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| Satellite image take Sat, 27 Oct 2012 at 10.45am ET shows Hurricane Sandy along the eastern United States coastline trackingnorthward. Photograph: AP |
With Hurricane Sandy, the biggest storm in history, bearing down on the East Coast of the United States, I find it appalling that one of the presidential candidates thinks Climate Change is a joke.
As Mitt Romney accepted the Republican Party’s nomination, he used global warming as a laugh line when he said:
President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans,” he said, pausing for the applause and laughter to rise, “and to heal the planet.”
from NPR Climate Politics: It’s Laugh Lines vs. ‘Not A Joke’
A recent NPR story by Richard Harris titled Climate Politics: It’s Laugh Lines vs. ‘Not A Joke’ discusses the comparison between the candidates.
While President Obama has not been able to accomplish all that he set out to do four years ago to address climate change, he does acknowledge it as something we must address now. It’s important to realize that President Obama didn’t set aside dealing with climate change, rather the Republican controlled Congress blocked all of his efforts to address climate change. President Obama still did what he could to have a positive impact.
Carol Browner, an advisor to the Obama Campaign for energy and environment, listed off some of the major accomplishments by this administration in spite of the blockage by the House of Representatives:
- The stimulus (American Recovery & Reinvestment Act – ARRA) was the largest investment in clean energy technologies in history
- Implemented Comprehensive Green House Gas Standards for Cars & Trucks working with the automobile industry.
- Implemented better power plant requirements
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| Surrogates at Presidential Energy Debate at MIT on Oct 9, 2012 |
While this is not the 17% reductions that Obama spoke about at Copenhagen, it is a start, and more than the Republicans are willing to even consider. At the Presidential Energy Debate at MIT in October that I attended, Romney’s surrogate Oren Cass said that addressing climate change and global warming was too big of a problem for the US to solve, so a Romney administration would do nothing about it. In strong contrast, Joseph Aldy on behalf of President Obama, indicated that Obama would continue to invest in clean energy technologies to create jobs and address climate change.
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| Bill McKibben at MIP&L Event mentioning Hurricane Sandy |
The national political stage is a story of two parties, the Republicans, who will do everything they can to ignore, laugh off or at worst deny that climate change exists and the Democrats, who want to address climate change head on and build a sustainable US economy.
Alicia and I attended an event with Bill McKibben yesterday in Massachusetts at which he pointed to Hurricane Sandy as an example of the Frankenstorms we are getting as a result of climate change.
The evidence is clear, climate change is here and will continue to lead to more extreme and devastating storms like Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.
On Tuesday, November 6, you have a chance to make a difference and cast your vote. Vote for Mitt Romney if you think our government should not even try to tackle hard problems like climate change and pollution. Vote for President Obama and other Democratic candidates if you want your government to get in gear and do something about climate change!
Happy Green Voting!
Jon
Are you kidding me? Do you actually believe that humans have the capability to LOWER the oceans? If THIS is your idea of “treating climate change as a joke,” you are seriously overreacting.