mong all the tests President Obama faced in his first term, his biggest failure was climate change. After promising in 2008 that his presidency would be ‘the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal,’ President Obama went silent on the most crucial issue of our time. He failed to talk openly with Americans about the risks of continuing to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, failed to put political muscle behind legislation to cap carbon pollution, failed to meaningfully engage in international climate negotiations, failed to use the power of his office to end the fake ‘debate’ about the reality of global warming and failed to prepare Americans – and the world – for life on a rapidly­ warming planet. It was as if the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced became a political inconvenience for the president once he was elected.

Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math

Now Obama gets another shot at it. ‘The politics of global warming are changing fast,’ says Kevin Knobloch, the president of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Thanks to a year of extreme weather and Hurricane Sandy, a large majority of Americans – nearly 90 percent – […]