Van Jones on Obama: Climate "Is Going To Be the Issue He's Judged On"

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/12/van-jones-obama-climate-interview

Van Jones is a leading environmental and human rights advocate, President Obama's former "green jobs" special advisor, a CNN contributor, and the New York Timesbestselling author of The Green Collar Economy and Rebuild the Dream. Chris Mooney spoke with him by phone as part of our ongoing coverage of how President Obama can tackle the climate issue—and lead—in his second term.

Mother Jones: Obama and global warming—decode his signals for us. Is he really going to take the lead here in the next 4 years, and prioritize this issue?

Van Jones: I think it’s not clear sometimes how America is prioritizing the issue. Four years ago, both presidential candidates, McCain and Obama, ran as climate champions. The only thing that they agreed on was that global warming was real, caused by humans, could be fixed by cap and trade, and that that would lead to jobs. Four years ago, that was common ground, and the only common ground. And four years ago, people were still impacted by Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth.

the denial of the republicans of warming is not so much their rejecting the science, what they are rejecting is the impending regulation to all fossil fuel manufacturers, that are the major cause for ozone depletion and onset of global warming in a short and sweet it will cost the muli billion dollar annual earnings og big oil and coal have to pay more to assure safety in work place and the environment, distasteful as that might be to them it's a reality, so do they win again and again or is this their Waterloo?

Well, all of the horrible things that were shown in Al Gore's film in 2007, you can see on the Weather Channel in 2012. And yet you don't see people marching down the street, even in the wake of Sandy, even in the face of the drought, demanding change. So I think that's a factor in Washington, DC, not being as vocal or as visible.

Now that said, I think that's starting to change, and I think this president is going to have to deal both with the worsening science, and the returning public will to act. And I credit Bill McKibben and 350.org for coming on so strong since the election was over, and also the shock of Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath, for I think creating a new moment for climate solutions to take center stage.

MJ: What would real climate leadership look like? You gave President Obama a "B" or "B-" on the environment in his first term, what would he have to do to earn an "A" in the second one?

VJ: An "A" would be a major energy and climate bill as a centerpiece of his legacy. He obviously has to deal with the economy and the budget issues that the Tea Party keeps trying to politicize. And there's a question of immigration reform, which is critical as a major part of the progressive coalition. But, ten years from now, twenty years from now, the only thing people are going to be asking of this president is either, why he didn't find the courage to do something on climate change, or they're going to be asking how he found the courage. I think from the viewpoint of history, this is going to be the issue that he's judged on.

this is not something that we should leave to republican "serious" solutions, that is an oxymoron, not a solution. they want military might, witch hunt no tax on rich more wars, but thy don't want to burden their grandchildren with the debt but they are more then willing to leave them with this;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGqFUyRjavc