Barack Obama Antagonizes Environmentalists

At the dawn of his campaign for re-election in 2012, has Barack Obama lost his green electoral base? The high society of environmentalists is starting to abandon the American president, starting with the actor Robert Redford, who has just published a militant opinion in the Huffington Post, questioning the Obama administration’s prioritites in an article called “Is the Obama Administration Putting Corporate Profits Above Public Health?” The reasons for this anger: a series of measures considered to be anti-environmental that have been adopted during the month of August.

Last Friday, September 2, Barack Obama withdrew plans for stricter air quality standard regulations, arguing that the measure would have weighed too heavily on industries during this period of strong economic uncertainty. The president has nevertheless promised to renew his commitment to defending the environment.

But for ecologists, this decision marks a change in direction. “The Obama administration is caving to big polluters at the expense of protecting the air we breathe,” declared Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters and environmental lobbyist.

In his article, Robert Redford doesn’t hide his bitterness either: “One reason I supported President Obama is because he said we must protect clean air, water and lands.”

The Green Activists’ Electoral Issue

Above all, it is TransCanada’s Keystone XL oil pipeline project that directs environmentalists’ distrust towards Obama. The project deals with the transportation of crude oil produced at Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada to refineries in Texas. With a length of over 2700 km, it would count amongst the world’s longest oil pipelines, after those in China and Russia.

At the end of August the State Department gave its backing for the completion of this $7 billion project. It is this that has provoked the ire of environmentalist associations, who accuse Obama of “bowing to oil lobbyists.” The American president has 90 days to approve this project.

Hundreds of militant environmentalists have been camping out in front of the White House since August 20 to protest against this oil pipeline. Police have arrested nearly 275 protesters during this two-week civil disobedience campaign.

Among those questioned, one image that has been widely circulated in the media is that of dedicated Hollywood actress Daryl Hannah, handcuffed and smiling as she described the Keystone XL project as an “atrocious environmental travesty.” Canadian journalist and militant Naomi Klein has also been questioned, as well as dozens of young volunteer leaders from Obama’s 2008 campaign.

Facing up to Disenchantment

In its August 21 edition, the New York Times dedicated an editorial to Keystone XL and has clearly pitted itself against this project. “We have two main concerns: the risk of oil spills along the pipeline, which would traverse highly sensitive terrain, and the fact that the extraction of petroleum from the tar sands creates far more greenhouse emissions than conventional production does.”

In a letter addressed to President Obama on August 24, the leaders of primary environmental associations such as Greenpeace and Sierra Club described this oil pipeline project as “most important environmental decision facing President Obama before the 2012 election,” adding, “Denying this pipeline would send a jolt of electricity through the people that elected this president.”

Another figure in this protest movement is influential environmentalist Bill McKibben. “The final call rests with Barack Obama, who said the night that he clinched the Democratic nomination in June 2008 that his ascension would mark ‘the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.’ Now he gets a chance to prove that he meant it,” wrote this militant and activist in an article published by the Washington Post.

On top of this, according to a survey carried out by Yale University, 91 percent of Americans, all of various political tendencies, think that the development of clean energy should be a priority. 71 percent perceive global warming as a priority issue for the White House and Congress.

For Nicholas Dungan, Senior Advisor at the French Institute of International and Strategic Relations, environmental reactions in the United States “are subsiding and disappearing,” notably because of the economic and financial crisis. “There is a deep disillusionment on the part of Obama’s supporters, including environmentalists, which reinforces the Republicans’ fierce opposition to Washington. Obama is going to have to face up to things,” observed this expert.