'Welcome to the delayers': Obama's 'half-hearted climate efforts' welcomed by skeptics

'Obama seems to approach climate issues as nothing more than a 'check box' issue'

Tuesday, November 17, 2009By Marc Morano – Climate Depot

Climate Depot Editorial

Climate Depot warmly welcomes President Obama's half-hearted climate efforts. Mr. President, welcome to the “delayers.” We hope you can soon join the full-fledged climate realist movement as global warming skepticism has now become politically expedient.

President Obama is now being excoriated for essentially continuing the policies of former President George W. Bush. (see: DER SPIEGEL: 'Obama Has Failed the World on Climate Change; Lied to Europeans' - 'Followed in footsteps of George W. Bush' – November 17, 2009)

Green activists and the media is turning on Obama as he fails to produce the results they expected on global warming issues. See: George W. Obama? NYT: Disillusioned Environmentalists Turn on Obama as Compromiser - Feel 'cheated' by 'meaningless' climate bill! – July 13, 2009

NY Times: George W. Obama? President in 'awkward position of being as unlikely to spearhead an international effort to combat global warming as Bush' – November 16, 2009

Gore's Current TV: 'How long are we going to sit around and wait? The world is watching us and waiting for us to speak up for what is right' – November 16,2009

Flashback: George W. Obama? 'Obama Sounds Too Much Like Bush'...Greens say he 'blocked progress to move UN negotiations forward'

Obama nominated for 'crime' of killing UN climate treaty: 'Climate has all but slipped off the president's agenda' - November 17, 2009 - Excerpt: "Who Killed Copenhagen? A Whodunnit. Obama's role in delivering the bad news was a sad spectacle, but not really a surprise. It marked the culmination of a year in which climate has all but slipped off the president's agenda. [...] Obama's ambivalence has deflected pressure from two other big emitters: China and India." End Excerpt.

Climate fear promoter Bill McKibben wrote a brutal assessment of Obama in the eco-magazine Grist. "We need more than rhetoric and excuses. Mr. President: Time to quit fibbing and spinning," McKibben wrote on Nov. 17, 2009.
"I knocked doors, made phone calls, gave money, and celebrated [Obama's] victory," McKibben wrote. But now McKibben is not happy, noting that Obama has "talked very little about climate" and "in the process left the door open for climate deniers to have a field day." McKibben ripped Obama's recent comments for "sounding more like his giggly, sophomoric predecessor (George W. Bush) than the leader we desperately need."

As has been reported this week, Obama is “retreating” on climate. See: AP: Obama retreats on climate change – November 15, 2009; Obama, now 'The Delayer in Chief?' – November 15, 2009

As many disappointed former supporters of Obama are noting, this climate surrender and continuation of President Bush's policies are a violation of Obama's own campaign promises. See: Flashback: Obama in 2008: 'Delay is no longer an option'

At Climate Depot, headlines frequently refer to President Obama as “George W. Obama.” Obama has taken a very similar stance as Bush when it comes to the UN by demanding China and India participate and he has acted as a “delayer” when it comes to climate policy. (See: George W. Obama? U.S. 'not likely to enter into a new international treaty without China' - 'Stance similar to one taken by the Bush administration')

Obama observers can only come to one conclusion: The President has never held environmental issues or climate as a high priority. Obama seems to approach climate issues as nothing more than a “check box” issue. When left to his own devices, climate literally almost never comes up. (See: With Copenhagen looming, Obama completely ignores global warming yet again in his weekly radio address - Oct. 10, 2009)

But when forced, Obama does “check the boxes” and say what he believes is expected of him to say. (See: Prof. Pielke Jr. on Obama's MIT Climate Speech: 'I heard the phrase 'climate change' only 2 or 3 times and 'cap-and-trade' was nowhere to be found' - 'His endorsement of the Senate climate bill was pretty weak'

In September, the Washington Post's Andrew Freedman lamented that Obama was responsible for the failure of domestic cap-and-trade and the international process; See: Wash. Post Blames Obama For Failure of Global Warming Movement! President's 'mistakes may cost the planet dearly'. The Washington Post's only compliment of Obama's climate policy was “Obama's lone accomplishment” of a U.S. government report on scary predictions. See: 'Scaremongering': Scientists Pan Obama Climate Report: 'This is not a work of science but an embarrassing episode' - June 16, 2009 & U.S. Government Scientist: 'I disagree strongly with the hurricane-related conclusions of this report!' - June 16, 2009

In addition, to not having his heart into climate issues, President Obama has also repeatedly made many silly and embarrassing climate claims like the completely scientifically indefensible claim that the Waxman-Markey climate bill would stop global temperature increases of up to 5 degrees! Obama said on June 25, "A long-term benefit is we're leaving a planet to our children that isn't four or five degrees hotter." The question looms: How can the President of the U.S. can be so misinformed and full of such hubris that he somehow believes he can sign a bill that acts as a thermostat for Earth's temperature?

