Barack Obama

While the jury is still out on whether President-elect Barack Obama will prove able to usher in meaningful “change” during his time in office, his campaign seems to have sparked a shift in voter sentiment toward clean energy and greater climate change awareness.

An issue that received little attention during the early days of the campaign – energy independence – became, along with “green jobs,” one of the election’s hottest buzzwords in the latter stages.

(It didn’t hurt that the economy started tanking right around the time the presidential debates began.)

by Sheril Kirshenbaum

It's not clear how the Obama administration will move on climate change, but they must focus on a single defining message: advancing national economic interests.

Just a week ago, Barack Obama addressed the nation that had just elected him the 44th President of the United States. When he named America’s greatest challenges, “a planet in peril” was a centerpiece. After the Bush administration’s eight-year war on our air, oceans, and wildlife, concerned citizens everywhere had justified reason to celebrate, feeling that they too had possibly won a great victory that night.

Dear Mr. President-Elect,

Greetings from Antarctica!

I'm about to begin my mission to become the first American in history to reach the South Pole, solo and unaided. I'll start walking November 8th from the edge of the ice pack and, if all goes according to plan, arrive at the Pole just after Christmas. If you have a minute around then, I'd love to hear from you, just ring my satellite phone.

It's the least you could do, I mean, I delivered the vote for you here in the Deep South (so to speak).

Of the many daunting challenges facing the next president, few loom larger than climate change.

Though the languishing economy will likely dictate his administration’s immediate priorities, many of the president’s long-term objectives will be shaped by the prism of energy and the climate. Yet, for all the talk of energy independence and a green economy, we still know very few specifics about what a President Barack Obama or President John McCain would do during his first term to tackle the climate issue.

.