Combating Climate Change is an Olympic Feat
October 03, 2009 - by Molly MannAfter reading this piece by Elizabeth Kolbert in The New Yorker Magazine yesterday, and listening to President Obama's failed plea to bring the Olympics to Chicago, I wondered: what if the president saved his rhetoric of urgency for matters that were....urgent? And there is no matter more so than the need to halt climate change now.
The United States is the largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, at 20 tons per person per year. That's more -- per capita, not total -- than China. Instead of being the leader in emissions, we need to be the leader in change and President Obama, who campaigned on the slogan of change, has to be the one to step forward on this. Forget Chicago; forget the Olympics. Focus instead on reversing the apathy of the Clinton administration's apathy toward environmental measures and the Bush administration's sabotage of them.
President Obama, my peers and I elected you because you held out promise of a future for us. We want jobs, we want affordable healthcare, and we need a clean and safe world. Games are fun, but please focus on the work at hand.
