Tweet
Former Vice President Al Gore (photo: Juampe López)
On Friday afternoon, as brave and committed activists continued their non-violent civil disobedience outside the White House in protest of the tar sands pipeline that would lead to a massive increase in global warming pollution, President Obama ordered the EPA to abandon its pursuit of new curbs on emissions that worsens disease-causing smog in US cities. Earlier this year, the EPA’s administrator, Lisa Jackson, wrote that the levels of pollution now permitted — put in place by the Bush-Cheney administration– are “not legally defensible.” Those very same rules have now been embraced by the Obama White House.
Instead of relying on science, President Obama appears to have bowed to pressure from polluters who did not want to bear the cost of implementing new restrictions on their harmful pollution—even though economists have shown that the US economy would benefit from the job creating investments associated with implementing the new technology. The result of the White House’s action will be increased medical bills for seniors with lung disease, more children developing asthma, and the continued degradation of our air quality.
This is the latest sign of the environmental movement’s growing dissatisfaction with Obama. If the Obama administration ends up approving the Keystone XL pipeline after the massive civil disobedience protests against it, it would greatly exacerbate the sense of betrayal many feel in the environmental community.
62 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About FDL Action
Oh fuck Al Gore. A RWM who is not a twit diff from any other useless former or current senator. He’s been invisible on every climate & environmental disaster since he catapulted himself to the best seller list by writing a book. Disgusting human, like all the current and former Beltway types.
But, but, but some talking head on Dylan Ratigan just told me 78% of “liberal” Democrats approve of Obama. I’m liberal and voted Democratic but I sure as hell don’t approve of Obama.
In retrospect, it seems that Gore was the tintype for O. A narcissistic jerk who could easily pass as an environmentalist by writing a book while advocating the same polluting policies of Rs & Ds. Both Gore & O were able to hide their actual selves via rhetoric, though O has the advantage of having his real radical corporatism better hidden by the color of his skin and his better rhetoric.
Ocoma capitulates to the polluters again like he did during the gulf clean up and Gore is the problem in your opinion? thanks for the laugh.
The self-identified “liberal Ds” are what Rummy referred to as dead-enders.
Gore is not the problem, only a tea-insy part of it. He certainly is not the solution. Did you hear Word One from him during the Gulf disaster? Has he chained himself to the fence over the pipeline? He’s done the bare minimum, like O, to maintain his creds with certain aspects of environmentalism, while his record says he pissed all over environmentalists.
And while we’re on Gore’s case, let us not forget it was he who chose Lieberman as his veep.
My guess is that he was looking for another way to disappoint his base….I’m sure disappointed….You? I am hoping against hope that someone will primary him….If not, unless there is some major reason and I’m not talking about some crazy republican running against him…it’s the green party or anyone who will keep his/her promises….
Oh oh. The Dems are getting scared.
Quick, send out Al Gore, Michael Moore and the rest.
Even if Gore was willing to primary Obama, you can bet a dollar to a NAFTA agreement that the campaign will not be open, will not allow dissent and will be a repeat of the Madison Ave hype of the Big O.
Glad to see that folks here are not falling for it.
That was the dumbest VP choice ever….Well not as dumb as Palin, next dumbest?
Besides, Al Gore is fat and he owns a big house.
Had an argument about the harmful Obama environmental decisions with an electrician neighbor who does cleanup of toxic spills. He is totally supporting Obama. Pretty politically informed too. He just would not accept my criticism of the Tar pipeline, ozone deregulation, drill baby drill and other environmental destruction that Obama has supported. He blames California for cutting cleanup funding.
He uses the “he could not help it argument”. What can be done to convince these minds?
Is it just me or did Dylan Ratigan seem drunk on his show today? Something was wrong with him….
