10/26/12: MTV’s Sway Williams breaks the climate silence, asking President Barack Obama a tough question about global warming. Obama says he’s “surprised it didn’t come up in the debates.”
To the 2012 Presidential Debate moderators, here’s a little tribute to all of you for failing to ask any questions about the single largest threat to U.S. national security, public health and the economy. I’m looking at you Candy “all you climate change people” Crowley, Jim Lehrer, and Bob “200 questions” Schieffer. You all just got owned by MTV, that bastion of vital political coverage.
Suggest headphones for this video. Crank it loud and tweet this posting as far as possible.
Transcript:
When MTV Breaks The Climate Silence, Obamas Says ‘We’re Not Moving As Fast As We Need To,’ Says He’s ‘Surprised’ By Climate Silence, Portrays Climate Change As Threat For ‘Future Generations’ And ‘It’s Going To Have A Severe Effect.’
TRANSCRIPT:
Q: Until this year global climate change has been discussed in every presidential debate since 1988. It was a big part of your previous campaign but pushed back on the back burner. Given the urgency of the threat, do you feel that we’re moving quickly enough on this issue, number one, and Samantha from New Jersey wants to know what will you do to make it a priority?
OBAMA: The answer is number one, we’re not moving as fast as we need to. And this is an issue that future generations, MTV viewers, are going to have to be dealing with even more than the older generation. So this is a critical issue. And there is a huge contrast in this campaign between myself and Governor Romney. I am surprised it didn’t come up in one of the debates. Gov. Romney says he believes in climate change. That’s different than a lot of members of his own party that deny it completely. But he’s not sure that man-made causes are the reason. I believe scientists who say we are putting too much carbon emissions into the atmosphere and it’s heating the planet and it’s going to have a severe effect. There are a lot of things we have done a lot of things in the last four years. We have already doubled the fuel efficiency standards on cars and trucks. That’s the first increase in 30 years in the fuel mileage standards. As a consequence we will be taking huge amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere, even as we’re also saving folks money at the pump and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. We have doubled clean energy production — wind, solar, biofuels — and that means that increasingly people are getting electricity, companies are generating power, without the use of carbon-producing fuels. And that’s helping as well. The next step is to deal with buildings and really ramp up our efficiency in buildings. If we had the same energy efficiency as Japan, we would cut our energy use by about 20 percent, and that means we’d be taking a whole lot of carbon out of our atmosphere. And if we do those things, we can meet the targets that I negotiated with other countries in Copenhagen, to bring our carbon emissions down by about 17 percent, even as we’re creating good jobs in these industries. In order for us to solve the whole problem though, we’re gonna have to have some technological breakthroughs. Because countries like China and India, they’re building coal-power plants and they feel that they have to prioritize getting people out of poverty ahead of climate change. So what we have to do is help them and help ourselves by continuing to put money into research and technology about how do we really get the new sources of power that are going to make a difference.
Obama: “…And if we do those things, we can meet the targets that I negotiated with other countries in Copenhagen,”
Oh dear. Talk about a selective memory. I followed the COP-15 in Copenhagen quite closely. The U.S. negotiating position was to delay, distract and agree to nothing that was binding on the parties.
But why even mention COP 15 when we’re now past COP 17 in Durban?
Here’s some honesty about where the U.S. is “leading” (ahem) the planet to at this point in time.
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/12/9/obama_admin_denounced_for_startling_level
Here’s the headline: “Obama Admin Denounced for “Startling Level of Obstructionism and Defeatism” on U.N. Climate Deal”
Thank you, Ray, for your blast of reality into the fog of BS. When pinned down, Obama talks climate, but his actions speak oil. His second term may be the last chance for the world to stop climate runaway, and the odds are that nothing significant will be done. Apparently the speed at which climate change is happening has escaped his science adviser, and the tipping point for runaway is likely much, much closer than anyone wants to believe. The Arctic and the Antarctic are telling the story.
The ultimate irony about climate was in a recent article on the drought in OK, where a resident was quoted as saying that it didn’t matter that it was too dry and hot to grow crops, since there were lots of high-paying jobs in oil and gas drilling.
Wes,
Thank you for your kind words. Yes, sadly Mr. Obama is a politician. They all have a license to lie. It’s an epidemic these days. There’s no countervail power elite in America that is any more honest than them. As close as we come is Wall Streeters demanding that the Feds get honest about budget deficits which is about like asking Willie Sutton to lock up the bank vault before he leaves.
***
You write: “The ultimate irony about climate was in a recent article on the drought in OK, where a resident was quoted as saying that it didn’t matter that it was too dry and hot to grow crops, since there were lots of high-paying jobs in oil and gas drilling.”
