What to expect from Obama on climate change

Delivering his State of the Union address, President Obama cited superstorm Sandy and the 2012 Midwest drought as evidence that climate change is a threat on which Congress should act.

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Obama: On climate change, trust "overwhelming judgment of science"

Last night, in a forceful call to action during his State of the Union address, President Obama highlighted what appears to be a renewed commitment to enacting robust climate change regulations in his second term, dedicating ample space to the topic in his hour-long speech and calling on Congress to enact meaningful legislation "for the sake of our children and our future."

"We must do more to combat climate change," Mr. Obama told the nation in his fifth annual address to Congress. "I urge this Congress to get together, pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on together a few years ago."

In the aftermath of his speech, environmentalists politely welcomed Mr. Obama's plea for a bipartisan legislative solution; the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy group that advocates for climate change legislation, also praised him for doing a "powerful job connecting the need for action on climate change with the challenge of revitalizing our economy."

But in the face of unwavering Republican resistance to any legislation regulating climate change, the real significance in Mr. Obama's remarks wasn't in his demand that lawmakers act -- it was in his threat to do so without them.

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"If Congress won't act soon to protect future generations, I will," Mr. Obama pledged in his remarks. "I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy."

In a statement released shortly after his statement, the president of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) lauded Mr. Obama's "vision for needed change," and urged the president to use his "full box of tools to strike back at climate chaos."

Republicans were less enthusiastic about the ideas: Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., argued in his rebuttal speech that "the government can't change the weather," and that passing "a bunch of laws" aiming to do so will only "destroy our economy." 

To say that environmental lobbyists would welcome federal legislation pushing a more sustainable energy system would be an almost comical understatement: Groups like NRDC have spent years attempting to push through Congress laws regulating carbon emissions, which they see as the number one priority on the road to slowing down climate change. Their efforts, however, have been widely unsuccessful. Republican resistance to regulations on traditional energy sources has proven steadfast; and even in the early years of Mr. Obama's administration, when there was a perception of hope for the so-called cap-and-trade bill, support fell short in a Democratic-led Senate.

Since then, according to experts, little has changed politically to suggest a crack in the shell of GOP opposition -- even if, as Mr. Obama argues, "the overwhelming judgment of science" supports the idea of climate change.

"There's no way in the world that the current Republican caucus in the House will go along with any kind of legislative carbon control caps," said Theda Skocpol, a political science professor at Harvard, in an interview with CBSNews.com.

House Speaker John Boehner's office did not respond to repeated requests for Boehner's reaction to the president's remarks on climate change, nor to requests about whether the speaker would bring to the House floor any bill resembling cap-and-trade legislation. The speaker has cast doubts in the past about the role of humans in climate change, however, laughing off "the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment" as "almost comical." There is little reason to believe he would buck party lines to bring forward a measure that's deeply unpopular among many in his caucus.

The oil and gas industries have a long history of political influence, specifically among the right: According to the Center for Responsive Politics, "individuals and political action committees affiliated with oil and gas companies have donated $238.7 million to candidates and parties since the 1990 election cycle," and 75 percent of those donations have gone to Republicans.

According to Skocpol, who recently published a comprehensive report on why the 2010 cap-and-trade bill failed, energy lobbyists have not only kept up their campaign in recent years, but heightened it. She cites Al Gore's 2006 movie "An Inconvenient Truth" as a sort of turning point in the movement to combat regulatory legislation: In the wake of that film, she says, American public opinion was "moving toward taking global warming seriously as a threat and supporting government action."

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[whaas2]

I wish that our use of fossil fuels did effect the climate to provide additional motivation to conserve but that is just not the case. To gain control of our climate the government needs to control the amount of energy that we recieve and retain from the sun. It is the sun that is the biggest factor and all the money on this earth will not be enough to gain the minutest control over the sun.

In a green house there is really no such thing as a green house gas. CO2 has no effect on the heat retention properties of a greenhouse. The primary gas in a green house that effects the retention and transport of heat energy is N2 and there are no plans to alter the amount of N2 in our atmosphere. Good luck trying.

[IAM4H0NESTY]

With any luck at all he will regulate the coal and oil industries out of existence. Green technologies are a win-win situation.

