U.S. President Barack Obama meets with Cabinet members and senior administration officials during a meeting on the BP oil spill, in this White House handout photograph taken on May 14, 2010, REUTERS/Pete Souza/The White House

I doubt that President Obama ever thought that a growing, ongoing environmental catastrophe would be his biggest challenge as President, but that is what it’s turning out to be. What I hear so many people lamenting about the whole thing is that he is not using the BP disaster to convince Americans that we need to get off oil completely.  He should and could be using this to make a case for renewable energy more forcefully, as presidents who present themselves as politicians more influenced by science than by polls.  He should be using it to educate the public about climate change, global warming, the toxicity of petroleum products, how they cause cancer, how they destroy the environment, how they destroy the climate — and he’s not doing that, at least not in public.  Why not?  No one seems to know, but it probably has a lot to do with the economy.  Below is a recently statement from the Sierra Club.  (I’m not currently a member, but I like what they have to say.)

Washington, D.C. – The Sierra Club is running a full-page ad in The Hill newspaper tomorrow, June 8. The ad features a stunning AP photo of a bird weighed down by a thick coat of oil and calls on President Obama to end America’s dependence on oil in 20 years.  You can view the ad here: http://sc.org/BeyondOilAd

(Warning: it’s another oil-coated, dying bird.  If you are sickened from looking at photos like that, you are not alone.  This site is not going to publish any more photos of dead and dying birds coated in oil, or other dead wildlife, because you can see those photos everywhere else and honestly, they are depressing.   I think it’s important that people see them but once you have, there is little value in continuing to stare at tragic photos of dying animals.)

The ad reads: “Tipping point, game changer, wake up call, the last straw…President Obama, we encourage you to embrace another phrase: Leadership Moment.”

The ad is part of a new effort launched by the Sierra Club in the face of the BP Disaster, calling on President Obama to deliver a plan to move America beyond its dependence on oil in the next twenty years. Sierra Club has been organizing rallies around the country and reaching out to volunteers and supporters since the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20.

As part of its ongoing response to the disaster, the Sierra Club will be holding events and rallies around the country, conducting robust outreach to its 1.3 million members and supporters as well as concerned citizens everywhere, and putting together videos and a short documentary film. On Friday afternoon, the group launched a new website, http://www.beyondoil.org. . . . . .

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