President Obama, Bill McKibben & I Want You To Man Up on Global Warming. It’s Time To Book Your Hotel In Copenhagen NOV 25 UPDATE: 1 Day Later Obama Says He’s Going

I voted for Barack Obama and I worked hard campaigning to get him elected. I would do it again and I’m proud of the small contribution I made to achieve change.

But I’m not happy with the President’s strategy or performance when it comes to our nation’s response to global warming. After the jump I’ll share what I said on Climate Progress about it yesterday, and you can read Bill McKibben’s comment there too.

But first, let’s listen to what McKibben told Grist TV yesterday about it:

Yesterday on his Climate Progress blog, Joe Romm, reported on the White House’s attempt to spin Obama’s Copenhagen participation in a post he called, “Breaking – US Will Announce Target For Cutting Carbon Emissions Before Copenhagen”  He ended his piece with a comment on whether Obama will go to Copenhagen himself and wrote,

“He ought to go, and I expect he will.”

And here’s what I wrote in reply:

He ought to do a lot more than just go.
He ought to lead the way on this issue.

He ought to acknowledge that the USA is only 4% of the world’s population, but that we contribute 25% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions – and that number doesn’t even include all the emissions our companies outsource to be belched out in other countries. He ought to take responsibility for those emissions.

He ought to also acknowledge the damage we’re doing to the world’s most vulnerable nations with each day we continue to delay drastically cutting our GHG emissions.

And he ought to use his worldwide popularity and the media spotlight he enjoys to do the job reaching and teaching his audience the facts about global warming, generating the sense of urgency this issue demands.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

As the saying on the basketball court goes – “If ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ were raisins and nuts we’d all be eating Waldorf salads.”

“Wimpy and inadequate” is the apt description of United States action so far, which only looks good under Obama compared to the eight years of Bush, but the best we can do? Hardly. Not even close.

We need a Winston Churchill on this issue, and we needed him yesterday.

Expecting anyone else but President Obama to fill those shoes ignores who he is and where we currently are on the timeline.

It’s time for greatness and historic achievements. Doing the best under the circumstances no longer cuts it.