The articles posted in this section highlight the dissatisfaction toward Obama's administration and the way they have not reacted to climate change. Obama promised the US voters that he would address climate change and make progress toward improving the US carbon footprint. Instead, he has not made any noticeable steps toward this end. As addressed in the politico.com article, Obama will not see the end results of positive climatic impacts. The next administration will most likely end up taking credit for any of these impacts. As Orr would appreciate, King Hezekiah from the Christian Bible committed a fatal error, revealing the total of his treasurers to another ruler. As punishment, God decreed that his kingdom would fall, however, the king selfishly asked that it not be during his rule but during that of his descendants. Obama will suffer the opposite of this: any good impacts of his climate policies will not be realized until his descendants take office.
Another issue with Obama's rule is that, although he has addressed a carbon cap and other positive climatic changes, he has not made any specific goals or promises. In addition, several Congressmen have to please their constituents, many of whom do not believe in climate warming, or at least support carbon fuels like coal. In Southern Illinois, many people are in support of the coal industry, that gives many people jobs that would otherwise not be able to support their families or be forced to work in lesser-paying jobs. As one Congressman stated, the climate laws need to be "reasonable" and "for the times". By this, I am assuming they mean that the laws need to be tailored to people who want to sacrifice the environment for the economy. They want more compromises and less tailoring.
Al Gore's Ted Talk was very predictable, addressing the evidence of the ice cap shrinking, the worldwide droughts, and issues with deforestation and fossil fuels. The issue with the increasing carbon footprint and the decreasing ice on mountaintops. However, the comments following the video were very interesting. The comments demeaned Al Gore because he was a politician. Another commenter stated that Al Gore apparently plays by "do as I say not as I do" rule; living in large houses (in different expensive locations) with fireplaces and by the beaches he feels will soon be flooded. I checked this through snopes.com (which I see as a valuable source) and it seems that the Gores do live extravagantly compared to most Americans; however, they are trying to live as sustainably as possible given their status. A more recent New York Times article discusses more details of the Gores houses and extravagant spending (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/fashion/the-end-of-the-line.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0).
Finally, the Politics and Global Warming pamphlet addressed how the Tea Party views the world, based on some recent statistics and surveys. Most are distrusting of scientists in general, which leads to their doubts about global warming and evolution. Some of them think that scientists have skewed their data about climate warming, and they also have deceived the nation into thinking that God didn't create the world. They are not worried about climate warming; therefore, they don't think that any effort needs to be made to reduce our environmental impact. Tea Party members also have strong opinions that will not change, which is evidenced toward their strong views about abortion, gay rights, evolution, and other high-profile issues. They also distrust the government, despising taxes and valuing the economy over the environment. Finally, Tea Party members tend to be older, white males who own their own houses, are married, live in the South, work, are conservative evangelicals, and don't believe in evolution. This is a scary group of people that have unfortunately greatly influenced the populace and placed fear in the heart of die-hard liberals. I went to a Rick Santorum rally in Southern Illinois, which was mostly attended by Tea Party members. I listened to him dispute the government and the "political science" not "climate science", or basically doubting the science community. It was discouraging, but not as discouraging as preachers telling their Facebook friends that God wanted them all to vote for Santorum.
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