# Obama calls for urgent action on climate change
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [May 6, 2014, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806 "2014-05-06T14:09:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/41 "2014-05-07T12:51:24Z")
> [@magellan01](#):
>
> This is pretty much guaranteed. Changing his focus from merely, “You didn’t build that” to “You won’t build that”.
And that is just FUD.
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/42 "2014-05-07T12:57:53Z")
> [@magellan01](#):
>
> The question is what can we do about it. And since we don’t know what percent of climate change is attributable to man, it difficult say what we should do and how much we should spend doing it.
The report in question affirms what the IPCC reports, the current warming and the changes observed (and it will get worse) is due primarily to human activities.
The IPCC also reported recently on the expenses to take care of the issue, much lower that what the ones seeding fear claim.
> [@magellan01](#):
>
> On the other hand, theres much we should be doing that would help reduce climate change that we should be doing anyway for efficiency and protection of natural resources.
And this seems to be a mantra of the Republicans now, tell others that we do not know what to do and so we should not do anything, but the contradictions still come forward, as it turns out there is something we can do and there is indeed a problem to solve.
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/43 "2014-05-07T13:15:10Z")
One should never forget, that regarding the political angle of this, the same groups that told us to do nothing by denying the evidence before, are the same groups that are telling us now what “solutions” to consider.
As we found many many times already those groups were blind, and at the same time that they do not come forward accepting most of what the science still reports. They pretend that we should forget how they misled the American public before regarding Tobacco, acid rain, CFCs and many other subjects. I do not share the idea that we should continue to listen to those sources that besides being biased they **continue** to deny science and advice us to do next to nothing.
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### Author:  [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/44 "2014-05-07T13:19:31Z")
> [@](#):
>
> How much can he do on his own?
Obama could put up a ‘parking for energy efficient / low emissions vehicle only’ sign in the White House driveway.
Perhaps plant a tree on the front lawn too
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/45 "2014-05-07T14:21:15Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> Let me offer some suggestions.
>
> First, eliminate the mandate for ethanol is gasoline. [At best it’s useless](http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/04/20/its-final-corn-ethanol-is-of-no-use/) at reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and it’s bad for the environment in countless ways.
>
> Second, reduce the size and activity of the U. S. military. I don’t think all those cruisers and F-22’s and tanks are powered by wind or hydrogen. The less they do, the less carbon dioxide they’ll emit.
>
> Third, update the archaic air traffic control standards so that commercial airlines don’t have to waste so much fuel in the takeoff and landing stages.
>
> Fourth, cancel the [recent increase](http://www.nationalreview.com/article/370895/pilot-shortage-made-congress-jillian-kay-melchior) in required training for pilots. More training flights means more emissions.
>
> Fifth, drop tariffs on foreign crops that can be used as biofuels.
>
> These are things that Obama could either do my executive action or else have a reasonable chance of passing Congress.
I agree with all of this.
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> Every weekday, tens of millions of American children are loaded into cars, trucks, SUVs, and large yellow busses and sent to large buildings known as public schools. Said public schools are then heated and air-conditioned to certain temperatures, lighted, and so forth. Clearly this represents an enormous potential savings of energy.
>
> First of all, in some cities students are bussed long distances to schools merely in an attempt to achieve racial diversity. Plainly given the massive threat that global warming poses to our future, this racial diversity business must take a back seat. Cancel all such bussing and map districts such that all students go to the nearest school.
This, on the other hand, is nonsense. There are a couple of dozen school districts still operating busing schemes as part of desegregation plans.
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### Author:  [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/46 "2014-05-07T16:38:10Z")
If he was serious about Global warming he would open up ANWAR for oil drilling along with any other promising field. We’re absolutely going to burn the oil so it only makes sense that we take the massive taxes available from the process. We need the money and can allocate it directly toward building cleaner energy.
