Barack Obama

What will make Obama a great president? Part 2

Future historians will inevitably judge all 21st century presidents as failures if the world doesn’t stop catastrophic global warming. If global warming exceeds 5°C (or even 3°C), then we will head inexorably toward an ice free planet with widespread desertification, sea levels rising 6 to 12 inches a decade for centuries, the oceans turning into […]

Some thoughts on the merits of regulating greenhouse gases via the Clean Air Act

Marc Ambinder considers something environmentalists have been discussing for months now: the possibility that Obama will create a carbon trading system via the EPA, using the Clean Air Act instead of (or before) going through Congress to get legislation. An Obama aide strongly suggested Obama would go this route this earlier this year, but backed […]

Dear media,

Obama did not drop his oil windfall profits tax or reverse his pledge to implement one. The tax was supposed to kick in when oil went above $80/barrel. It’s now below that. I know everyone is desperate to get the first told you Obama was just another lying politician!!1! story, but please, try to wait […]

Obama injects hope into climate negotiations, even though he’s not attending

  The global climate negotiations in Poznan opened on Monday with all expected pomp and circumstance. Two prime ministers and Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Nobel-Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, addressed thousands of delegates and observers who have swarmed into this cold, dark town in western Poland. However, while the proceedings dominated the […]

Is cheap gas OPEC’s way of robbing Obama of his clean energy initiative?

Why have gas prices dropped so low, so quickly, and so soon after endless proclamations of a future of $200/barrel oil? The New York Times thinks that it has something to do with a drop in demand and a lack of unity amongst OPEC member-states. My friend Gregorio has no time or such naivete. According […]

SOS trumps NSA (Hillary Clinton trumps Gen. Jones)

Some enviros are annoyed that PEBO chose a national security adviser (NSA), retired Marine Gen. James Jones, who has emphasized energy security concerns over global warming — see, for instance, this lame transition report on energy (PDF) Jones just oversaw for the US Chamber of Commerce. The Politico actually just interviewed me on this very […]

Reading the tea-leaves on Obama’s national security staffing

There’s a lot of commentary flying around about Obama’s security team, announced this morning. I recommend Spencer Ackerman. Everybody’s wrestling with the same questions. On natsec, just like with the economic team, Obama is appointing relatively centrist, establishment figures. What are we supposed to make of this? One interpretation is that Obama is abandoning the […]

A reason to give thanks

This is not a Grist spoof: President-elect Barack Obama says he wants to make the White House “green.” In an interview with Barbara Walters, Obama said he plans to sit down with the chief usher for the presidential mansion and do an evaluation of its energy efficiency. He says part of what he wants to […]

Some leftovers to browse before T-Giving

I’ve got about 40 tabs open in my browser, and that’s no way to go into a holiday weekend. Time for an old-fashioned link-fest! —– I never managed to say anything about it, but novelist Ian McEwan had a delightfully literary and readable essay on Obama and climate change in The Guardian. Definitely worth reading. […]