Dissecting President Obama’s Global Warming Speech
Nicolas Loris /
This morning, President Obama delivered his climate change speech at a United Nations Summit on Climate Change. Stressing the need for urgent action, Obama told the Assembly that the United States, in his first eight months as President, is becoming a leader in the war against a warming planet.
Obama began his speech by declaring that the time to act is now:
That so many of us are here today is a recognition that the threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing. Our generation’s response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it – boldly, swiftly, and together – we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe.”
The earth’s average temperature has been increasing and decreasing for centuries, and many point to the recent period of warming as evidence of a dangerous human-induced warming. But temperatures have risen and fallen many times before that. The Medieval Warm Period (c. 1100-1450) and earlier periods were likely as warm or warmer than the present. The earth was cooling as recently as the period from the 1940s to the 1970s, giving rise to fears of a coming ice age.