A classic example of short-term thinking. As far as gas drilling is concerned, the corner has already been turned on that turkey. Right now the only thing propping up gas drilling in the U.S. is “stupid investor cash”. Right now it is costing some damn fools $13 to get $3 worth of gas to the market. (http://www.postcarbon.org/blog-post/1262435-gas-bubble-leaking-about-to-burst ) As one economist famously put it a while back, “if something can’t go on, it won’t.” That Sooner ought to concentrate on the unconventional oil plays. They’re still somewhat rational, discounting the climate externalities, of course.
Please don’t blame the moderators. They really are puppets. Everything is decided by the Commission on Presidential Debates, an organization run to serve the interests of corporate influence and the maintenance of power in the Republican and Democratic parties.
Who funds the CPD:
http://www.debates.org/index.php?page=national-debate-sponsors
http://wtfcpd.blogspot.com/2012/09/whos-paying-for-2012-debates.html#!/2012/09/whos-paying-for-2012-debates.html
What is the CPD:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Presidential_Debates
http://people.howstuffworks.com/debate4.htm
This isn’t ‘conspiracy theory’ stuff. It’s real. The official ‘debates’ are nothing more than carefully choreographed events. And when people try to find out the contact info for the CPD they are threatened with arrest, and when third party candidates attempt to sit in the audience for the official debates they are arrested. The CPD has zero transparency and zero accountability.
On September 20th, two weeks before the first debate, this was published:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/open-debates-criticizes-presidential-debate-commission-for-informing-candidates-of-debate-topics-170537426.html
This article NAILED the debate topics. Lehrer didn’t choose what to ask – he was told what to ask.
I’m getting into this once again for two reasons: 1) Obama is almost certainly lying when he says he says he was ‘surprised’ that climate change wasn’t a subject at the debates, and 2) for us to realistically hope for climate change to be addressed, we have to analyze why mitigation to climate change isn’t currently being sufficiently addressed.
I believe, and I think with strong reason, that we have MAJOR problems with our current governmental system that are preventing and will prevent any meaningful reaction to AGW (as well many other very important issues). These problems, therefore, have to be addressed before any meaningful action can be expected.
President Obama addressed climate change to MTV ONLY because he’s seeking to bolster his vote amongst younger voters (who tend to care more about AGW than older generations). He did quite a good job at overstating his actions. Ask yourself – does it look like he’s on track to making any more effective changes?
Hi Jim,
Re: “I believe, and I think with strong reason, that we have MAJOR problems with our current governmental system that are preventing and will prevent any meaningful reaction to AGW ”
I couldn’t help but think about the differences between the response to AGW between European leaders and the U.S.
Basically, Europeans understand that if we screw up the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation (a real threat with AGW) that their populations will be fleeing the ice sheet south just as Africa’s starved and over-baked masses are fleeing north. Both ending in a sterile desert formerly called the Mediterranean Basin. Perhaps a new manufacturing hub for war materials necessary to invade and crush the barbarian hordes in North America?
I exaggerate, of course. But I’ve been prompted by this video that the Weather Channel is considering running as a weather advisory for lower Manhattan:
Hi Ray – I think we in America face two major problems, really. The first is problems with our representative democracy. The second is media influence over public opinion. Both boil down to corporate power.
These are certainly issues in Europe, too – I just think they are amplified and out-of-control here.
On our representative democracy, there probably was a time when the two parties truly represented the left and the right. I think this paradigm is obsolete. The nation should now be primarily viewed as plutocratic interests vs. democratic interests. Corporations and extremely wealthy individuals of course can, and do, benefit the people – but when the nation is run to the benefit of the corporation and the 1% over the people, then problems are inevitable. When the media (the propaganda arm of the plutocracy) can affect public opinion to the extremes that we have, the problems amplify.
AGW (tied with energy security and resource depletion) is a clear example. It’s simply not in our interest to pretend like nothing is wrong and not act, and yet we do.
This is a simplification, of course, but our two political parties have proven themselves over and over to favor plutocratic interests over democratic interests. The Republicans favor plutocratic interests more, certainly, but the Democrats just don’t have the track record they once did.
I was reading today about H.R. 347 and the day it happened to be signed into law by President Obama. One can only despair. There are two main ways for the individual to affect government (and thus preserve democracy in the U.S.): the right to vote and the right to protest. Both are rapidly eroding – and the Obama Administration has done nothing but increase that erosion.
(Interestingly, Paul “Evolution is Evil” Broun was only one of three Congressmen to vote against H.R. 347).
On Europe and AGW vs. the U.S. and AGW, I think the big differences are that Europe has strong third parties and a more robust public media. In the U.S., money only has to go in two places in government to buy influence. In Europe, it’s spread much further, allowing representation to be more truly democratic representation than plutocratic representation (at least compared to the U.S.). Europe also has a healthier and broader public media – which in general is less susceptible to corporate interests (propaganda).
Hi Jim,
You’re a brilliant observer of our plight. The corporations have won in America and we’re all going to live with Snooki on the Jersey Shore. Perhaps after the weekend’s excitement dies down.
