Obama: 'Cynical claims' attacking energy bill

Saturday 24th October, 06:21 AM JST

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts —

President Barack Obama said Friday that opponents of his energy bill are disputing the evidence of global warming in a cynical ploy to undermine efforts to curb pollution and steer the nation to greener energy sources.

Obama said some opponents “make cynical claims that contradict the overwhelming scientific evidence when it comes to climate change—claims whose only purpose is to defeat or delay the change that we know is necessary.”

He also appeared to be taking on chief critics like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers, though not by name.

“There are those who will suggest that moving toward clean energy will destroy our economy, when it’s the system we currently have that endangers our prosperity and prevents us from creating millions of new jobs,” Obama told his audience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Using familiar refrains from his campaign and his administration as Congress mulls its next move on the climate bill, the speech was designed as a nudge for lawmakers to act on a top priority of the president’s.

Next week, the Senate environment committee will take up its version of a global warming bill. The legislation would cut greenhouse gases by about 80% by 2050—as the president called for in his campaign—and require more domestic energy to come from renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydropower. The House passed a similar bill in June.

The two business groups to which Obama alluded oppose reducing emissions by allowing companies to buy and sell permits to pollute, a system known as cap and trade.

With work still to be done on health care and deep divisions in Congress over the best approach to climate change, the chances the Senate will pass a climate bill by the end of the year are slim. That means U.S. negotiators are likely to not have firm targets set before 192 nations gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, to hammer out a new treaty to slow global warming.

“This should not be a partisan issue,” Obama said, urging bipartisan answers on a day largely devoted to raising campaign money for fellow Democrats. “The closer we get, the harder the opposition will fight.”

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Associated Press writer Dina Cappiello contributed to this report from Washington.

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Latest 15 of 35 Total Comments Show All

smithinjapan at 04:23 PM JST - 25th October

tanglewood: ""Manmade global warming" is fast becoming an urban legend."

I thought you guys all already thought it WAS urban legend... or does it take a little bit of mirror-repetition for the denial to set in?

As with the new leadership in Japan, Obama is taking steps to try and ensure the future of his children, and grandchildren, and all of yours. It's probably already too late, and given that the naysayers and deniers on here insist on the environment taking a back seat to making a few bucks in the immediate future, things will continue to go downhill for some time despite the efforts of brave people like the current US president, or Hatoyama (proposals, anyway).

Good luck on passing it. Fortunately the majority of Americans, as clearly indicated by the last election, aren't as eager to be duped by Right-wing nutters as they have been in the past, and won't buy into the lies and denials of said nuts. Things like complete health care coverage for their kids, and a clean world for said kids to live in for some reason scares the bejeezus out of Republicans.
tanglewood at 04:57 PM JST - 25th October

If only the Luddite Left could hope and hope and hold their collective breath and hope until blue in the face hard enough to make all that "bad" CO2 go away.LOL.
SushiSake3 at 10:27 PM JST - 25th October

While I'm **still **waiting for a certain climate change denier (Wolfpack) to come to the table and tell us all exactly how "Al Gore and the Left are scamming you and making a nice buck in the process," in this so-called climate change "paranoia," I'm keen for other deniers to tell us - *precisely *- how, if "The earth has cooled over the last 12 years" as DickMorris clearly claims, then why is the Arctic melting at an unprecedented rate, and forecast to be gone in summer within 10 years?

To climate change deniers, when temperatures become cooler, does ice melt faster?

And, not only that, it's a proven fact that global landmasses and the oceans are warming, which is causing corals to bleach and die.

But, according to some climate change deniers, the Earth is "cooling."

Hello? Hello??? .

I'm sitting here wondering how anyone *with a functioning braincell can actually buy this crp.

This not only completely flies in the face of the laws of physics, it also completely defies the Law of Stupid, ie: There's always someone dumber than you.

Borderline insanity.
Sarge at 10:34 PM JST - 25th October

Sushi - Check this out:

www.globalwarminghysteria.com/ten-myths-of-global-warming
SushiSake3 at 10:46 PM JST - 25th October

Thanks for posting that link Sarge.

Here's what is says, for "MYTH 2: The "hockey stick" graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature increase for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase."

"The "hockey stick", a poster boy of both the UN's IPCC and Canada's Environment Department, ignores historical recorded climatic swings, and has now also been proven to be flawed and statistically unreliable as well. It is a computer construct and a faulty one at that."

Sarge, the funny thing is, that - just like climate change deniers - this website provides no proof whatsoever of its claims.

Sarge, where is the proof to back up the mumble in the link you posted?

Here's a knee-slapper from "Myth 10" - Sea level monitoring in the Pacific (Tuvalu) and Indian Oceans (Maldives) has shown no sign of any sea level rise."

