Obama's MIT Speech on Energy and Climate: A Critical Take

Guest post by Karen Aline McKinnon* The day after the Pew Research Center came out with the report that "Fewer Americans See Solid Evidence of Global Warming," President Barack Obama came to MIT to speak about America’s future in clean energy technology. Sitting in Kresge Auditorium before the speech was set to begin, concerned about the direction–-or lack thereof-–of domestic and international environmental policy, I hoped that Obama’s speech would provide daring new direction and a necessary mandate to move away from a fossil-fuel based economy. Rather, the speech was highly and falsely optimistic in these times of uncertainty regarding climate change policy. Obama stood before energy scientists and environmental activists drawn primarily from research institutions in Cambridge and proudly claimed that those who believe that climate change is not an issue are being marginalized. And so it may seem to those of us ensconced in bastions of science and ...