"We can see it and we can feel it - hotter summers, rising sea levels, extreme weather events like stronger storms, deeper droughts, and longer wildfire seasons, all disasters that are becoming more frequent, more expensive, and more dangerous."More backing for my argument that climate communication to the public should use the "can feel it in your bones" approach. Obama is talking about things people can experience directly and compare to their past.
I liked the next part too:
"Our own families have experienced it too - over the past three decades asthma rates have more than doubled and as temperatures keep warming, smog gets worse, and those Americans will be in even greater risk of landing in the hospital."He's making clear that climate change is a direct risk to the listener and that person's family.
Two other comments on the Clean Power Plan: first, nice piece by Simon Lazarus at Balkinization pointing out that the new standard for more active judicial review in the Obamacare case could affect review of whether the CPP is legal. One on hand it means less deference to agency interpretation, potentially bad for CPP since the agency interpretation is what makes CPP work. On the other, the new review pushes judges to interpret the law in a way that makes the law work, and the whole point of CPP in providing flexibility is to make the law work more effectively. So let's hope for the best.
Second, missing in the whole discussion of existing power plants is a reworking of the rule for new power plants. New coal plants would have to incorporate carbon sequestration. Good luck with that, although Clean Coal proponents keep talking about it. Their own talk can be used against them when they litigate on the basis that it's unrealistic.
