Obama: A President Who Understands The Significance of Global Warming

Photo by National Snow and Ice Data Center/NASA

In his inaugural address, President Obama said, “We will restore science to its rightful place.”

Finally!

Obama’s rallying cry was a direct criticism of former President Bush’s weak record in the area of science.  For the first seven years of his presidency, Bush and his administration all but ignored the problems and threat the planet faced from global warming.  In 2008, Bush announced some token policy measures to curb carbon emissions which was quickly dismissed as being “too little too late”. The Republican party and conservatives in general have denied the very science used by the world’s scientific community to warn us all of the effects of climate change. In a concerted effort with big oil corporations, conservatives have tried to sell us a bogus package of lies in dismissing man’s role in the area of global warming. In doing so, they left science hanging out to dry as they refused to impose the measures necessary to combat global warming. None of this was surprising coming from a party whose clueless leader once called for Intelligent Design (aka Creationism) to be taught in schools’s science classes along with evolution.

The ignorance of some of the top Bush people (including VP Dick Cheney) in the area of global warming is mind numbing.  Rolling Stone magazine has an excellent article on how and why the Bush administration blocked federal action on global warming.  This is a must read for anyone wanting to understand the false debate on this important issue.

Wilkin’s Ice Shelf

Above is an image of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antartica.  The shelf, about the size of Jamaica, is now one third its original area.  Glaciologists announced this week that the Wilkins Ice Shelf is on the verge of collapsing into the ocean.  All that is holding it in place is a strip of ice which is only 550 yards (500 meters) wide at its narrowest.  Sixty years ago, that same strip was 310 miles (500 kilometers) wide.  The deterioration of Wilkins has been blamed on rising temperatures which have seen an increase of 0.9 Fahrenheit every 10 years for the last 50 years.

Obama’s refreshing view on the importance of science will not prevent the Wilkins Ice Shelf from collapsing.  What it will do, however, is to ensure that science and government are on the same page.  While science can point to the dangers facing out planet, only government can create the policies and measures required to actually deal with these problems.

Finally, the country has a president who actually understands the importance of science.  Nice.