Al Gore in Davos
After eight years of watching his pleas go ignored by the Bush Administration, Al Gore must be relieved that his dire warnings about the future of the planet finally have an audience. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Gore praised President Obama for the steps he’s taking to curb global warming despite the economic meltdown.
Gore isn’t the only one sighing in relief. Scientists around the world have heralded Obama’s plans to reverse Bush’s backwards policies on key scientific issues like stem cell research and climate change. We’ve moved from a presidential administration that made a habit of removing inconvenient truths from scientific reports to one that is finally taking seriously the terrifying predictions in Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”
While it’s still too early to tell exactly how much Obama will accomplish, the early indications are promising: on Monday, Obama announced his plan to allow the states, most notably California, to set their own standards for auto emissions, reversing the policy of the Bush administration to leave those decisions exclusively up to the federal government. That, incidentally, was the policy favored by the obnoxious and moribund auto industry.
