Obama didn’t say much about climate change in his speech yesterday, even as he laid out some ambitious energy goals. This leaves the media and activists guessing at what his next move will be — he’s a sort of Schroedinger’s President, who can be interpreted as a climate hawk or a climate wuss. Here are some of the post-speech visions of Obama going around this morning:
Mother Jones: He is — at least potentially — a beaten-down, defeated climate Judas. “[I]t's notable that Obama barely even mentioned climate change or greenhouse gases in his big energy speech today. This concession to Republicans on the EPA would jibe with that, and if it's true it would mean that Obama has essentially given up completely on anything other than token action to address global warming.”
New York Times: He’s a well-meaning victim of circumstance. “In just over two years in the White House, President Obama has seen the major elements of his energy and climate-change strategy demolished by a succession of economic, political, technical and natural disasters.”
Climate Progress: He said “climate change” enough times to get us all very drunk, but he’s still insufficiently committed and seems to be playing both sides. “Obama threw in a few extra ‘climate change’ mentions, but one of them negated another — ‘So those of us who are concerned about climate change, we’ve got to recognize that nuclear power, if it’s safe, can make a significant contribution to the climate change question’ – could that possibly be blander? How about explaining to the public why everyone should be concerned? And how about something stronger than ‘question’?”
Grist: He’s a terminal weenie. “A muscular climate-hawk stance on energy security could shake up some stale partisan debates and generate some new coalitions. But that's not going to happen if Obama takes this half-ass approach.”
