President Obama's Climate Change Speech

[Cato]

I have yet to read the transcript, but had to immediately share a quote as reported by The Hill:

"We don't have time for a meeting of the flat-Earth society," Obama said. "Sticking your head in the sand might make you feel safer, but it's not going to protect you from the coming storm."

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-r...z2XFsQ5mgH

Here's a link to the speech transcript:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-25...peech.html

[Minimalist]

No surprise. For a group that has its head and its ass firmly parked in the 19th century this is shit they don't want to hear.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/ho...ar-on-coal

Several House Republicans took to the floor Tuesday afternoon to criticize President Obama's speech on the environment at Georgetown University for launching what they said is the next step in the "war on coal."

[festive1]

Pretty good speech. It sounds to me like they might not go ahead with the Keystone pipeline, which is great. But he kept referencing natural gas... Fracking... I have serious concerns about this practice. But moving in a greener direction is the way to go, in my opinion. We can't afford not to.

Several House Republicans took to the floor Tuesday afternoon to criticize President Obama's speech on the environment at Georgetown University for launching what they said is the next step in the "war on coal."

Man... I burned some bridges on FB with people who were upset about family members being laid off from their coal jobs for questioning why we should keep investing in an industry that will be dead in 60 years. There will be no more coal by 2075, or at least none that is readily reached. Why invest in a dying, dirty, dangerous industry? I get that it's people's livelihoods, but shouldn't they be trained for other jobs elsewhere?

[Minimalist]

Job re-training is a panacea which does not really exist. People don't really want to be retrained and no one wants to support them if they are.

[festive1]

Tis better than investing millions of dollars into a dying industry though. If we stop investing in coal, people working in that industry are going to lose their jobs. There is no way around that. We should support them and help them get training for new work. I appreciate they don't want to and our job training programs could be better, but people fear change. That's what it all comes down to. We just can't lay off however many workers there are in the coal industry, but we can't keep funding coal either... Rock/Hard Place.

[Doubting Thomas]

My father-in-law is upset at Obama for this reason (and others, seeing as how he's a right-wing Republican Fox News viewer). His livelihood is closely linked with coal.

But we have to do something. The coal won't last forever and it's spewing tons of CO2 into our atmosphere every year. Meanwhile trees are being cut down and every square foot of cities are being paved. Anyone who denies this is having an effect on the planet is an idiot.

[Polaris]

The same President who played golf with oil executives during a protest of the Keystone XL Pipeline to speak nothing of relaxing US EPA laws for foreign companies setting up shop in the US.

He's the boy who cried wolf when it comes to climate change policy.