On climate change, Obama deserves the prize

The problem with where’s-the-beef commentary is that it often reveals an absence of beef in the head of the commenter.
As the national media frets today that Barack Obama should not have won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Wall Street Journal’s Keith Johnson takes the environmental flank, expressing befuddlement at the Nobel Committee’s recognition of Obama’s effort to stop global warming. Johnson argues Obama hasn’t done much about climate change yet, but Johnson just hasn’t done his research yet:
The Nobel committee put special emphasis on the nuclear-weapons push. But there was also a nod to President Obama’s stance on climate change. Specifically: “Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting.”
That seems to set the bar pretty low. Yes, candidate Obama (nominations for the prize closed in February) embraced a tougher stance on greenhouse-gas emissions than the previous administration. Yes, he’s been pushing for a clean-energy revolution at home.
Little has actually been done yet—least of all concerning the U.S. stance ahead of global climate talks in Copenhagen in December, where the prospect of closing a successful replacement for the Kyoto treaty gets dimmer by the day.
via WSJ.
I know it’s chic now even in lefty circles to criticize Obama, but accuracy could still reign over the criticism.
Obama has poured unprecedented funding into alternative energy ($15 billion) and alternative transportation, launched high-speed rail, exercised the power to declare carbon dioxide a pollutant, sought a low-emissions zone for 200 miles surrounding our coasts, enacted the toughest auto-emissions standards in U.S. history, and begun converting the auto industry to electric vehicle production.
He ended welfare for oil companies and urged the rest of the world to do the same.
He has preserved two million acres of wilderness and a thousand miles of rivers.
Those actions, which occurred through the Stimulus Bill, the federal budget, and executive orders, all have a positive impact on the global climate.
Even if Congress enacts a climate bill, an accurate history will point to the Stimulus Bill as America’s turning point on global warming. That’s where the shift began from fossil fuels to clean energy.
While Congress hasn’t gotten its act together on comprehensive climate legislation, Obama stopped the executive branch’s foot dragging on climate change and leaned its shoulder into stopping global warming. He ripped the duct tape off the mouths of the nation’s scientists, who had been gagged by eight years of hostility to science under the previous administration.
The House and Senate climate bills, which aren’t his, may not be all that we would like, but they are more than most greens dared hope for just one year ago, and for many years prior.
If the House and Senate fail–everyone seems to forget–the EPA has the power to enact cap and trade through the Clean Air Act. Obama still holds the hammer over the debate. He’s giving Congress a chance to act before he brings that hammer down.
Even if peace hasn’t broken out all over the world, the White House is greener than it has ever been.