Yesterday, Obama shocked a lot of people and announced he was lifting a long-term ban on offshore drilling off the coast of the U.S. It was even more shocking considering this directly goes against a campaign pledge. (See that in the video below). No one is happy about this.  This is from Grist:

President Obama will open large swaths of the Atlantic, Gulf, and Alaskan coasts to offshore oil and natural gas drilling in a stunning concession to fossil-fuel companies, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and others are reporting.

. . .  The Arctic Ocean north of Alaska will be opened too, while the Bristol Bay in southwestern Alaska would be protected—the sole new protection.  [Yesterday I heard Bristol Bay would be opened for drilling].   New areas of the southeast Gulf Coast would also be opened, despite bipartisan opposition from political leaders in Florida and Alabama. The Times has a map of all of this, and you need to see it to comprehend the size of the affected area.

“This is not a decision that I’ve made lightly,” Obama said (full speech here).

Who was twisting his arm?  This wasn’t necessary. Huge expanses of coastline along the south and east of the U.S. are now going to be opened, sadly, to drilling and oil exploration.  This will result in completely unnecessary environmental and ecosystem damage, and will open the areas up to new disasters like oil spills.  This just makes no sense. There is hardly any oil there in any of these locations, not enough to provide us with oil beyond a year or two after the drilling begins.  Meanwhile, the drilling itself could harm the environment.  Later yesterday afternoon,  some blowhard on MSNBC spent a half hour yelling about how we need to transition all our cars and vehicles to run on natural gas.  No, that’s a terrible idea — almost as badly advised as drilling in the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

Unfortunately science is not guiding our climate change policy, as Obama promised us during the campaign, when he also told he we needed an Apollo plan  to deal with the threat of climate change.  Obama’s environmental credibility has been destroyed for only a little bit of oil and more fossil fuels we don’t even need.  Political reality has set in for Obama — he wants Democrats re-elected and himself, too, and that supercedes everything.   He should have emphasized conservation and alternative fuels, and if Obama was a true leader he would have done that.   Even Steven Chu seems to be onboard.  Remember this version of Obama?

I don’t know where this Obama has gone. He’s been replaced by one that is difficult to trust and who breaks his campaign promises. Meanwhile, the EPA continues to expand its regulations of greenhouse gas emissions.

“Interestingly, this comes only a week after [...]