I started a sincere effort at community orgainzing a decade ago. I got 350 people on the street here in Bend, OR to tell George Bush and his master Dick Cheney to go to hell when they wanted to go to Baghdad. It felt good to see a significant slice of humanity saying no to injustice and war crimes.
Fast forward to 2009 and I completely folded the tent on anti-war activism. The Democrats who used to join my efforts became Obama-bot-ized. A cousin of Mesmerized. And if Obama wanted to illegally fire of drone attacks on innocents halfway across the planet, who were they to disagree.
I think we’re pretty much doomed with the two wings of the Corporate Party having a lock on our national politics. Parliamentary parties, like exist in Europe, are simply not going to prevent the Wall St crowd from running this nation into the ditch. Hell, they are gleeful about impose debt penury on the nuevo-serf class they are creating.
I could go on, but this is a climate blog. Instead, I’ll say that I found this Matt Stoller Salon article highly relevant and sympatico with my views of the world today: http://www.occupybendor.org/news.php?1316
And somedays I even see the wisdom of Morris Berman: http://www.alternet.org/story/154453/why_the_american_empire_was_destined_to_collapse
Reading the tea leaves as best as I can, here’s the unstated part of Obama’s plan:
The US will continue the switch from Coal to Fracked Methane. More Oil will also be drilled and consumed. The hope is that the CO2 savings garnered from switching from coal to methane will counter balance the extra oil consumption.
Meanwhile, the Coal will be shipped to China where it will be burned with little or no smokestack cleanup. While this will aggravate an already awful public heath problem in China, the short-lived particulates and sulfur aerosols should mask some of the warming caused by the vast increases in global CO2 levels. Think of it as poorman’s GeoEngineering.
Of course, all of this will devastate the already ailing oceans with more acidification and mercury poisoning. And the day of reckoning when the aerosols are gone, but the CO2 remains will be horrible.
Hi Ray – the Stoller article has a lot of good points. I’m going to drop talking about third parties on Peter’s blog, though, as I’ve commented about it enough here and I do think the main discussion should be AGW. But I personally believe they are at this point necessary if one wants a revival of democracy in the U.S. and they are necessary if we’re going to seriously address AGW – and the only way to get third parties is to support them.
On Berman – ‘Why America Failed’ is on my reading list, I just haven’t gotten to it yet. I know he has some very interesting views.
On collapse – I didn’t really address it, but there is one other plausible explanation for why Obama has done things like extend the Patriot Act and signed an NDAA bill with indefinite imprisonment. It’s that he knows we’re about to get into a major sheetstorm in the next decade or two and he’s playing along because he doesn’t know what else to do.
That’s something someone like me can’t know for certain, though.
Hi Jim,
Re: “It’s that he knows we’re about to get into a major sheetstorm in the next decade or two and he’s playing along because he doesn’t know what else to do. That’s something someone like me can’t know for certain, though.”
My cynical view is that Bill Clinton, John Kerry and Al Gore are all centimillionaires today and they were relatively or absolutely not rich in the 1990s. Something is going on here. I believe that Obama has gone down the “Crossroads” as Robert Johnson sang, and sold his soul to the devil. When Obama leaves office, be it in 2012 or 2017, he’s got a bright future ahead for himself on Wall Street. I’m pretty sure that can explain anything a person might want to know about why he governs the way he does. Oh, that and the lessons to be learned from Dead Kennedys.
Hi again – sorry I don’t repond directly to the thread, but my login doesn’t allow it and I’m not in the mood to create a WordPress login. Ha ha.
On politicians getting wealthy after office – this pretty much happens across the board. For some perhaps it’s a reason to get elected – you’re pretty much set for life after that. There’s the speaking circuit and the fact that a lot of them go into lobbying. Name recognition and inside knowledge about the system goes a long, long way. It’s easy to make the moolah at that point.
Which does go to Berman’s point (at least what I read in your link) – that the American Dream itself (the drive to make money more than to live a good and moral life) is inherently destined to bring our society to failure.
But I think most of these guys are motivated for prestige more than anything else. I do think several of them think they are really going to ‘change the world’, too. Compare Obama’s rhetoric from before office to now. The money is just a side benefit – I don’t think it’s really the main goal for most.
Ain’t no laws against insider trading for congress either. If a congressman is certain a given bill will shortly pass, based on non-public info, and such will favor a given corporation, it is not illegal for him/her to purchase shares in that company.
On DK (just looking at the the idea that power might be willing to use implied threat to get what it wants) – that’s some dark territory, and impossible to know as it relates to Obama’s motives, but a telling article I read a few years ago might shed some light:
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/27/the-obamas-prayer-live-long-and-strong/
I love that opening riff of “Money for Nothing”. I am learning guitar and have played half of that riff.
But seriously, props to MTV for cutting through the noise.