Green Party, if not wholly owned subsidiary of big biz, is surely highly compromised by big biz donations. Again, going back to Gulf disaster, it took Green Party a long time to weigh in on their front page on it (ditto Sierra Club). You can’t rely on any of these orgs bc they are big; big requires big bucks and big bucks are coming from the 1%ers who are using their loot to subvert environmental groups.
The neighbor I mentioned had a huge Gore/Lieberman banner on front of his house that election cycle.
I would hardly align Gore with the environmental movement. The fact he’s criticizing Obama just shows how far right Obama is. Even a DLC’er, Dem-4-Life, is criticizing him. That, or he’s hoping Dems can ride the wave of growing protests by pretending there’s division in their party, like the “Tea Party” serves for the Republican Party.
Um, no. Not dumb at all. Signal to the 1%ers that Gore would be biz as usual. And since they’re the only ones who count, what coulda been smarter if you’d been put in the penalty box after Lewinsky.
If Ocoma capitulates to every monied interest that confronts him during his first term; what would he give up during his second term when he is never going to run again? Blow job billy did more harm with his deregulations during his second 4 yr term. without blow job billy the housing crisis would never had been this bad. now Ocoma surrounds himself with all manner of clintonites( sounds like a type of people the israelites smited in the old testiment) and we wait for a different outcome.
eCAHn
Why stop there. There is sooo much to point out about Al Gore. NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT, IMF, 1996 Telecommunications Act, massive give a ways to the Lumber and Mining interests, Welfare Reform. Then there is his cute little movie.
Which tells us that the solution to global climate change is for us little people to change light bulbs. Not one word about Monsanto, ADM, GE and all the other corporate polluters.
Al Gore is about as green washed as BP, GE, SHELL OIL etc etc.
Brand Al Bore, I mean Gore* (Registered Trademark, all rights reserved)
When even one of the co-founders of the DLC calls you a corporate sell-out, that’s something.
Yessir. Just reading the chapter (penultimate I think) of Zinn’s Peep’s history, which is about the 2000 election. He makes all your points and I thank you for having the energy to type them.
Those supporters are just a variant of tea partiers so logic is not part of the package when it comes to their biases. I don’t think that there is much you can do to change those minds.
I typically don’t tolerate criticism of President Obama but in this case some is warranted. Man caused climate change is the single greatest threat ever faced by humanity. We are talking extinction folks. We of the progressive movement must never back down or surrender on this most important of all realities. The Koch brothers have spent billions deceiving the american people about the 99.99% of all real scientist who have proven the fact that climate change is directly caused by human carbon emissions. That is a scientific fact and any suggestions of possible causes other than human carbon emissions are nutsack lies.
We must press President Obama to initiate a carbon production cessation program, by executive order if need be. Life as we know it hangs in nthe balance!
Could his criticism of BO Plenty be a signal that national Dems are willing to primary the President? That might give us a better outcome than Perry and company.
You gonna hang around to be challenged or hit ‘n run like yesterday.
My challenge to you would be, what’s the diff bet O & Koch? None that I can tell.
Bythe Masters, JP Morgan and the origination, marketing and trading of carbon emissions (Dec. 27, 2010).
Al Gore, Goldman Sachs and Generation Investment Management (Aug. 6, 2011).
Koch brothers, the House Energy & Commerce Committee and the Keystone XL Pipeline (Sept. 6, 2011).
No.
Another simple A to simple Q.
Nice.
Thanks for all the good thoughts on our planet and it’s very unique atmosphere that supports so many species many are gone or going. Without the human species tha rest would fare better.
Reducing population can help. Changing industrial technologies can go a long way to protect water, air and soils. Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and the 100,000 industrial chemicals that are classified an endocrine disrupter could be replaced by less harmful ones. Why is there no incentive to do these things?
We still have nuclear particles in the atmosphere from Fukishima with thousands of years of pollution. Where is the common sense of this approach to sustaining life?
Gore is certainly wimpy on the issues but we need all the help from every corner so I am happy he is coming out againsts this. Probably does not want to go up against Bill Mcibben and 350.org who gives cover.