Next he should actively promote the best ROI for lowering temperature on a large scale. Reducing Co2 by reducing consumption of fossil fuels is not necessarily the right solution. It might very well be introduction of light reflecting particles into the upper atmosphere or pulling Co2 out of the atmosphere directly. Doesn’t matter what the method is as long as it’s the best return on investment. Stop playing games.
Next he should abandon wind and solar/thermal farms because they’re killing birds or re-write the stewardship laws overseeing wildlife. It’s counterproductive to build an expensive infrastructure and then fine the crap out of it. We need to pick our battles.
Next he should hold a moratorium on nuclear power plants. Pick a design that is stable in category 9 earthquakes and can survive any hurricane/tornado. Fast track them through Congress as a matter of national/environmental security so they aren’t bogged down in lawsuits and one-off construction nightmares.
Make battery technology a high priority in tax dollar investment. This is the only thing keeping us from driving electric cars. We want cars that are economical and easy to repair. There’s a huge market for them but they have to be fast charging.
Make algae-to-fuel technology a high priority in place of ethanol because we need diesel and aviation fuel for the foreseeable future and ethanol production is a waste of land. And yes I’m mentioning the 2 together even though they aren’t fuel related but they’re land related.
Fast track natural gas where practical for power stations in place of older coal plants.
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### Author:  [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/47 "2014-05-07T16:45:33Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#):
>
> And that is just FUD.
You won’t build that pipeline.
You won’t build a clean coal industry.
You won’t build nuclear reactors.
You won’t exhale untaxed CO2.
Speaking of FUD…
\*FUD -
Acronym for fear, uncertainty and doubt. It is a marketing term that is often used to cast a shadow over a competitor’s product when your own is unable to compete. FUD is a technique used by larger companies who have a large market share. The FUD acronym was first freely defined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found his own company, Amdahl Corp, with this statement: “FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering Amdahl products.” \*
[http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/F/FUD.html](http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/F/FUD.html)
I believe the quoted claim in the OP qualifies as FUD.
\*Quote:
ashington (CNN) – Flooded rail lines. Bigger, more frequent droughts. A rash of wildfires.
Those are some of the **alarming predictions** in a White House climate change report released Tuesday, part of President Barack Obama’s broader second-term effort to help the nation prepare for the effects of higher temperatures, rising sea levels and more erratic weather.
“Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present,” the National Climate Assessment says, adding that the evidence of man-made climate change “continues to strengthen” and that “impacts are increasing across the country.”
“Americans are noticing changes all around them,” the report says, echoing a draft version from last year. “Summers are longer and hotter. … Rain comes in heavier downpours\*.”
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/48 "2014-05-07T17:36:35Z")
> [@doorhinge](#):
>
> I believe the quoted claim in the OP qualifies as FUD.
That is really silly, FUD refers to information that seeds fear **and/or** it is false in nature.
> **[Fear, uncertainty, and doubt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt)**
>
> Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) is a manipulative propaganda tactic used in sales, marketing, public relations, politics, polling, and cults. FUD is generally a strategy to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information, and is a manifestation of the appeal to fear.
> The similar formulation "doubts, fears, and uncertainties" first appeared in 1693. The phrase "fear, uncertainty, and doubt" first appeared in the 1920s. It is also sometimes rendered as "fear, ...
> [@](#):
>
> FUD is generally a strategic attempt to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information
Unless you are willing to go full conspiracy you can not claim that what scientists in the USA and also the world are lying about what is happening.
What you are claiming is is double silly when one realizes that sounding the alarm does not mean that the fear is unfounded. Once again the fear that your side makes and I’m referring to is the fear that civilization or the economy will go to pot when we deal properly with the issue. What the fear mongers of that idea are doing is to ignore also what the economist Nordhouse pointed out: not taking care of the issue now makes it more likely that the costs in the future that we all will pay for adaptation will swallow even more opportunities and economical activity than if we deal with the problem now.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/49 "2014-05-07T17:40:39Z")
> [@doorhinge](#):
>
> I believe the quoted claim in the OP qualifies as FUD.
