President Obama is earning criticism for Earth Day plans that include taking Air Force One to the Everglades in Florida to serve as a backdrop for his latest speech about his fears of global warming.
In his speech Obama will claim that global warming is damaging tourism and people’s health. The President has also said that climate change is a national security risk.
“The Everglades is one of the most special places in our country,” Obama said during his Saturday weekly address. “But it’s also one of the most fragile. Rising sea levels are putting a national treasure–and an economic engine for the South Florida tourism industry–at risk.”
Obama went on saying, “there’s no greater threat to our planet than climate change,” and added that it “can no longer be denied–or ignored.”
The President then pledged to push harder at his global warming goals. “We’ve committed to doubling the pace at which we cut carbon pollution, and China has committed, for the first time, to limiting their emissions,” Obama said during his Saturday address. “And because the world’s two largest economies came together, there’s new hope that, with American leadership, this year, the world will finally reach an agreement to prevent the worst impacts of climate change before it’s too late.”
But the President taking Air Force One to Florida to talk of global warming strikes some as hypocritical, or at least that it defeats claims that we need to make severe cutbacks in our lives to “fix” global warming.
On Earth day last year, for instance, Obama burned more than 35,000 gallons of fuel and emitted 375 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in his trips around the world.
Air Force One burns five gallons of fuel every single mile it flies and costs the American people $179,750 an hour. But that is just for the plane itself as the personnel also include 75 people who travel with the president each of whom often get paid overtime during the trips.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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