Yes.
The important environmental factor to keep in mind is that it NOT about us. You are absolutely right that the planet would be better off without humans.
Large campaign checks have a habit of perking the recipient’s ears up.
yup.
what’s next?
Obama is going to approve the pipeline some Friday soon.
What’s next?
It’s time for someone to stand up to this fake. (see …. Texas)
you left out “Al Gore has a big house”
does any of that mean he’s wrong?
no.
wake up.
I could not have said it better. And, the Keystone pipeline had its’ environmental review by the State Department because of NAFTA. Thank you Gore and thank you Hillary, for this environmental disaster waiting to happen.
This is a reply to 19
I could not have said it better. And, the Keystone pipeline had its’ environmental review by the State Department because of NAFTA. Thank you Gore and thank you Hillary, for this environmental disaster waiting to happen.
Gore as VP to the Clinton’s is kinda locked into his donor base of industrialist and bankers. I would say he is a Blue Dog philosophically. He folded to the Bush Florida scams and that was a huge turning point for our economy, foreign and domestic policy. He was in the Administration that approved the spying on Amricans technology with the requirement of telephone Hub dumps. The Sarbanes Oxley law 2002 that rolled back securities protection legislation from the depression so we would not have what we have today was supported in a Democratic majority.
I’m pretty much unimpressed with Al Gore anymore. Began with his choice of LIEbertoad for Veep, which was completed with Gore’s “decision” to wimp out by doing bupkiss vis the 2000 coup d’etat. Guess Gore got HIS, so eff the rest of us.
Gore seems to be trotted out periodically to say something that has the wiff of truthiness about it, but that’s about all.
As eCAHN said above, where the eff has Gore been over time, esp with the belching Gulf of Mex oil volcano last year??? My memory ain’t what it used to be, I sure don’t recollect Gore saying *anything* to the PTB about that. And now it’s my understanding that former BP CEO Tony Hayward has scored himself a cushy new cha-ching job continuing to rape & pillage the environment for his own personal profit.
Gore? Gimme a break. Might as well be all gushy about BHObama, which I’m not. Don’t trust Gore anymore; he’s part of the problem, not a solution, sad to say.
A-men. Exactly. Gore’s just part of the machine… no more, no less. Don’t trust him. Too much blood on his hands, imo.
If Al Gore really wants to be cereal about the environment, he needs to move into one of these http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com houses and share it with ManBearPig!
Listening, Al? He rode em into the White House.
That is weak sauce. Lame, lame, lame, effing lame.
That man needs to find a fire in his belly. What’s he got in there, a holiday tree bulb?
FDL needs to do what DFA has done and train some firebreathing ass kickers. Al could take the remedial class.
Not time enough to convince anyone. Best you can do is provide another perspective to those folks. If they aren’t ready to hear it, next person might.
yeah, you guys are right, it’s all Al Gore’s fault. What the hell was I thinking?
Punxsutawney Al plays his part to give the appearance of debate within the Party.
Huh?
The Obama Administration threatens a veto!
… but *not* for the Keystone XL pipeline* (emptywheel, Sept. 7, 2011).
*1,253 arrests. Some journalists cite this as the biggest civil disobedience action since 1977 as well as the most sustained since the Civil Rights movement campaigns.
The name calling, seems really childish. Perhaps we much have been invaded by tea bagging trolls. Regardless, I agree with Gore. The President has no authority to violate the Clean Air Act and randomly kill citizens.
How about this? Fuck Obama! Are you the one that thinks President Zero’s 2nd term? is going to be just beautiful?
From “Links, 9/7/11” (emptywheel, Sept. 7, 2011; many more excellent insights therein!):
“BP Hires a Pentagon PR Warrior” (Mother Jones, Sept. 7, 2011)
Hat tip emptywheel for comment to “Congresswoman Lee Introduces Bill to Repeal AUMF” (David Swanson, Sept. 6, 2011
So O DOES have the right to kill innocent foreigners, which he does with gay abandon? Or U.S. citizens who he designates as terrorists without due process of law.
