Obama and Climate Change: The Real Story

Bill McKibben, a founder of 350.org, has for years promoted the idea that Barack Obama, his administration and his Democratic Party can be won to a meaningful climate change policy. He has blamed the Obama administration’s pro-fossil fuel policies on the power of the oil lobby.

McKibben’s latest article, below, published in Rolling Stone magazine, takes a small step away from such illusory hopes.

By ANY objective measure, the Obama administration is just as addicted to the promotion of fossil fuels as was the preceding Bush administration. Indeed, there’s a genuine argument that it been even MORE friendly to fossil fuel corporations.

McKibben now highlights events and occurrences over which he was previously silent, including Obama’s promotion of the southern leg of Keystone XL, his refusal to discuss climate change from 2009 onwards, his pro-pipeline boasting and his abiding love of all things fracked.

Some key phrases in McKibben’s new article indicate he has yet to come to terms with the scale of the affliction represented by the Democratic Party. He still fails to recognize that one can only “sell out” if one had any principles in the first place. Despite all of the devastating facts that McKibben so eloquently lays out, he STILL believes Obama “has got a few chances left to show some leadership.”

You can provide feedback to 350.org on McKibben’s article here:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NTP9W6R
--Website editors

If you want to understand how people will remember the Obama climate legacy, a few facts tell the tale: By the time Obama leaves office, the U.S. will pass Saudi Arabia as the planet's biggest oil producer and Russia as the world's biggest producer of oil and gas combined. In the same years, even as we've begun to burn less coal at home, our coal exports have climbed to record highs. We are, despite slight declines in our domestic emissions, a global-warming machine: At the moment when physics tell us we should be jamming on the carbon brakes, America is revving the engine.