[highlndr55]

Win-win for who? Green jobs are not available employ the people you seem to want to put out of work. When the technology becomes viable in 15-40 years then it would be time to stomp for Green Technology. We have more readily available energy that will last us over 100 years. We need to use it till we don't need it.

[sjc_1]

Reducing fossil fuel use can improve the economy and corporate bottom lines. Looking at corporate energy use and finding ways to use energy more efficiently will immediately reduce coal consumption at power plants in many part of the country.

[Ulgnud]

What to expect? For him it is another opportunity for taxation and control. Hot too hard to see what he is up to.

[highlndr55]

Obama can not fix the Climate. The govenment can not fix the Climate. There are so many non man made factors that affect Climate. Sure we can try to limit CO2 somewhat. But do we really need to ruin our economy to do so? Climate changes.

[Augy-Doggie]

What to expect from Obama on climate change

I know!
Another near trillion dollar Stimulud package to payoff his Green Enery Companies campaign contributors that went bust an too the money and ran.

[GeorgeKafantaris]

No, the government can't change the weather. But the government can help us prepare for bad weather when it comes. And that's the point. Climate change deniers would rather leave us at risk than lift a finger towards caution -- less it be deemed an admission that in fact a climate change is occurring.
We may never all agree on what causes climate change, but we should all agree that we need to prepare for it.

[whaas2]

Climate change has been occouring for billions of years and there is really nothing that we can do to alter it. Key to prepairing ourselves for environmental desasters is to reduce our population. To my knowledge only the Chinese have been doing anything practicle in that area.

[spacengin]

I strongly disagree. Climate change is very serious. It is a simple relationship. Burn fossil fuels worldwide, add CO2 to the atmosphere. More CO2, more retained heat in the energy balance on the earth. Let's do the math.
World oil consumption per day is 84455330 barrel per day*42 gallons per barrel*56 pounds per cubic foot= ~2*10 to the 11 power or 2E11 pounds mainly carbon. That is only oil.
Then we have coal, natural gas, wood etc..
Worldwide coal consumption is 7.6 billion tones or 1.52E13 pounds per year.
I will assume that consumption means combustion which is just an upper bound.
Total carbon from these two sources is about 8.65E13 pounds per year.
Atomic weight of carbon is 12 and oxygen is 16 so that converting to CO2 yields 3.67 times or 3.2E14 pounds CO2 per year.
The atmospheric mass is 5E18 kg or 1.1E19 pounds.
Currently, the percent of CO2 in the atmosphere is ~4%
So this ballpark analysis of two sources suggest that the rate of increase should be about 30ppm (3.2E14/1.1E19). Fortunately, the measured average yearly rate has been 2.07 ppm. Hence, consumption of fossil fuels easily accounts for the rate of increase in CO2.

This is a serious problem. Besides getting off fossil fuels will make US less exposed to world issues. Imagine having your own PV system with an electric hybrid car that cost almost nothing to run. The oil and coal companies have bought the loyalty of the Republicans instead of to the American people. It is corruption. It is lack of integrity.

[FirstLast12]

What you wrote violates the scientific method because it does not address all other possible causes and assumes that CO2 is the only possible cause. Global warming is a null hypothesis until all other possible causes can be ruled out. The ice age did not begin or end because of CO2 levels. Global warming attributes human causes to inanimate objects and disturbances/dislocations between systems that humans have no control over. Nature is always in a state of dynamic and unpredictable change. Very little is known about the atmosphere and far less is known about the sun. Unfortunately being a passionate activist does not exempt you from the scientific method.

[whaas2]

The gas in the atmosphere that is most responsible for the retention and distribution of heat is not CO2. It is N2 and there is nothing that man can do to change that.

[agurusguru2]

More political rethoric, what a waste of time and taxpayers money. Nothing about the "state" of our union. Only more political desires from King Obama! Watch for an aggressive push to repeal the 22d amendment.

[Dragos111]

The only reason they even talk about Climate Change is because of the potential money behind it. Man made global warming does not exist. Tiny changes in a trace gas have no impact on temps. It gets warmer when the amount of energy arriving from the Sun is greater. It cools when the Sun is less active. We have gone through, and always will, muti-decade cycles. Sometimes it is warmer and sometimes it is cooler.

Remember folks, it is all about the money. Governments around the world are broke and are looking for any excuse to raise taxes and fees. This climate change stuff is a gold mine for them, too good to pass up.