Obama avoids the silly delusions of oil executives and the Canadian government

After months (years actually) of incessant delusional messaging from the oil industry and its political puppets about how expanding carbon polluting activities (production, pipelines, ports) won’t accelerate global warming, Obama’s speech today was much needed. In addition to directing the EPA to reduce carbon pollution from existing coal plants, he also said that Keystone XL won’t be approved if it leads to increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Of course, he still is not quite asking the right question. Were he to ask “how do we decrease emissions here and abroad?” the obvious answer is “by doing everything we can to prevent new production facilities and delivery infrastructure here and abroad.”

The right questions to ask about releasing more carbon pollution

It gets so frustrating watching the steady flow of op-eds, editorials, and columns (not to mention all of the advertisements) extolling the benefit of putting more carbon pollution into our atmosphere – without ever mentioning the extent to which this increases the risk that global warming will exceed the "safe" threshold of 2 degrees Celsius. Thus, it is so encouraging to see Pete McMartin of the Vancouver Sun finally asking the right questions.