NY Mayor Bloomberg Endorses Obama, Citing Climate Change, Storms, Civil Rights,

Well, better late than never.

Bloomberg's original op-ed: http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-01/a-vote-for-a-president-to-lead-on-climate-change.html

He says that storms have forced NYC to evacuate neighborhoods twice in the last 14 months, which is unprecedented. And the risk that climate change is making things worse requires action.

Background from New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/nyregion/bloomberg-endorses-obama-saying-hurricane-sandy-affected-decision.html?hp&_r=1&&pagewanted=all

(note: possible paywall - free access limits may apply).

Now if Obama finally gets a backbone and stands up for real emissions cuts, rather than talking in generalities and promoting oil and gas along with renewables...  One can only hope.

[Edited to correct typo in Mayor's name. That was a bad one. Sorry.]

[Important Notice]

Obama's 2009 "Economy/Planet Balance" Notion - Already Debunked by Gore in 2006

Here's a Table comparing part of Barack Obama's CBC News interview in February 2009 with what Al Gore had said of such notions in An Inconvenient Truth in back 2006:

Barack Obama in CBC News interview, Canada, 2009

Al Gore in the movie An Inconvenient Truth, 2006

"When asked if the future of oil produced from the oilsands hinged on a cap and trade policy, Obama suggested that technology would be the ultimate solution to creating clean energy. "'Canada, the United States, China, India, the European Union, all of us are going to have to work together in an effective way to figure out how do we balance the imperatives of economic growth with very real concerns about the effect we're having on our planet,' [Obama] said. "'We're not going to be able to deal with any of these issues in isolation. The more that we can develop technologies that tap alternative sources of energy but also contain the environmental damage of fossil fuels, the better off we're going to be.'" (Obama touts technology as solution to oilsands footprint, CBC News, February 17, 2009 [bolding added)

"In one of the funnier moments, Al [Gore] shows a graphic used by the government to support the idea that profit must have equal value to concerns about the planet. It’s a scale with gold bricks on one side and the earth on the other. Both in balance. Al is hilarious as he acknowledges that gold is very nice, hmm… yesm we like gold. Then he turns to contemplate the earth and looks genuinely puzzled. Earth… or… gold? Hmmm… which to pick? We laugh as we understand that there are people who don’t hesitate to go for the gold, let alone bother contemplating which has more value. But then the real Al breaks through to remind us that without a healthy planet…there will be no one to worry about gold. He quickly dispatches the fallacy that being concerned about the planet means losing profits. We are made aware that being focused on the profits will mean losing the planet." (An Inconvenient Truth - Review by Dianne Lawrence, Film Monthly, May 24, 2006)

UPDATED - Obama, Harper Push Carbon Procrastination Tech

OTTAWA - U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper today agreed to promote the latest carbon procrastination technology. The agreement on a “clean energy dialogue” would allow the two countries to safely postpone common decisions on climate change – at least until enough people get tired of waiting for real results from carbon sequestration (capture and storage).

In fact, Obama has apparently fallen hard for carbon sequestration vapourware. A highly-placed government source said that under the plan, the U.S. would continue to burn its own coal and import oil from Alberta's tar sands. Harper, Prentice, Stelmach as well as the oil and coal industries would cheer. Meanwhile, Canada and the U.S. would talk about how to create the impression that a technological panacea for the climate mess is just around the corner.

The government source refused to comment on recently-released

“...ministerial briefing notes, initially marked 'Secret,' [which] say that just a small percentage of the carbon dioxide released in mining the [tar] sands and producing fuel from them can be captured.”

UPDATE February 22, 2009: The Harper government has dismissed the briefing notes as being out of date, because they did not take into account the repeal of Murphy's Law. Environment Minister Jim Prentice said:

"Since we repealed that old Liberal legislation, nothing can go wrong with carbon procrastination technology anymore!"

[Important Notice]

Will Canada Fall Behind U.S. in Wind Energy Jobs?

Check out the BBC video report about workers from a closed washing machine factory in Iowa who are finding jobs at a wind turbine plant. This is the type of green job creation that Obama is trying to encourage with his stimulus plan. But back in Canada, the Conservative budget -- supported by the Liberals -- did not renew support for wind energy. That's making it hard to sell Canadian-made wind turbines in Canada. How long will Canadian manufacturers continue to expand in Canada if all of their orders are from the U.S.?
(Source: CBC Radio's The House, Saturday, February 14, 2008 - listen to the MP3 file - 22 MB; fast forward to 27:10 of 48:09).

[Important Notice]

World leaders say green thinking can help global economy

"'We must decide to put a price on carbon,' said Al Gore, the former US vice president, adding that President Barack Obama would play a positive role in combating climate change.

'He is pushing hard for dramatic and bold moves in the right direction,' said Gore, noting that the House of Representatives had passed a stimulus bill, 'the largest component of which is a green stimulus.'

'We must appreciate the magnitude of change in United State's leadership,' said Gore."

Source: World leaders say green thinking can help global economy

Wake up and smell the coffee, Harper and Ignatieff!

[Important Notice]

$100B for Green Jobs in Obama Plan

While the Harper Conservative Government in Canada wastes time on partisan manoeuvres and even shuts down Parliament, the N.Y. Times reports that

President-elect Barack Obama promised Saturday to create the largest public works construction program since the inception of the interstate highway system a half century ago as he seeks to put together a plan to resuscitate the reeling economy.

[...]

Mr. Obama’s remarks showcased his ambition to expand the definition of traditional work programs for the middle class, like infrastructure projects to repair roads and bridges, to include new-era jobs in technology and so-called green jobs that reduce energy use and global warming emissions. “We need action — and action now,” Mr. Obama said in an address broadcast Saturday morning on radio and YouTube.

[...]

The green jobs would include various categories, including jobs dedicated to creating alternative fuels, windmills and solar panels; building energy efficient appliances, or installing fuel-efficient heating or cooling systems.

[...]

“We’ll measure progress by the reforms we make,” Mr. Obama said, “and the results we achieve by the jobs we create, by the energy we save, by whether America is more competitive in the world.”

The green jobs portion of the economic package could run as high as $100 billion over two years, according to an aide familiar with the discussions.

A blueprint for such spending can be found in a study financed by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts and the Center for American Progress, a Washington research organization founded by John D. Podesta, who is a co-chairman of Mr. Obama’s transition team.

Daniel J. Weiss, an environmental analyst at Mr. Podesta’s center, said Washington should invest more money in existing programs that create work while cutting energy use, like home weatherization programs that have been chronically underfinanced.

[Important Notice]

Toronto Star: Obama will let us off the Kyoto hook

TheStar.com | Ideas | Obama will let us off the Kyoto hook:

"Prime Minister Stephen Harper must be pinching himself over his great luck.

One day, he's isolated with the reviled George W. Bush as a pariah of climate change. The next, he's shoulder to shoulder on the issue with the most popular politician on the planet.

All without having to lift a finger. American voters did him the favour by making Barack Obama their president-elect. Obama pledges to act on climate change, and after eight years of American obstructionism, 're-engage' with the international negotiations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

His administration will 'work constructively' within the United Nations process aimed at putting the Kyoto Protocol into practice. He proposes a firm target for reducing emissions. He promises an ambitious list of measures to achieve that goal, including a cap-and-trade system far tougher than any attempted elsewhere.

But a crucial outcome of all this – for Harper and the world – is that the Protocol is dead."