Sarge, that's just wrong. I met the Prime Minister of Tuvalu in Tokyo last year. He was over here to try to obtain grants from the Japanese Government to help his tiny nation shore up defences against the rising ocean, the increasingly high levels of which are flooding islanders' gardens and killing their vegetables and flooding their villages.

Sarge, please do your homework before posting such utter garbage on Japan Today.

Thank you.
SushiSake3 at 10:49 PM JST - 25th October

Oh, and Sarge, maybe you can explain how if the Earth is "cooling", that the ice at the polar ice cap is melting faster than ever.

I'm interested to see just how far you can twist the Laws of Physics to prop up your argument that is so full of holes it's barely worth replying to.

And Sarge, if you have the courage nad fortitude to reply, please provide your own thoughts and theories.

Thank you.
Sarge at 10:59 PM JST - 25th October

Sushi, if you don't believe globalhysteria, check this out:

www.globalwarminghoax.com

Oh, and Sushi, maybe you can explain how if the Earth is "warming," many regions had record cold last winter?
Sarge at 11:01 PM JST - 25th October

And Sushi, you don't really believe that even if the Earth's ocean levels are rising, by junking our SUVs and going back to the stone age, that will stop it?
SushiSake3 at 11:17 PM JST - 25th October

Sarge - "And Sushi, you don't really believe that even if the Earth's ocean levels are rising, by junking our SUVs and going back to the stone age, that will stop it?"

Thanks, you just tacitly admitted that climate change is real.
Nice of you to finally join the rest of us in the real world. :-)

Sarge - "Oh, and Sushi, maybe you can explain how if the Earth is "warming," many regions had record cold last winter?"

Sarge, feel free to throw in some specifics that I can cross check.

And Sarge, when I clearly stated - "if you have the courage and fortitude to reply, please provide your own thoughts and theories," why did you post the URL of a website that has nothing to do with you??
SushiSake3 at 11:21 PM JST - 25th October

Sarge, it's become pretty clear you don't have a case.

All you can do is cut and paste links to some shonky websites that proclaim "facts" in the same way some people claim "Elvis is alive and working in WalMart!"

However, I must congratulate you.

Why? Because you have completely succeeded in pasting a number of "arguments" on this thread with absolutely ZERO facts or evidence to back them up.

That takes some guts.

Well done. :-)
SushiSake3 at 11:28 PM JST - 25th October

Sarge, allow me to post your next comment in advance -

"SushiSake3, it's become pretty clear you don't have a case."

There. :-)
SushiSake3 at 11:43 PM JST - 25th October

Sarge - "And Sushi, you don't really believe that even if the Earth's ocean levels are rising, by junking our SUVs and going back to the stone age..."

What precisely do you mean by that?

Oh, never mind......
Sarge at 01:24 PM JST - 26th October

Sushi - Check this out:

www.infowars.com/climate-change-hoax-of-the-century
TheQuestion at 01:25 PM JST - 26th October

feel free to throw in some specifics that I can cross check

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorialopinion/oped/articles/2008/01/06/brrrwheredidglobalwarminggo/

my favorite part of that one goes "last month, more than 100 scientists signed a strongly worded open letter pointing out that climate change is a well-known natural phenomenon, and that adapting to it is far more sensible than attempting to prevent it."

I don't doubt that climate change is occuring, I simply don't believe that humans are the major driving factor behind it when there are so many more viable culprits. Like, I don't know, the sun, and the fact that its reaching the peak of one of its many solar cycles.

And in responce to the 'hockey stick' graph,

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/13830/page1/

Basically saying that the program they used to create the graph had an annoying little flaw that tossed out any data that did not match up with said hockey stick making it skewed to the tune of rapid and destructive climate change.

As for sea levels Stanford University found that sea levels were "expected to increase by 0.09 - 0.88 m. in the next century, mainly from melting glaciers and expanding seawater ." The large margin has to do with the inexact nature of predicting long term weather patterns, many scientists even go so far as to admit that they really don't know whats going to happen even 15 years down the road. We don't have the records or the means to accuratly predict anything in the long term.

I guess I'm just a hard guy to convince with my radical desire for concrete evidence that the general warming trend is man made and not part of a larger and longer climate cycle that the earth goes through whether we're here or not. And if it is man made...keep it up, maybe some day I won't have to wake up an extra 20 mins early to thaw out my car in the winter.
Sarge at 01:32 PM JST - 26th October

"many scientists even go so far as to admit that they really don't know what's going to happen even 15 years down the road"

Heck, the weather forecasters don't even know what's going to happen TOMORROW. On Friday they predicted it would be sunny all day Saturday, and it was cloudy all day Saturday.