How? Seriously, if you assume its accuracy as a claim (which the WH presumably does), then how could it have been stated in any way both honest and less FUDly?
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/50 "2014-05-07T17:41:32Z")
> [@Magiver](#):
>
> If he was serious about Global warming he would open up ANWAR for oil drilling along with any other promising field. We’re absolutely going to burn the oil so it only makes sense that we take the massive taxes available from the process. We need the money and can allocate it directly toward building cleaner energy.
The “small” problem is that no Republican I know supports that. (The taxes and allocating the money to cleaner energy)
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/51 "2014-05-07T17:44:36Z")
> [@Magiver](#):
>
> If he was serious about Global warming he would open up ANWAR for oil drilling along with any other promising field. We’re absolutely going to burn the oil . . .
Has it never occurred to you that effective response to climate change involves, among other things, leaving at least **some** of the Earth’s fossil-fuel supply unburnt?
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### Author:  [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/52 "2014-05-07T17:57:02Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#):
>
> That is really silly, FUD refers to information that seeds fear **and/or** it is false in nature.
>
> [Fear, uncertainty, and doubt - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt)
The global warming zealots are seeding fear based on something that they can’t prove. The global temp isn’t increasing but it might. Or maybe it won’t. Shouldn’t we stop using fossil fuels based on something that may or may not happen? I don’t think so but YMMV.
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### Author:  [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/53 "2014-05-07T17:59:13Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#):
>
> Has it never occurred to you that effective response to climate change involves, among other things, leaving at least **some** of the Earth’s fossil-fuel supply unburnt?
Climate change happens every spring. And then again in the fall. Obama doesn’t seem to be able to anything about that.
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/54 "2014-05-07T18:09:53Z")
> [@doorhinge](#):
>
> The global warming zealots are seeding fear based on something that they can’t prove.
Sorry, but the evidence was presented many times before, it is the Republican leaders and conservative think tanks the ones that need to show the extraordinary evidence to counter all that.
> [@doorhinge](#):
>
> The global temp isn’t increasing but it might. Or maybe it won’t. Shouldn’t we stop using fossil fuels based on something that may or may not happen? I don’t think so but YMMV.
As Gavin Schmidt at NASA/GISS put it:
> **[The emergent patterns of climate change](https://www.ted.com/talks/gavin_schmidt_the_emergent_patterns_of_climate_change/transcript)**
>
> You can't understand climate change in pieces, says climate scientist Gavin Schmidt. It's the whole, or it's nothing. In this illuminating talk, he explains how he studies the big picture of climate change with mesmerizing models that illustrate the...
> [@](#):
>
> There’s a great phrase that Sherwood Rowland, who won the Nobel Prize for the chemistry that led to ozone depletion, when he was accepting his Nobel Prize, he asked this question: “What is the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?” The models are skillful, but what we do with the information from those models is totally up to you.
We dodged the problems of not having an ozone layer because the Republicans of the recent past did listen to the scientists. The current crop is the pits and all moderate republicans, independent and real conservatives (Teddy Roosevelt could teach them about the meaning of conservation) should learn that and tell their leaders to cut the current nonsense.
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### Author:  [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/55 "2014-05-07T18:27:44Z")
What we see in this thread is a microcosm of the national problem. The “conservatives” in this thread mostly have responded with nothing more than petty political sniping, and have offered or suggested nothing substantive. **ITR champion** ’s first post excepted.
There are some problems that should be bigger than politics. Global warming is one of them.
By the way, **Magiver** , it’s ANWR, as in “Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.”
