Obama the Green

Ian McEwan takes to the pages of The Wall Street Journal today to weigh in on what Obama can do for the environment. “To those who believe that climate change is our most pressing problem, underpinning all others, requiring degrees of cooperation and rationality we might not even be capable of, the elevation of this slender, handsome man becomes the object of unreal expectation,” the novelist writes. How to address climate change, with scientists warning we have only eight years left to make radical emissions cuts? The president must not move too cautiously, McEwan advises, and must attend and boldly lead the climate conference in Copenhagen next November: “There are those who said during the campaign that Barack Obama turned a fine speech empty of intent. He must surprise his detractors and start the detailed, practical preparation for Copenhagen, and refute them thus!”