The political world's focus on the climate crisis is sporadic, at best, so it's always good to hear President Obama not only mention the issue at an event in Chicago last night, but say he doesn't have "much patience" for those who refuse to accept the scientific consensus on climate change.
Obama warned donors that the climate is warming at an accelerated rate, and that while the dangers may not be readily apparent, they are still severe.
"But the flipside is we also know that the climate is warming faster than anybody anticipated five or 10 years ago, and that the future...in part, is going to depend on our willingness to deal with something that we may not be able to see or smell the way you could when the Chicago River was on fire, or at least could have caught on fire, but is in some ways more serious, more fundamental," Obama said.
Because of that seriousness, Obama said he's willing to hear out "a different approach" to dealing with the issue. What he won't consider though, he said, are ideas from climate change deniers.
A few hours earlier, folks attending the Exxon Mobil annual meeting in Dallas heard a very different message.
The CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp. says there's no quick replacement for oil, and sharply cutting oil's use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would make it harder to lift 2 billion people out of poverty.
"What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?" CEO Rex Tillerson said at the oil giant's annual meeting Wednesday.
Let's pause for a moment to consider that quote, because it's a doozy.
"What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?" I'm not an expert, but I'm reasonably certain the point of saving the planet is to prevent suffering. As the climate crisis intensifies and accelerates, the need for a solution grows, not for its own sake, but because the threats posed by climate change may prove catastrophic in the not-too-distant future.
Tillerson's argument seems to be predicated on two assumptions: (1) reducing carbon emissions is necessarily bad for the economy, a dubious assertion to be sure; and (2) it's better to have a more robust economy now than a healthy global climate later.
For the record, Exxon Mobil shareholders considered a proposal to require the oil giant to set goals to reduce emissions. Shareholders rejected it by a nearly 3-to-1 margin.
