On Thursday, President Barack Obama pledged: “I am committed to taking bold actions at home and abroad to cut carbon pollution.” On Friday, the President told a gathering of the nation’s mayors in San Francisco that they had to prepare for climate change. On Saturday, he flew on Air Force One to Palm Springs, where on Sunday he is playing golf at Sunnylands.
The president’s golf trip comes as Californians struggle with an extreme drought that has prompted Gov. Jerry Brown to issue the state’s first-ever mandatory water cuts. The Coachella Valley’s “water guzzling” golf courses have faced particular criticism, though they rely on their own large aquifer, and many have implemented water-saving reforms in recent years.
The White House wants Americans to know the president cares about the drought: “White House spokesman Eric Schultz responds that many courses have taken water mitigation steps aimed at conservation,” the Associated Press reports. “Schultz says Obama discussed the drought with California Gov. Jerry Brown in a meeting in San Francisco Friday.”
Still, at the end of his Father’s Day retreat, the president will climb aboard his taxpayer-funded aircraft and burn another trail of “carbon pollution.” If Obama truly believes that “we have a profound responsibility to protect our children, and our children’s children, from the damaging impacts of climate change,” he has a rather roundabout way of showing it.
