Interestingly, food production is probably the single greatest source of pollutants that the country has, and, so far, I have seen very little discussed about reforming agriculture (but, perhaps I am missing something).

This is a point that I really don’t think gets stressed enough. I’ve written about this in the past, and reported the startling statistics available for this issue. For example, The Environmental Defense Fund reports that if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted it with vegetarian foods, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than a half-million cars off U.S. roads.

I was hoping Obama would appoint Michael Pollan, author of the Omnivore’s Dilemma to Secretary of Agriculture, but no such luck. I agree with you that this is an enormously important issue in the larger environment dialogue. I’ve heard from numerous environmental experts that the best way to make an immediate, big impact on cutting individual carbon footprints is to buy local and avoid meat.

I also think there is an excellent case to be made that reforming automotive efficiency standards will simply lead to more cars being bought and more being driven. The solution is to move towards public transportation (something akin to suggestions made by George Monbiot in Heat) and a re-imagining of our zoning laws, and while high-speed rail is a start, it is not much of one.

Interestingly, food production is probably the single greatest source of pollutants that the country has, and, so far, I have seen very little discussed about reforming agriculture (but, perhaps I am missing something). If Obama was serious about environmental reform, he would probably start by reforming the most clearly problematic sector, wouldnt he?

Obama has been at least as aggressive as Bush was in asserting radical secrecy doctrines in order to prevent courts from ruling on illegal torture and spying programs and to block victims from having a day in court. He has continued and even “ramped up” so-called “targeted killings” in Pakistan and Afghanistan which, as Goldsmith puts it, “have predictably caused more collateral damage to innocent civilians.” He has maintained not only Bush’s rendition policy but also the standard used to determine to which countries a suspect can be rendered, and has kept Bush’s domestic surveillance policies in place and unchanged. Most of all, he has emphatically endorsed the Bush/Cheney paradigm that we are engaged in a “war” against Terrorists — with all of the accompanying presidential “war powers” — rather than the law enforcement challenge that John Kerry, among others, advocated.

Hardly centrist. We’ve entered Bush territory.

All of the above mentioned changes were suggested as a bare minimum approach by environmental experts. Are they good? Yes, but they were also vitally necessary. If Obama hadn’t sought immediate changes in the approach to CO2 emissions, we would have approached an irreversible trajectory of environmental damage. However, I do give Obama credit when it’s due. Por ejemplo: I feel like Obama’s administration listens to environmentalists. They may not follow all guidelines, but we would have never gotten this news during the Bush years:

President Obama is scheduled today to issue new national emissions and mileage requirements for cars and light trucks. The rules aim to cut emissions by 30 percent and require passenger cars to average thirty-nine miles per gallon and light trucks thirty mpg by 2016…Daniel Becker of the Safe Climate Campaign praised Obama’s plan. He said, “This is the single biggest step the American government has ever taken to cut greenhouse-gas emissions.”

So there’s a snippet of optimism for ya’. Of course, this is the same administration that gave us this news:

[Obama] tapped a top attorney at General Electric to be the nation’s top environmental litigator. If confirmed, Ignacia Moreno would lead the Justice Department’s efforts to enforce environmental laws and defend federal regulations in lawsuits. Her selection has concerned many environmental groups. Frank O’Donnell of Clean Air Watch said, “It seems as if she has spent maybe more time defending polluters than prosecuting them.”

And this:

[The] Obama administration has given the green light for forty-two more mountaintop removal permits, dealing a victory for the coal industry. Mountaintop mining involves blowing off the tops of mountains to get at the coal underneath.

So again, it’s important to keep perspective. Yes, good things have happened, but it’s important to remain alert and critical for when the administration strays from a progressive agenda.

I would love a president that pays attention to poor people and the environment, but I’m still waiting for that person to appear. Right now, I see a man who is leading the way with a widening rich-poor divide in his population, and a lukewarm environmental package that adheres to the bare minimum recommendation of environmental experts, but it will help IF it survives Congress. But we’ve seen what the likelihood of that is.