Barack Obama gibt dem Rolling Stone ein langes Interview. Hier ein Ausschnitt zum Thema Klimaschutz bzw. Climate Change.
So that’s why I continually go back to the notion that the American people have to feel the same urgency that I do. And it’s understandable that they don’t, because the science right now feels abstract to people. It will feel less abstract with each successive year. I suspect that the record wildfires that we’re seeing, the fact that half of the West is in extreme or severe drought right now, is making people understand this better. If you talk to people in Washington state right now, I suspect, after having tragically lost three firefighters, and seeing vast parts of their state aflame, that they understand it better. If you go down to Florida, and neighborhoods that are now flooding every time the tide rises, they’re understanding it better.
And part of what’s happening is a recognition that it is going to be cheaper to take action than not. That’s one of the hardest things in politics to convince people of: to make investments today that don’t pay off until many years from now.
But what’s now happening — and that’s part of what I’ve been trying to highlight — is that the costs are starting to accrue right now. We’re spending about a billion dollars a year on firefighting, and the fire season extends now about two and a half months longer than it did just a few decades ago. And that’s money that could be spent on schools. That’s money that could be spent on fixing roads. That’s money that people could spend in their own households.