Climate change and what President Obama is going to do about the weather

So I’m listening to the President’s press conference and a reporter asks that in light of the recent weather calamities, does the President have a strategy for his next four years to deal with climate change.

I learned a lot from the Presidents response. He said he believed there was climate change happening, that there was global warming and an accelerated melting of the ice caps. He then went on to talk about auto emissions, clean energy, getting members of both parties on board to discuss ways to deal with climate change, etc.

But what I learned came from what he didn’t say. He didn’t mention the rest of the world. It was like the US alone was responsible and could change the climate; like bad weather developed over only US territory and dumbed its wrath in the same place. So I learned the President either had no idea what he was talking about or was mostly concerned with a politically correct answer; the latter hopefully the most likely.

The fact is that the US could do all the right things to reduce carbon emissions and it would have a very modest impact on global warming and weather as long as major areas in the rest of the world go on their merry way doing what they do now.

A more appropriate response to the question would have been to note the above and say he was going to undertake an international initiative (be a leader if you will) to get the rest of the world on board and attempt to truly address the problem on a global basis. After all, they don’t call it USA warming.