was he a visionary on energy independence. But Bill Clinton is now using his legendary charisma and silver tongue to help mobilize the shift away from fossil fuels.

"The decisions we make or fail to make in this area may have a bigger impact on America and the world than virtually all the things that were debated" in the recent presidential campaign, Clinton told a crowd of 900 students and business execs gathered at New York University last week at an energy and global-warming conference. The event was convened by the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation, an organization established by the former president to help people worldwide deal with the challenges of global interdependence. Clinton said he was "personally disappointed" that "there was almost no serious discussion of energy and the environment" leading up to last month's election.

Later he added, "Tomorrow is here. It's time to stop worrying when, if ever, the current administration will change its mind about climate change. We should still continue to lobby for it. It's time to let Sen. Lieberman and Sen. McCain do the very best they can do to pass , and if you have any influence with anybody in Congress, Republican or Democrat, for God's sake use it."

But beneath the cheering and clapping at the NYU auditorium, there was a certain befuddlement among some enviros in the audience who were wondering: So where was Clinton on these issues when he was president?

Why, for instance, didn't Clinton deliver on auto fuel economy over the eight years he was in office? There wasn't even incremental progress in this area during his administration. And where was Clinton on greenhouse-gas caps? The environmental community tried to move them along, but their efforts didn't go far.

While it's true that Clinton had to spend much of his time and political capital dueling a belligerent Republican-controlled Congress, he nonetheless failed to show great leadership or leave behind a remarkable legacy on the environment. But people close to him insist that the issues of energy independence and global warming have since grown truly close to his heart, and may be areas where we see him increasingly active in the years to come.

READ THE REST HERE: http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2004/12/13/little-clinton/

[IHeart1993]

1. This is a great article

I :loveya: Grist. Wasn't it Clinton who made us think about Environmental Justice?

[IrateCitizen]

2. No, hardly.

If anyone made us think about the environment in the 1990's, it was Al Gore.

Clinton was largely a do-nothing on environmental matters during his time in office, as the article points out. However, I am happy that he is finally coming around on this stuff -- better late than never.