Huffington Magazine Issue 33 | Page 86

OBAMA 2.O / ENVIRONMENT presidential debates went by with nary a mention of climate change. For environmentalists, and many ordinary Americans, it was a troubling milestone, particularly as a gargantuan super-storm — and one of the sort that virtually all climate scientists have been warning for years would increase in frequency as the planet warmed — bore down on the East Coast and, in the end, caused unprecedented destruction. “Hurricane Sandy,” wrote Daniel Honan at BigThink.com, “Mother Nature’s revenge on the 2012 election?” Obama was specifically targeted for his silence, which seemed to take hold during his first term around the time that support for broad climate change legislation — a top-tier campaign goal of candidate Obama in 2008 — was foundering. Green groups were angered by the president’s decision to recede into t H