From AP Video:
President Barack Obama is pledging to respond to what he calls “the threat of climate change.” He says that failing to do so would be a betrayal of the nation’s children, and of future generations. (Jan. 21)
Video and comments from Al Gore follows:
WUWT reader Chris Beal sends this in:
Al Gore Wrote Today:
In his second Inaugural address today, President Obama spoke powerfully and eloquently about the critical importance of solving the climate crisis. His forceful commitment to take action will rekindle the hopes of so many that we are at long last approaching the political tipping point, beyond which we will finally start transforming our economy to sharply reduce global warming pollution and safeguard the future.
President Obama Said in his speech today:
Here is the key section of an inspiring speech:
“We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms.”The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries we must claim its promise.”That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks.”
Ref:
http://blog.algore.com/2013/01/inaugural_address.html
UPDATE: Delingpole has a go at this ridiculousness here.
Well, apart from the fact that his previously ubiquitous “I, I, I” ‘s (of which there are only 4 in the official text) seem to have given way to no less than 63 we’s (although some of them may well be an imitation of the Royal “we”), there’s also this bit of blindingly obvious blather:
And I wonder how he thinks that ‘building … roads and networks and research labs’ is going to happen if he can’t see his way clear to jumping off the (unmentioned) Co2–>CAGW bandwagon.
Let’s hope that the Administration will finally start listening to scientists and make climate change the priority that it merits.
Vukcevic wrote, ” Catching up with China in the decades to come will not be as much fun as it was leading the world in the decades past.”
I wonder if we’ll be content with playing catch-up, or will we start rattling war sabres over the issue of the Chinese killing the planet that belongs to our children?
– MJM
I’ve been impressed by the Germans from right to left and left to right being willing to pay more more for electricity to achieve a rapid transition to renewable energy. The fact that Germany doesn’t have much in the way of fossil fuel companies that are paying to confuse is probably the reason why Germans of all political persuasions seem to favor action on reducing green house gases while the USA is mired in confusion and debate.
vukcevic says:
January 21, 2013 at 1:10 pm
The US president is suppose to get the best advise there is, so do not blame the president. It is those who provide the advice that have to make sure that they do best for their country and the president. If anyone is knowingly misinterpreting the available facts, for any reason whatsoever, then the consequences should follow.
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Vukcevic I’m not trying to bust your stones, but I’m not sure the ‘babe in the woods’ thing flies for the President. I mean, I think I understand your point, and it certainly doesn’t help matters that there’s the IPCC and so on out there legitimizing the CAGW story, but don’t you think there’s a certain element of responsibility that goes with the President’s job? I didn’t vote in an election for advisors…
I don’t know, maybe someone needs to email him a link to WUWT?
Obama can always claim he was misled by the ‘so called’ experts. Besides, he can always say he tried, but those nasty Republicans stopped him boo hoo, knowing full well he was never going to move away from cheap gas and oil. It alsokeeps the loonies like Hansen, Gore and Mann just enough onside that they won’t cause trouble for him. Politics for the big boys…
Good for you Mark. My sister and I applaud you. Neither one of us are violent people. But she and her daughter joined last week. We are trying to make our voice heard and I think this is a reasonable way to do it.
Supposedly, man-made climate change is a threat to our children’s future, but a $17 trillion national debt is not. Never mind that the former is unproven hypothesis, and the latter very, very real.
I sympathise with you guys – but we are all in the same boat. Politicos and their advisors looking for as many ways to feck us and tax us as possible!
Pamela, thanks for joining. To me the Second Amendment is a somewhat tedious and expensive responsibility. I hope to never use my gun for more than practice, but OTOH the presence of mine and millions more is a valid even if imperfect deterrent to enemies foreign and domestic. Our President thought that modern firearms were good for Libyan people but appears to have a different opinion about his fellow Americans. After that war “ended” his views on embassy security lined up with his views on school security, ask the bad guys to give up their weapons and ammo and hope they don’t kill you in the meantime.
To our British and Australian readers, I apologize for the diversion. I realize you have made a different choice about security in the modern world. Hopefully things will never reach the point where that choice is regretted.
Moe says:
January 21, 2013 at 1:00 pm
Beyond the smear platitudes Obama spoke, can you provide a more in-depth analysis of what you mean by “do something meaningful about the changing climate”, Moe (since climate has always been changing and always will be)–other than “get down”?
Inquiring minds are interested in what you propose.
On the other hand, passing trillions of dollars in debt to our children is apparently hunky dory.
BillD says:
“Let’s hope that the Administration will finally start listening to scientists and make climate change the priority that it merits.”
Agree. Listen to the true scientific Consensus: the 30,000+ scientists and engineers who flatly state that AGW is a complete non-problem: CO2 is harmless, and benficial to the environment. More is better. At current and projected concentrations, there is no downside. ‘Climate change’ “priority” should be set exactly where it belongs: at zero.
• • •
Obama amazes me. He has failed upwards, just like a true Soviet Politburo member. Never held a real for-profit job. Got literally everything handed to him on a silver platter, without ever working for it. Yet he presumes to lecture the productive, taxpaying members of society, telling us that we are never paying enough. You can just feel his greedy fingers digging around in our pockets.
The truth is, we are being sheared like sheep. And the real poor are being deliberately put on the government dole, because that’s where they are the easiest to control. Cell phones for votes. Cheap election buying, using printing press money.
jorgekafkazar @January 21, 2013 at 1:50 pm has the remedy.