At the G8 summit in Italy in July 2009, Obama and other G8 Leaders embraced “climate astrology” by pledging to control Earth's thermostat to more than a 2 degree C rise. Obama's Commerce Secretary Gary Locke was caught playing a climate mobster on July 17, 2009, warning Americans they needed to 'to pay' or face Mother Nature's wrath -- Pay up or face “floods, droughts and rising sea levels.' In June, Obama's Energy Sec. Chu, in true “climate astrology” fashion, claimed he knows “what the future will be 100 years from now” based on climate models. Obama once seemed so imbued with his ability to control climate that during the 2008 presidential campaign he prognosticated his presidency would be "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." (For latest scientific data refuting sea level rise fears see here.)

Once again, Climate Depot appreciates President Obama's half-hearted climate efforts. Delay of “scientifically meaningless” domestic cap-and-trade and “global governance” inspired climate symbolic UN treaties are essential to allow the media and the public to continue to wake up to the scientific reality that man-made climate fears are collapsing. The more educated people are, the more skeptical they become. The public gets it. (Science wins: Polling: 'More Americans believe in haunted houses than man-made global warming' - 37% vs. 36% - Oct. 30, 2009) Now even Democratic lawmakers in Washington are having their moment of global warming policy clarity. Now is the time for a sober reexamination of man-made global warming claims. Obama's EPA admits the climate bill will not have a measurable impact on global Co2 levels, let alone a detectable impact on global temperatures. Also see: Wash. Post's Moment of Clarity: 'Carbon emissions will not be reduced by international bureaucrats sitting in a room and signing a piece of paper' - July 14, 2009

Promoters of climate fears still attempt to tout Congressional or UN carbon trading bills as an "insurance" policy against global warming. But a simple question to ask is: Would anyone purchase fire insurance on their home that had a huge up front premium for virtually no payout if you home burned down? If you answered YES to such an “insurance” policy, then Congress and the UN has a deal for you with their cap-and-trade legislation. If we actually did face a man-made climate crisis and we had to rely on the U.S. Congress or the United Nations to save us, we would all be DOOMED.

It is not just Obama who is disappointing climate fear promoters. The media has had a sea change in coverage in 2009. See: Losing Their Religion: 2009 officially declared year the media lost their faith in man-made global warming fears – Oct. 13, 2009

Many unexpected political figures are also bailing on global warming “solutions.” See: Flashback Aug. 2009: Even Sen. Al Franken is bailing on climate bill! Declares U.S. 'must not engage in a self-defeating effort'

Despite the fact that Senator John McCain co-authored two previous global warming cap-and-trade bills, he is now bailing on it in 2009. See: Sen. McCain's Moment of Clarity: Climate bill is a 'Farce' -- 'I would not only not vote for it. I am opposed to it entirely' - August 4, 2009

Update: The New Political Expediency: McCain has undergone 'a major reversal' on global warming: 'Former aides are mystified by what they see as a retreat on the issue' - Nov. 19, 2009 - Politico Excerpt: Depsite having once co-sponsored 2 climate bills, McCain now calls current bill a '1,400-page monstrosity' and 'a government slush fund'

Moment of Clarity for 'GOP's Al Gore'! Gov. Charlie Crist may cancel summit on climate...backing away from cap-and-trade: 'It may be a tax' - August 7, 2009

Most gratifying to skeptics is the climate conversion of Minnesota's GOP governor Tim Pawlenty. Having once praised climate activists as being ' “Paul Revere-like figures, issuing a call to action,” Pawlenty now sounds skeptical of a man-made climate catastrophe. Pawlenty: It is unclear “to what extent that is the result of natural causes.” Yes, it has finally happened. Global warming skepticism is now politically expedient!

GOP Gov. Pawlenty's Moment of Clarity: 'Shifts on Climate...used to make soaring speeches...now he's making jokes'- August 24, 2009

More signs of the new skeptical political reality: 'Terminal free fall': GOP Sen. Graham's public support is collapsing in S.C. for supporting climate bill – driven by a wholesale revolt among the GOP electorate' and independents

& SC GOP 'voted to formally censure Sen. Graham for supporting a climate change bill'

In Minnesota's GOP gubernatorial candidates brag about climate skepticism: 'I am the No. 2 global warming denier' – Sept. 9, 2009

And “Most of the Republican candidates for Illinois governor reject the idea that human activity contributes to global warming” – November 2009

It appears skepticism of man-made global warming fears is the new “consensus.”

Related Links:

DER SPIEGEL: 'Obama Has Failed the World on Climate Change; Lied to Europeans' - 'Followed in footsteps of George W. Bush' – November 17, 2009

NY Times: George W. Obama? President in 'awkward position of being as unlikely to spearhead an international effort to combat global warming as Bush' – November 16, 2009

Gore's Current TV: 'How long are we going to sit around and wait? The world is watching us and waiting for us to speak up for what is right' – November 16,2009

AP: Obama retreats on climate change – November 15, 2009

Obama, now 'The Delayer in Chief?' – November 15, 2009