Barack Obama has a new campaign commercial out. Perhaps you’ve seen it on TV. Its theme is “Forward”.
“Forward” sounds positive. It sounds hopeful. It seems to represent change, so that things tomorrow will be different from today.
The odd thing about this Forward campaign advertisement for Barack Obama is that it celebrates fossil fuels, the energy technology of last century.
Obama brags that oil production in the U.S. is at an 8-year high. Obama forgets to remind us that that high oil production came at the cost of the people killed in the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico and the largest oil spill in American history. President Obama is pushing forward riskier, deeper drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico now, and expanded offshore drilling in the Arctic and up and down the East Coast and West Coast, putting our shores in even more danger of environmental disaster.
Obama claps his hands for himself because natural gas production is now at an all time high. Obama doesn’t mention that this natural gas production is coming with the cost of contamination of groundwater in huge areas across the United States, a result of the risky fracking techniques that have been used to expand natural gas production.
Barack Obama also fails to explain what happened to the climate change legislation that he promised he would move forward with after being elected President in 2008. Obama had strong Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, but he failed to push the climate legislation forward. He just walked away from it, and let the country slide backward into Cold Earther denial propaganda paid for by polluting corporations.
On energy and the environment, Barack Obama isn’t looking forward. He’s just bringing us more of the same.