If Barack Obama and David Axelrod are really concerned about the climate crisis, they can fess up to their culpability — and demand change from Joe Biden.
by Julia Rock and Andrew Perez, The Lever
This summer has been the hottest ever recorded. Global fossil fuel consumption hit an all-time high last year, continuing to exacerbate the climate crisis.
Against this backdrop, former President Barack Obama and his top White House strategist David Axelrod have been publicly lamenting climate inaction and warning of the imperative to fight climate change — pretending they are powerless bystanders who played no part in creating the escalating crisis.
In fact, the opposite is true: When they were in a position to limit future damage from climate change, they chose not to prioritize climate policy and instead expanded fossil fuel production — all while Obama and Democrats were rewarded with a gusher of campaign cash from the oil and gas industry.
“That was me, people,” Obama bragged in 2018 to a Texas audience about the unprecedented fossil fuel production boom that he engineered and promoted during a presidency that was guided early on by Axelrod — who reportedly urged the White House to steer clear of tough fights over climate policy.
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