As a consequence of the President’s speech, Gore will buy back Current TV… /sarc
Mark and two Cats says:
January 21, 2013 at 2:07 pm
Pamela Gray said:
January 21, 2013 at 1:31 pm
…please consider joining the NRA. As a political entity it may have the chops to derail this out of control speeding train bound for hell. I joined yesterday.
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I don’t own any guns, nor do I want to, and I am not a “joiner”, but I joined NRA today. The republikans aren’t doing anything to rein-in hugobama, so I am supporting an organisation that is.
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I joined the NRA before I’d ever bought a gun after Clinton and the original “Assault Weapon Ban”. (Someone had given me one a several years before, a 22 Marlin.)
Whether or not you’re a member, in politics in the USA, look at the NRA ratings of politcians in the same way coliform is looked at in water treatment. Not all coliforms are harmful but if they are present then other harmful organisms may be present. It’s an indicator. If a politician opposes the 2nd Ammendment, the right to keep and bear arms, then he is likely to oppose the other limits to Government embodied in the rest of the Bill of Rights.
BillD wrote, “I’ve been impressed by the Germans from right to left and left to right being willing to pay more more for electricity to achieve a rapid transition to renewable energy.”
I don’t actually know the cost/kwh the Germans pay for their electricity compared to the average American. I believe ours is about 10 cents/kwh excluding the add-ons and about 20 cents/kwh including the add-ons. Let’s say 15 cents/kwh is a fair estimate for the moment? If so….
Bill H, if the German cost would then be 50% higher, 22 cents/kwh (if my estimates are indeed correct) do you seriously believe the average American householder would be willing to check off a box on a ballot saying “I’d like my electric bill to be increased by 50% to help “achieve a rapid transition to renewable energy”? (btw…. the word “rapid” seems a bit misleading — I’d say it implies 5 years or so of ‘suffering’ in the process, but my guess is that what YOU mean by “rapid” is more like 25 years of paying those 50% higher electric bills?)
– MJM
P.S. Anyone have better estimates on the US kwh rate vs. the Germans at the moment?
Mark and two Cats says:
January 21, 2013 at 2:07 pm
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I agree 100% with you Mark, and Pamela !
I am a member of the NRA and a gun owner. I also encourage everyone to join for many reasons. First and foremost of which is to defend our 2nd amendment rights. I joined to be part of a group with a backbone and will stand and fight for what it right.
There is not a single executive order or law that could have been in place that would have stopped any of the awful things that we have viewed over the years that are blamed on guns. Guns don’t cause crimes. People do.
http://home.nra.org/#/nraorg
How come this hugely important issue was not given any emphasis at all during the campaign?
This is yet another confirmation of why I was in such deep despair, after the Nov 6th election. I’m not prescient…. but I did foresee this change to a hard pro-AGW stance by Our Dear Leader, Barackward Obama. From his socialist control perspectives, if you control the energy resources of the nation, you control the entire nation. A nation with limited energy is a nation with limited power. The continued weakening of the United States of America by the Obama administration policies is a reality and more is coming, as his inauguration speech intimates.
I have not let my election despair lead me to ‘quit the resistance’. I am re-doubling my efforts from here until the Nov 2014 elections, to qualify and elect a fiscally conservative majority in the US Senate and sustain a conservative majority in the US House. I urge each of you to do likewise! The path to ending this farce is through fiscal discipline. Cut off the unneeded and wasteful expenditures of taxpayers monies and many of these 9-headed hydras like AGW will die of starvation. Until that happens, we may lop off an appendage or two, but the many headed hydra still lives.
MtK
If they would keep their mouth shut – and didn’t burn tons of fuel jet-setting everywhere – there would be a lot less hot-air.
Would someone ask what is the carbon-footprint of the military?
What O’Barmy Should Have Said
“We will respond to the fraud of human-caused climate change, knowing that those that promote it would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of observation, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging snow, and crippling ice, and more powerful governments.
The path towards sustainable wealth will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the mental climate change that will eliminate politics and bureaucracy, and power new jobs and new industries; we must claim its promise.
That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure; our peaceful, productive, honest people.”
?sarc
Frank Johnson says:
January 21, 2013 at 2:46 pm
How come this hugely important issue was not given any emphasis at all during the campaign?
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The MSM.
Frank Johnson says:
January 21, 2013 at 2:46 pm
Because it wasn’t hugely important–at least not to the planet or survival of our species, unless it turns out we can no longer survive egregious taxation for a bogus cause.
But when debt/GDP ranges from 90 to 100% (which it will before 2014 at the current rate of spending), the US economy will collapse–it has in every country stupid enough to have spent itself into “properity”.
It appears there’s more than one way to severely curtail CO2 emissions.
tz2026 said:
January 21, 2013 at 2:54 pm
Would someone ask what is the carbon-footprint of the military?
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The military’s carbon-bootprint is ok cuz they haz the Green Berets
🙂
BillD wrote, “I’ve been impressed by the Germans from right to left and left to right being willing to pay more more for electricity to achieve a rapid transition to renewable energy.”
But it is partly historic with Germany actually most of Northern Europe; because they import much of their energy, they have always had heavy “sin” taxes on energy, so that about half of the cost of a liter of gasoline is the tax. In the early 90s when I lived there they were building these really cool building designs that had atriums around buildings and active sunshades on the south side of the build. They didnt cover just the windows, the entire wall! And they had this really interesting idea that we dont use in the states, at least not in big buildings: windows that open! Imagine!