Weekly Address: Protecting our Planet for Future Generations
Source: White House
In this week's address, the President laid out the importance of serving as good stewards of the environment and maintaining the planet for generations to come. Since taking office the President has prioritized protecting the places that make America special. He has repeatedly said that no challenge poses a greater threat to our future than a changing climate, which is why hes taken bold actions at home and encouraged historic action abroad on the issue. In his address, he encouraged Congress to reauthorize and fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund which has protected more than 5 million acres of land for more than half a century, without costing taxpayers a dime. Republicans in Congress let the fund expire despite strong bipartisan support. And he reminded us that we all have to do our part to address climate change, promote clean energy and energy efficiency, and ensure a cleaner, more stable environment for future generations.
Read more: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/10/24/weekly-address-protecting-our-planet-future-generations
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/10/24/weekly-address-protecting-our-planet-future-generations
Our country is home to some of the most beautiful God-given landscapes in the world. Were blessed with natural treasures from the Grand Tetons to the Grand Canyon; from lush forests and vast deserts to lakes and rivers teeming with wildlife. And its our responsibility to protect these treasures for future generations, just as previous generations protected them for us.
Since taking office, Ive set aside more than 260 million acres of public lands and waters more than any President in history. Last month, we announced that 11 states had come together with ranchers, and industry groups to protect a threatened species the sage grouse without jeopardizing local economies. Two weeks ago, we announced that were creating one new marine sanctuary on the Potomac River in Maryland, and another along Lake Michigan in Wisconsin part of unprecedented efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay and the Great Lakes. We also joined a coalition of countries cracking down on illegal fishing that threatens jobs and food security around the globe. And Im going to keep protecting the places that make America special, and the livelihoods of those who depend on them.
Well also keep doing what we can to prevent the worst effects of climate change before its too late. Over the past six years, weve led by example, generating more clean energy and lowering our carbon emissions. Our businesses have stepped up in a big way, including just this past week. Some of our biggest companies made new commitments to act on climate not just because its good for the planet, but because its good for their bottom line.
This is how America is leading on the environment. And because America is leading by example, 150 countries, representing over 85% of global emissions, have now laid out plans to reduce their levels of the harmful carbon pollution that warms our planet. And it gives us great momentum going into Paris this December, where the world needs to come together and build on these individual commitments with an ambitious, long-term agreement to protect this Earth for our kids.
Now Congress has to do its job. This month, even as Republicans in Congress barely managed to keep our government open, they shut down something called the Land and Water Conservation Fund. For more than half a century, this fund has protected more than 5 million acres of land from playgrounds to parks to priceless landscapes all without costing taxpayers a dime. Nearly every single county in America has benefited from this program. It has bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate. Republicans in Congress should reauthorize and fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund without delay.
After all, as Pope Francis reminds us so eloquently, this planet is a gift from God and our common home. We should leave it to our kids in better shape than we found it.
BumRushDaShow
(129,449 posts)Listened in on the radio broadcast this a.m.
Hope that future Presidents don't try to take all that land back that has been set aside by this one.
I think the immediate drama of Hurricane Patricia the past day, has illustrated the extremes that climate change brings about. Texas has always had a pattern of cyclical drought -> floods -> drought -> floods. But with the state of our climate today, it is apparent that the swings between the cycles will intensify, bringing about devastation to the increasing human development in areas that do have natural cycles. One would think that corporate focus on "bottom line" would finally make them act before their own infrastructure gets wiped out (at a significant cost to them) by a Mother Nature-on-the-steroids that they helped to create.
frizzled
(509 posts)Seven billion humans aren't going to live sustainably on one earth.
There was also a very conspicuous missing word from that bit about a carbon-free world: "nuclear".
PasadenaTrudy
(3,998 posts)skepticscott
(13,029 posts)He's a johnny-come-lately on this issue if there ever was one.
And what evidence do you have that this planet is a gift from gawd? As opposed to simply a place where we happened to evolve to the point of awareness of the environment, and now can't leave?
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)position and initiatives...not perfect enough, or too late, or we all all going to die!, or not to be trusted...take your pick from the meaningless generalities opposed by the evidence.
Grumpy cats are conservatives, not liberals.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)that Obama's climate change initiatives are not too little, too late (not that it's his fault).
The "evidence" is clear that nothing he proposes will do anything but slow the rate of increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere any time soon. Carbon dioxide levels will continue to go up for the foreseeable future, and methane levels will increase as well, as melting releases trapped gases. It will be many decades before carbon dioxide levels even stop going up, let alone decrease, and many more decades before they could be brought back to a non-damaging level. By that time, the effects will, in all likelihood, not be reversible on a time scale that matters to us. Despite your hyperbole, we are not "all going to die", but human civilization will be well and truly fucked beginning some time in this century.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)skepticscott
(13,029 posts)Nor does self-delusion. Sorry if the plain truth is uncomfortable. I don't much like it either, but that doesn't matter, nor does whether you're convinced or not. Mother Nature just doesn't care.
The fact remains and is undeniable: NOTHING that Obama or anyone else has proposed will do anything except slow the rate of increase of greenhouse gas levels soon enough to make any difference. In fact it's likely that we'll look back 30 or 40 years from now (to the extent we have such luxuries by that time) and see that in 2015 we were already past the point of no return.
I don't blame you for wanting to be positive about it, but if you're under 60, you may want to start preparing.