Resolved: the [del]need[/del]desire for a very small number of people to make more and more obscene amounts of money will always supersede the needs of humanity as a whole. This is GOP thinking. Denial of science and reality follow, along with political sniping, just like this thread. Urgent action won’t be taken until the amount of money those few people can make is directly threatened. It’s really just like this sculpture in Berlin, “[Politicians Discussing Global Warming](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3kwdEVQFCdQ/Uy8Lj_2_vFI/AAAAAAAAFek/mjfojWEyFgg/s1600/Cordal.jpg),” by Isaac Cordal. But the time this happens, it will be too late.
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### Author:  [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/56 "2014-05-07T18:48:31Z")
> [@Knorf](#):
>
> What we see in this thread is a microcosm of the national problem. The “conservatives” in this thread mostly have responded with nothing more than petty political sniping, and have offered or suggested nothing substantive. **ITR champion** ’s first post excepted.
How about re-opening Yucca Mountain, and re-emphasizing proven technologies like nuclear instead of chasing sunbeams?
Regards,
Shodan
---
### Author:  [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/57 "2014-05-07T18:53:18Z")
> [@Shodan](#):
>
> How about re-opening Yucca Mountain, and re-emphasizing proven technologies like nuclear instead of chasing sunbeams?
I could go along with building more nukes providing we engineer them in such a way as to make an accident virtually impossible.
While ITR’s list was positive, I think things that we’re already doing like phasing out incandescent bulbs will do more. Cash for clunkers was underrated both as an economic stimulus and as a means to reduce carbon emissions.
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### Author:  [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/58 "2014-05-07T19:11:04Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#):
>
> The “small” problem is that no Republican I know supports that. (The taxes and allocating the money to cleaner energy)
Who has proposed it? Nothing I’ve posted has bee proposed.
By default drilling more of our own oil increases tax revenue. It’s not much of a political exercise to focus money from ANWAR into something useful. It all goes into a large pot anyway so it’s a symbolic way of both bringing in new revenue streams and spending more money on energy independence/global warming solutions.
Oh look, a pot of gold from te evil oil. Lets spend it on sunshine and rainbows. A pretty easy sell for Obama versus raising the cost of electricity for the people getting their electric from coal.
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### Author:  [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/59 "2014-05-07T19:21:59Z")
> [@Shodan](#):
>
> Maybe he will push ahead with Yucca Mountain to encourage the use of nuclear power, which does not produce green house gases. Oh wait, no he won’t - he shut that down.
Sadly this is almost certainly true (that he won’t open Yucca Mountain). I’ve said it before that this is one of the most frustrating things about AGW–liberals largely accept the theory of AGW and yet reject the single most promising technology for reducing it unless one thinks highly of geo-engineering. (Likewise conservatives largely reject AGW but are largely in favor of nuclear power.)
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### Author:  [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2014, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/687806/60 "2014-05-07T19:22:21Z")
> [@Knorf](#):
>
> Resolved: the [del]need[/del]desire for a very small number of people to make more and more obscene amounts of money will always supersede the needs of humanity as a whole. This is GOP thinking. Denial of science and reality follow, along with political sniping, just like this thread. Urgent action won’t be taken until the amount of money those few people can make is directly threatened. It’s really just like this sculpture in Berlin, “[Politicians Discussing Global Warming](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3kwdEVQFCdQ/Uy8Lj_2_vFI/AAAAAAAAFek/mjfojWEyFgg/s1600/Cordal.jpg),” by Isaac Cordal. But the time this happens, it will be too late.
This makes absolutely no sense. Not even a little in soundbite form. Oil revenues don’t go to a small number of people. They go to people who invested in the oil companies including the average person with a 401K, and the wages of pumping it out, and the wages for distributing it, and the wages selling it. All of this money gets taxed and the roads are paid for with an additional tax on top of all of it.
But hey, let a few Prince’s in Saudi Arabia get a huge junk of the money so they can put gold plated facets in their private A-380 jumbo jets. Somehow that makes more sense to you.
We’re going to use the oil. It’s an absolute given. Getting as much of the tax revenue as possible from it is common sense.
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