Global Warming - Obama's Remarks
Available here is the text of what are strangely described as “remarks” by Obama on climate change. This is a dreadful “statement”, almost as bad as some of those coming from our Climate Commission. The fact that Obama felt it necessary to show “leadership” on climate change may have something to do with his many policy failures in other areas in recent months. Nonetheless, coming from the leader of the United States it has to be recognised and, unfortunately, taken into account in assessing the increased difficulty sceptics will now have in turning the tide. In essence the most important leader in the world has locked himself into the school of believers in the dangerous warming thesis.
As an illustration of the problem I set out below an extract from Obama’s remarks:
“That science, accumulated and reviewed over decades, tells us that our planet is changing in ways that will have profound impacts on all of humankind.
The 12 warmest years in recorded history have all come in the last 15 years. Last year, temperatures in some areas of the ocean reached record highs, and ice in the Arctic shrank to its smallest size on record -- faster than most models had predicted it would. These are facts.
Now, we know that no single weather event is caused solely by climate change. Droughts and fires and floods, they go back to ancient times. But we also know that in a world that’s warmer than it used to be, all weather events are affected by a warming planet. The fact that sea level in New York, in New York Harbor, are now a foot higher than a century ago -- that didn’t cause Hurricane Sandy, but it certainly contributed to the destruction that left large parts of our mightiest city dark and underwater.
The potential impacts go beyond rising sea levels. Here at home, 2012 was the warmest year in our history. Midwest farms were parched by the worst drought since the Dust Bowl, and then drenched by the wettest spring on record. Western wildfires scorched an area larger than the state of Maryland. Just last week, a heat wave in Alaska shot temperatures into the 90s.”
Also attached is a sensible analysis by the AFR’s rep in the US, Ben Potter.
Des Moore