President Obama’s first state of the union speech took place last night. Applicable portions dealing with climate change and energy are in the transcript clip below. It was very interesting that when Obama was talking briefly about climate change and said something like, “…overwhelming evidence …” the Republicans booed and made other negative noises. Global warming has now become a full-blown partisan political issue in the U.S., and the Republican party are the official deniers.  In addition, Obama is missing the opportunity of a lifetime to give us serious climate change legislation, and he’s blowing it by going down the middle of the road, trying to please everyone.  This year could be the end of any meaningful climate change legislation, until the point where it’s obvious and too late.  (We now enter a political election cycle.) We don’t know when it will be too late to stop climate change, but I bet Bill Gates is hoping it will be soon so his geoengineering investments pay off.

Speech clip on energy and global warming:

“But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives.  And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.  (Applause.)  It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.  (Applause.)  It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies. (Applause.)  And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.  (Applause.)

I am grateful to the House for passing such a bill last year.  (Applause.)  And this year I’m eager to help advance the bipartisan effort in the Senate.  (Applause.)

I know there have been questions about whether we can afford such changes in a tough economy.  I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change. But here’s the thing — even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy-efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future -– because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy.  And America must be that nation.”

Notice the words, “biofuels and clean coal technologies”.  This is not good.

It was a vague statement, tentative, almost sheepish;  with no specifics on how to get there other than passing a bill that no one agrees on.  He did not even say the word “green”.  How is he going to help pass climate change legislation?  By emphasizing that it will create jobs.  Will this placate the big environmental groups?  It already has.

All of this means we are up against huge hurdles this year.  There is plenty of evidence that conservative lawmakers don’t believe in science, or therefore in reality. Their disbelief has come full circle and the science they question now includes evolution, geology, paleontology, climatology, food safety, [...]