You are browsing the archive for barack obama.

The Simplest Multi-Billion Dollar Budget Cut of All: Oil Subsidies

3:44 pm in barack obama, Business & Politics, congress, oil, united states by TreeHugger

oil-rig-offshore-coast-drilling.jpg Photo credit: mikebaird via Flickr/CC BY If you're looking for compelling evidence that GOP power brokers don't really care about reducing the deficit -- beyond purporting to do so in order to push their anti-government spending narrative, of course -- look no further than the party's stance on Read the full story on TreeHugger

Obama’s Failure To Communicate Left Us High & Dry

2:32 pm in barack obama, Business & Politics by TreeHugger

obama-communicator.jpg Photo credit: borman18 via Flickr/CC BY What we've got here is, well ... Obama blew it. How, when, and on which bill or negotiation he blew it will vary from observer to observer. Democrats, progressives, and moderates all agree that Obama blew it on something or other (conservatives uniformly detested him from the beginning, and would argue he blew it on everything) -- whether it was caving to Republicans on the debt ceiling, failing to explain his health care bill to the public, or abandoning climate and clean energy legi...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Shell Gets Conditional Approval From Obama Administration For Arctic Oil Drilling

1:37 pm in arctic, barack obama, Business & Politics, oil by TreeHugger

via internet business politics This is bound to be challenged by every single environmental group with a stake here, but it's still really not encouraging: New York Times reports that the Department of Interior has granted Shell conditional approval to start drilling oil exploration wells in the Arctic Ocean starting next summer. The proposed drill sites are in the Beaufort Sea just north of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, and east of Prudhoe Bay and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline....Read the full story on TreeHugger

Massive Tar Sands Pipeline Protest to Hit White House this Month

2:09 pm in barack obama, Business & Politics, canada, carbon emissions, global climate change, oil, united states by TreeHugger

white-house-climate-politics.jpg Photo credit: dcJohn via Flickr/CC BY If you have even a fleeting passion for the environment, you probably already know what a monstrosity Canada's tar sands are. It's been dubbed the "most environmentally destructive project on Earth". A 1,700 mile pipeline that would pump the stuff to refineries along the Gulf coast, the Keystone XL, is currently awaiting the go-ahead from the Obama administration. Which is why scientists, e...Read the full story on TreeHugger

President Obama’s Environmental Record: Good on Fuel Efficiency, Not So Good on Climate & Energy

11:48 am in barack obama, Business & Politics, global climate change by TreeHugger

barack obama photo photo: Utenriksdepartementet UD/Creative Commons Assessing President Obama's environmental record so far seems to be the rage in the past few weeks. First Slate and now Yale e360 is stock-taking, enlisiting a dozen prominent environmental activists, economists, and pundits to extend their views...Read the full story on TreeHugger

How Would You Grade Obama’s Environmental Progress?

6:28 pm in barack obama, Business & Politics, united states by TreeHugger

via internet business politics President Obama is getting ready to kick his reelection campaign into high gear. As such, it's an opportune time to take a look back at his achievements in the environmental arena thus far -- and that's precisely what Slate's Green Lantern has done here, serving the president an environmental report card for his first term. Go see how he fared. What grade would you give Obama for his work in the green sphere? ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

National Parks Policy: Obama Vs. Bush

12:18 pm in barack obama, Business & Politics, conservation, united states by TreeHugger

Arches national park photo Image: james.gordon6108 via flickr There are a lot of things about environmental policy from the Bush era that we'd like to see reversed, but one thing he may have done better than Obama is preserve, or at least not destroy, national parks, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. We already know these treasured public places, America's best idea, are in trouble, but PEER has put together an interesting a...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Al Gore Blasts Obama, Media for Dropping the Ball on Climate

4:37 pm in al gore, barack obama, Business & Politics, united states by TreeHugger

al-gore-climate-obama.jpg Photo: Davos Economic Forum via Flickr/CC BY Al Gore is typically considered the face of climate advocacy. An instantly-recognizable establishment figure, the former Vice President usually works extremely hard to put forth an optimistic, cooperative vision for making progress on the climate issue. But it appears he's finally nearing the end of his rope, as I saw evidence of in his talk at Games for Change this year. He's frustrated beyond belief, and he's Read the full story on TreeHugger

Obama Still Hasn’t Put Up Those Solar Panels on the White House Roof …

4:20 pm in barack obama, Business & Politics, congress, solar power by TreeHugger

solar-power-panels.jpg Photo Credit: Andreas Demmelbauer via Flickr/CC BY So give him a call to remind him. Seriously. The line to the White House is 202-456-1111. Again, I'm perfectly serious. You may remember the saga from a while back, when a group of clean energy activists drove down to the White House with Jimmy Carter's old s...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Where’s That Green Jobs Revolution Obama Promised?

3:40 pm in barack obama, Business & Politics, green jobs, united states by TreeHugger

obama-speaking-climate.jpg Photo credit: US Navy When Obama first came into office in 2009, he did so on the back of a promise to usher in a green jobs revolution of sorts -- with an intent to employ 5 million people in sectors like clean energy and efficiency improvement retrofitting. And while he did manage to secure the largest sum of funding for clean energy research and green initiatives in the ...Read the full story on TreeHugger