Friday, September 4, 2015

Barack Obama: Climate Champion or Climate Hypocrite?


During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama famously stated that his ultimate goal as president, if he were lucky enough to win, was to act as the Democratic version of Ronald Reagan: a transformational figure who "changed the trajectory of America" by placing us on a "fundamentally different path."

In many ways, Obama has achieved this goal. He brought us back from the worst financial collapse since the Depression. He saved the auto industry. He passed health care reform. He ended the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He killed Bin Laden. Under his watch, the unemployment rate has fallen to 5.1%, the Stock Market has soared and Marriage Equality is now the law of the land.

This isn't to say that Obama hasn't made mistakes. He has. Chief among them is the fact that he placed way too much faith in Republicans in the early and mid years of his presidency, naively hoping they would meet him in the middle and help move the country forward. Instead, he got rebuffed at every turn, resulting in years and years of political gridlock where nothing got done.

When it comes to climate, Obama appears as a truly dedicated, compassionate and focused leader in the fight to save our planet. He listens to the science and shames those who don't. He makes countless speeches about the severity of the environmental threat we face, urging us all to act.

Legislatively, Obama has enacted sweeping new EPA regulations to cut carbon pollution, a key component to his overall climate plan. In addition, he has also put into place the most ambitious fuel efficiency standards in our nation's history. In 2009, he signed into law the Omnibus Public Land Management Act, which protected 2 million new acres of land across nine different states. Overall, he has designated nine new National Parks during his presidency.

All the while, Obama has been a vocal champion of renewable energy sources like solar and wind.

But if he's so committed to combating climate change, why is he allowing Shell to drill for oil in the Arctic?


HALFWAY MEASURES ARE NOT ENOUGH

To be a transformational president, you can't ride the fence on important issues. You must adhere to your northern compass and never let public opinion or outside influence lead you astray. You must always be guided by the courage of your convictions (regardless of whether something is unpopular) so that no one ever questions where your loyalties lie. This is what makes you authentic, which in turn allows you to be successful, and therefore, transformational.

It cannot be questioned whether or not Obama is transforming the climate conversation. He is. He has brought the issue to the forefront and taken meaningful, legislative action to protect our planet and limit the worst effects of climate change. For this, he should be commended.

However, he has also made the terrible decision to allow Shell to exploit and destroy one of the last truly pristine wild spaces left on Earth: the Arctic.

This is an awful, crushing blow to the overall environmental movement because it allows our never ending addiction to fossil fuels to continue unabated. Instead of taking a principled stand against further oil extraction, Obama has gifted a new, untapped piece of wilderness to the filthy rich oil industry so they can profit even further off the plundering of our planet.

Giving Shell the go-ahead to drill in the Arctic means that even more oil will be sold and burned on the global market. More fossil fuels will evaporate into the air. More greenhouse gases will be trapped in our atmosphere, causing our planet to warm and our storms to grow more intense and out of control.

It also means that the Arctic is now under severe threat of a catastrophic oil spill that could spell environmental disaster for one of the most fragile ecosystems on the planet. After all, despite Shell's braggadocios safety promises, we all know that oil rigs are prone to leaking or breaking.

The BP oil spill in 2010 occurred in the tranquil, warm waters of the Gulf and it still took months to cap. Some five years later, the ocean and coastal areas still haven't recovered. Imagine if a similar spill took place in the Arctic. It could take weeks just for icebreakers and equipment to reach the full disaster zone. It could take months, even years, to cap and fully contain the spill, causing unimaginable environmental devastation.

ALL OR NOTHING

When speaking about climate change, Obama always uses the science to bolster his argument and motivate others to act. He constantly cites the 97% of scientists who say that climate change is real and caused by human activity.

However, Obama is also selective in his use of science, which makes us question just how committed he is to the overall cause.

For example, the scientists say that in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change we must keep at least 75% of all remaining fossil fuels in the ground. Anything less than that is an assured death sentence for our planet.

The scientists also say that glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica are melting at 10x the rate than previously thought, which will cause the sea level to rise at least 10 feet in as little as 50 years.

We conclude that continued high emissions will make multi-meter sea level rise practically unavoidable and likely to occur this century. Social disruption and economic consequences of such large sea level rise could be devastating. It is not difficult to imagine that conflicts arising from forced migration and economic collapse might make the planet ungovernable, threatening the fabric of civilization.

By allowing Shell to open up a brand new oil excavation site in the Arctic, Obama is directly going against the scientists. In this scenario, Obama is acting like a doctor who advises a lung cancer patient to quit smoking, then offers them a carton of Marlboro cigarettes on their way out the door.

When asked why he decided to allow Shell to drill in the Arctic, Obama told reporters that "our economy still needs to rely on oil." This "economy" argument has long been used to justify doing nothing. This type of thinking is not going to solve our climate crisis. After all, what good will protecting the economy do if our planet is destroyed beyond repair? A million dollars won't mean much in a Mad Max-post Apocalypse world where the planet is no longer habitable.

When it comes to combating climate change, we must take an all or nothing approach. Halfway measures will not keep the planet from warming or the seas from rising. Protecting wilderness areas, enacting bold fuel efficiency standards and championing solar and wind are great. But they are meaningless in the big picture if you then turn around and allow places like the Arctic to be destroyed and millions- even billions- more barrels of oil to be extracted and burned.

If Obama wants to be a true climate champion, he must stop playing both sides of the issue. He can't publicly decry the threat of climate change one day and then allow Shell to profit off the destruction of our planet the next.

Tell President Obama that his decision to allow Arctic drilling is wrong and must be reversed. Sign the petition here >> https://www.savethearctic.org/