With Obama, New Wind Blowing on Climate

Dec. 14, 2008 — -- President-elect Obama, in statements to governors, the nation and on the Web, is now promising a profound change in how the U.S. government -- and explicitly the White House -- will deal with global warming.

"Denial is no longer an acceptable response," he said in a recent radio address and Webcast. "The stakes are too high."

Obama is declaring that he will fight climate change head-on. His declarations come amid what are now persistent TV images and scientific reports (including from the federal National Climate Data Center) about wildfires, droughts and downpours increasing dramatically in the United States over the past 30 years -- just as predicted in conjunction with global warming.

After meeting with former Vice President Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for helping alert the world to the climate crisis, Obama, with Gore sitting by his side, told the cameras this past week that, "This is a matter of urgency and national security. ... The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear."

The Bush White House has been seen as hostile to facing the problem. It was even reported by ABC News and The New York Times a few years ago to be allowing political assistants in their 20's to rewrite -- and considerably soften -- the conclusions of one of the world's preeminent climate researchers, James Hansen, NASA's earth sciences chief.

"We're about to see a 180 degree shift in the priority given to climate change," Republican William Reilly, EPA chief in the first Bush administration, told ABC News.

Obama's new so-called "green energy team" -- which he plans to introduce formally this week -- even includes scientists: