Honestly and Seriously

Jonathan Chiat looks at the domestic agenda--the four challenges President Obama outlined in his 2009 Inaugural Address-- and concludes that (contrary to the rabid right and a lot of political media) with the power plant carbon regulations, he's fulfilled it.  He righted the economy (latest employment numbers continued an upward trend,) passed health care reform (Chiat provides graphs to show the number of uninsured is going down sharply while medical inflation has slowed to the lowest this century) and made progress on education.

"All of Obama’s domestic reforms involved compromises and imperfections, a quality they have in common with every major accomplishment in history...What’s no longer possible is to imagine that historians will look back at Obama’s presidency and conclude not much got done."

The fourth area is energy and climate.  In energy, President Obama has actually exceeded his initial goals. "In 2009, Obama promised to “double this nation's supply of renewable energy in the next three years.” Since then, wind capacity has tripled and solar capacity increased 16-fold. 

On climate, "He likewise called for “a market-based cap on carbon pollution,” which is exactly what the new power-plant regulations would create."

President Obama's approach to the climate crisis is further revealed in an interview that was shown in full Monday on Showtime's global heating series The Years of Living Dangerously.  In the clip above he says the debate about what is happening is over, and the debate is now about how to address it.  He affirms his support for placing a price on carbon, the same way other pollution has been addressed:

"The baseline fact of climate change is not something we can afford to deny. And if you profess leadership in this country at this moment in our history, then you’ve got to recognize this is going to be one of the most significant long-term challenges, if not the most significant long-term challenge, that this country faces and that the planet faces. The good news is that the public may get out ahead of some of their politicians” — as people start to see the cost of cleaning up for hurricanes like Sandy or the drought in California — and when “those start multiplying, then people start thinking, ‘You know what? We’re going to reward politicians who talk to us honestly and seriously about this problem.’”

And in a preview not only of the rest of the Obama Administration but what Barack Obama will continue to champion:

“The person who I consider to be the greatest president of all time, Abraham Lincoln, was pretty consistent in saying, ‘With public opinion there’s nothing I cannot do, and without public opinion there’s nothing I can get done,’ and so part of my job over these next two and a half years and beyond is trying to shift public opinion. And the way to shift public opinion is to really focus in on the fact that if we do nothing our kids are going to be worse off.”

That shift appears today to entail not so much an acceptance of the problem--latest polls show that the deniers are a small and isolated minority--but a sense of urgency to address the causes and the effects forthrightly, boldly and consistently.  That may require getting at deeper issues, as further posts here will suggest.