Bill McKibben, writing for The New York Times has published an attack on President Obama, accusing him of “climate denial”.
According to McKibben;
MIDDLEBURY, Vt. — THE Obama administration’s decision to give Shell Oil the go-ahead to drill in the Arctic shows why we may never win the fight against climate change. Even in this most extreme circumstance, no one seems able to stand up to the power of the fossil fuel industry. No one ever says no.
By “extreme” I don’t just mean that Shell will be drilling for oil in places where there’s no hope of cleaning up the inevitable spills (remember the ineptness of BP in the balmy, accessible Gulf of Mexico, and now transpose it 40 degrees of latitude north, into some of the harshest seas on the planet).
…
Now, having watched the Arctic melt, does Shell take that experience and conclude that it’s in fact time to invest heavily in solar panels and wind turbines? No. Instead, it applies to be first in line to drill for yet more oil in the Chukchi Sea, between Alaska and Siberia. Wash, rinse, repeat. Talk about salting wounds and adding insult to injury: It’s as if the tobacco companies were applying for permission to put cigarette machines in cancer wards.
And the White House gave Shell the license. In his first term, President Obama mostly ignored climate change, and he ran for re-election barely mentioning the subject until Hurricane Sandy made it unavoidable in the closing days of the campaign.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/opinion/obamas-catastrophic-climate-change-denial.html
Is President Obama really a climate “denier”? I believe President Obama is in denial, about evidence which contradicts the narrative he is being fed by alarmists. However, surely by any rational measure, President Obama is the greenest president ever.
The fact that greens can call someone like President Obama a climate “denier” with a straight face, in my opinion once again demonstrates that you cannot appease intolerant extremists. The most fanatical greens, in my opinion, have no intention of accepting any form of industrial activity whatsoever. They will not be satisfied, until they have completely dismantled the modern world, and restored the endless toil, disease and brutal misery of the pre-industrial age.
forget the current price war…the only amazing fact is how McKibben & the CAGW crowd (& some scepics) have been in denial for so long. once u set aside partisan politics there’s such a thing as facts on the ground:
28 Oct 2014: CNBC: Could shale help US beat Saudi Arabia as top oil producer?
The fracking revolution could open the way for the U.S. to overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s number one oil producer, energy research provider Platts said in a report on Tuesday…
Fracking helped the U.S. to post the largest increase in oil production of any country in 2013, according to Platts. U.S. oil output jumping by over 1 million barrels per day, the largest annual increment in the country’s history…
“The U.S. oil supply estimate excludes biofuels, which, when added to the total, are widely believed to place the U.S. as the world’s biggest liquids producer above Saudi Arabia and Russia.” …
ExxonMobil retains pole position for the 10th year running, with its industry-leading return on capital holding off rivals…
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102127402
the World Bank (& UN), however, are still pretenders!
PDF: 180 pages: World Bank: Decarbonizing Development
EMBARGOED: NOT FOR PUBLICATION, BROADCAST, OR TRANSMISSION UNTIL MONDAY, MAY 11, 2015 AT 4:00 PM EDT (8:00 PM GMT)
Three Steps to a Zero-Carbon Future
***Nothing herein shall constitute or be considered to be a limitation upon
or waiver of the privileges and immunities of The World Bank, all of which
are specifi cally reserved.
http://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/document/Climate/dd/decarbonizing-development-report.pdf
“However, surely by any rational measure, President Obama is the greenest president ever.”
Load of rubbish. Backing solar panels and windmills – two of the dirtiest technologies. De facto banning USC coal. Blocking a pipeline, forcing oil to be transported by dirty and dangerous trains. Opposing clean natural gas. Trying to transfer economic activity to China. Giving Iran nukes.
No president in history has adopted less environmentally conscious policies.
Dont forget cash for clunkers, which took a bunch of working vehicles off the road in an attempt to replace them with more efficient ones. Ok in theory perhaps, but it takes alot of energy to make a vehicle so it looks like in the end this used more energy then it saved, plus raised the price of used vehicles for those who need to save cash the most.
Bill reminds me of another “Eco Warrior” who is always out to lunch. 🙂
Anybody else picturing McKibben with tears welling in his eyes, sobbing and sniffleing as he wrote of the disappointment he felt? Not too long before he has his ‘Leave Brittany Alone’ moment in defence of the environment.
“By “extreme” I don’t just mean that Shell will be drilling for oil in places where there’s no hope of cleaning up the inevitable spills (remember the ineptness of BP in the balmy, accessible Gulf of Mexico, and now transpose it 40 degrees of latitude north, into some of the harshest seas on the planet).”
Is this even true??
It is my understanding that the BP spill was an issue because it was in such deep water and the drilling in the arctic while in remote spots is in shallow waters so easier to correct if things go wrong.
“Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont”
Very liberal.
Yes, you can appease intolerant extremists. And you know how.
What exactly does Bill McKibben bring to the intellectual table other than advocacy expertise? Is there any engineering perspective, science perspective, energy econ perspective? The trouble with slanted advocacy science and policy recommendations is that the list and cost of unintended consequences is inversely proportional to their knowledge gap. When that is matched by political leadership that is just as blind to consequences or balanced cost benefit evaluation, the middle class falls another notch and the finger pointing follows–later. This is not unlike the frivolous global warming forecast where fact checking comes years later and the cost of the failed prediction is about zero.
Last paragraph of article sums it up perfect. Dismantling the world as it exists and reverting to pre-industrial revolution days is exactly what these new age hippies & old hippies have been longing for. They don’t have the numbers to succeed so they yell the loudest to get attention, belittle and mock opponents to get their way and uses strong arm tactics of the kind that got Mafia heads locked up. Yet these criminals are allowed to run the show, at least for 1 more year anyway.