Why are you drawing artificial lines? Prez has ability to kill anyone he wants to at his will.
Obama is the modern day Howdy Doody, and Charles Koch is the puppeteer.
In a nutshell.
I would caution that the PTB are not homogeneous. They are to some extent at daggers drawn with each other. For example, founding fathers PTB were very diff from Brit PTB in colonies. So ff had to get enough of pop (1/3) on their side so that ff PTB could take over from Brit PTB.
O is not a Koch puppet. Kochs hate him.
O is a wholly owned subsidiary of others members of the establishment (Excelon, PhRMA, insurance corps for example).
Worth keeping in mind when you talk about this issue with people who are not plugged in to how the system works.
Name calling is welcome if it’s satire.
The more direct speaking folk are not welcome among the highfalutin, is that it?
You suggested the name callers are tea baggers and I for one resent it.
I challenge you to a du-el! (Did that sound all prim and proper enough?) :)
I will accept the childish charge.
Great comments on this thread, eCAHN, as usual, but especially pithy and Zinn-like, this evening.
;~DW
I’m often in love with the book I’m currently reading, and often repeat points from it as a way of cementing them in my brain. You’ll just have to allow me that repetition.
I’ve always liked Al Gore but think at some point he began breathing the vapors. Even if he’s right the aura around him has become that of a crank. The style has overtaken the substance. What he’s worried about gets lost in all of it.
Isn’t there some new blood available?
No. Simple As to simple Qs.
The system carefully screens up and comers. Obama got a pass becuaue he is an empty suit and heels when told so that he initiates only what the MOTU want.
That was forced on Gore by the Clintons and Tipper. The idea was that Gore for some reason needed to distance himself from the allegedly “scandal-tainted” Clinton, and thus had to spot-weld himself to the guy who gave the Republicans the bipartisan cover they needed to start the impeachment process.
Gore learned his lesson and came out for Dean in 2003, an act for which Lieberman, for whom loyalty has always been a one-way street, has never forgiven him.
“But the fact is, to put America’s economic future in jeopardy, asking us to cut back in areas that would have monstrous economic impact on this country is not good economics…”
Is this Rick Perry or Barack Obama talking about environmental regulation?
It’s Barick Obamaperry!
(actually a Perry quote from the recent debate)
Hard to believe that the Koch’s perceive Obama’s neoliberalism to be even in the slightest way threatening.
Obama’s as much of a believer in the market as the ultimate and only legitimate arbiter of human affairs as they are.
Yes, Al Gore is too closely tied to corporations. Yes, Al Gore was a co-founder of the DLC. Yes, Al Gore should not have picked Joe Lieberman as his running mate. Yes, Al Gore should not have supported the Clinton administration’s neoliberal initiatives of NAFTA, repeal of Glass-Steagal, welfare “reform”, etc. Yes, Al Gore should have spoken out more strongly against BP and other corporate polluters.
NO, no way in hell is Al Gore comparable to Obama. He is a genuine environmentalist. His book “Earth in the Balance” and movie “An Inconvenient Truth” did not attack corporate interests enough, but they brought huge attention to global warming as an urgent environmental issue. Had he been elected president, he definitely would have moved the pendulum slightly to the left, as shown by his quite populist acceptance speech, a speech Bill Clinton never would have made. His endorsement of Howard Dean for President in 2004 showed a definite break in a progressive direction (Obama has utterly scorned Dean and his successful, 50-state strategy that won Congress for the Democrats in 2008).
There are degrees in life, and to effect positive change you have to support allies when you find them, however impure they may be. Otherwise, you are acting as a tool of right wing forces.
And I would add that in the Y2K coup, the powers that be decreed Gore unacceptable to be president. That is surely a good recommendation.