Top of the priorities?

Rolling Stone magazine is not where one expects the President to make a dramatic shift in the priorities he gives to major issues and the correlating amount of airtime they receive, but that would be forgetting that we are now firmly in election season. As a result, in a recent interview with the magazine, President Obama used the interview as a chance to bring the environment and climate change to the forefront of issues he discussed, a dramatic shift from his notable silence on the issue previously. Obama himself makes the point that this is an issue that it is easy for the American public to forget about in the midst of a financial recession and high unemployment rates but it is also an issue that has strong support base amongst those who do rate it as an important issue, and Obama wants to remind them who they should be voting for in the upcoming election. This is why it has suddenly become a buzzword in Obama's rhetoric, a clear way to distance himself from the Republican party, rather than any actual change in belief on his part.

Soon after this, the White House announced the National Bioeconomy Blueprint, a great way to demonstrate the administrations commitment to creating change in environmental policy and making the U.S. a country with a focus on sustainability and reinforce the message that President Obama is sending with his new rhetoric. Except that most of the 43 page report contains measures that have already been undertaken and so this doesn't seem to be a great signal for change as it first appeared. There are scientists and others who take the documents release as a demonstration of the commitment of the administration to increased sustainability and a way to open the door to further changes, which is of course important in the effort to improve the U.S. environmental record. Regardless of the domestic timing of this document's release, to coincide with Earth Day and the election season, it does help pull the U.S. more into line with the approach that Europe is currently taking, promoting sustainability. The difference between the two approaches lies in Obama's emphasis on making environmental reform integral to economic reform and recovery. By doing this, Obama simultaneously manages to hit multiple targets, demonstrating the importance of the environment but also the issues that he knows the general U.S. public care about in droves, creating jobs and fostering the economy. What remains for environmental advocates then seems to be to cling to the hope that, whilst this emphasis on the environment may not be happening simply to help the environment but rather to create as broad a support base for Obama as possible, positive change can at least come as a side effect from it. This may be the best we can hope for, but does that mean that it's enough to actually make a difference?

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