NYT Claim: Obama's catastrophic climate denial

How is the climate supposedly changing that has you so concerned?

I’ve become steadily more optimistic about the abilities of the engineers in recent years; they’re coming up with some amazing stuff.

Yeah, how about those GMOs and forth generation nuclear designs? Oh wait. Maybe they’re too expensive.

Two counterpoints Bill, first is that the only reason for the rapid fall in the price of solar panels was due to the collapse of the global market due to oversupply. Second there is no rapid fall in the price of batteries. I have seen just the opposite. I have been looking at storage battery prices for the last year and a half. The batteries that I have been thinking of buying at some point in time have now gone up in price since then. I wish I had the money to but them last year. These are some of the best lead acid batteries, made by a top rated company. The Tesla batteries are being hyped by CNBC and other stock market news sites, just as they also hype any item where the hype can potential drive stock prices in the associated companies. There is no technological breakthrough with the Tesla battery packs. One would be better off purchasing reliable lead acid batteries, which have a much longer life span and can be readily recycled at the end of their life span.

Bill McKibben:
If the stated goal here is to achieve your vision for a rapid transition into a renewable energy future, technology advancement is not by itself a practical means to that end.
Energy conservation measures which significantly reduce total demand for energy across all sectors of the American economy are the key enablers which will allow these new technologies the breathing room they need to grow and develop. The only way your vision can be achieved is to combine ongoing advancements in renewable technology with a coordinated series of regulatory actions which strongly encourage the adoption of strict energy conservation measures by all energy consumers.
How can this be done?
The EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding for carbon pollution, written under the authority of the Clean Air Act, has been upheld by the US Supreme Court. The Executive Branch and the EPA now have full legal authority to regulate carbon emissions to the maximum extent possible under the Clean Air Act, and to do so without needing another word of new legislation from the US Congress. The 2009 finding enables the EPA and the Executive Branch to pursue exceptionally aggressive action against carbon emissions, if the EPA and the Executive Branch choose to do so.
President Obama has said that climate change represents a greater threat to America’s national security than does terrorism. He has set a goal of a 28% reduction in America’s GHG emissions by 2025; and a goal of an 80% reduction in GHG emissions by 2050. And yet, the Obama Administration has not gone nearly as far as it legally could go in taking strong regulatory action against carbon emissions.
The Obama Administration’s existing climate action plan greatly favors natural gas at the expense of alternative energy resources such as wind, solar, and nuclear. Obama’s current plan guarantees that America will eventually be covered with fracking wells from one end of the country to the other.
For those of the Progressive Left who now have issues with President Obama’s apparent lack of a sincere commitment to fighting climate change, they must acknowledge that the only practical means of reducing America’s carbon emissions to the extent they claim is necessary is to artificially raise the price of all carbon fuels to levels which will make them uncompetitive with alternative energy technologies, doing so through direct and decisive government intervention in the energy marketplace.
Here in the United States, this can be done without a legislated carbon tax through an integrated combination of two major anti-carbon measures administered by the EPA. The first measure would be to directly constrain emissions of carbon pollution through a specified series of state, regional, and national emission limits. The second measure would be to impose a corresponding framework of stiff carbon pollution fines which is the functional equivalent of a legislated carbon tax.
As long as the EPA properly follows its existing and well-tested regulatory rule-making processes and procedures; and as long as the anti-carbon regulations are themselves fair and impartial in their application, then this two-prong regulatory attack on carbon emissions can be made bulletproof against the threat of lawsuits.
What it all boils down to is this …. if America’s progressive left wants to pursue it, there exists today a clear and unambiguous public policy pathway towards decarbonizing America’s economy. Nothing that right-wing politicians could do short of repealing the Clean Air Act could stop the EPA from legally decarbonizing America’s economy, if the EPA were to be given instructions by the Obama Administration to use its full legal authority in pursuit of that goal.
So the question naturally arises …… why aren’t the most prominent leaders of America’s progressive left — Robert Kennedy Jr., Al Gore, Elizabeth Warren, Edward Markey, Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi, and you yourself, Bill McKibben — why aren’t these people all publicly demanding that President Obama and the EPA use the full legal authority the Executive Branch already has in its hands to largely decarbonize America’s economy?

“Does anyone pay any attention to that irrelevant fish wrap anymore? ”
Unfortunately, yes.
There are droves of people who believe it is the gospel truth, that Paul Krugman is the last word in economic thought, and that quoting a NYT article is authoritative.

Articles like this one aint helpin’ neither:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/13/3436923/germany-energy-records/