Obama’s trip to Alaska and “Mission Accomplished” moment on climate

President Obama arrived in Alaska yesterday to talk about climate change, in the very place where he just approved Shell to drill in the Arctic. This despite the fact that scientists have made it clear: 100% of Arctic oil must stay in the ground if we want to prevent the worst impacts of climate change.

CREDO launched a campaign at www.MissionNotAccomplished.com to make sure the public and the press were aware that even as the president is making powerful speeches about climate change he was making the problem worse approving fossil fuel extraction on a massive scale. We are calling his trip to Alaska his “Mission Accomplished” moment. (You can read our reasoning in this post on Medium.)

As part of our response to the president’s hypocrisy, we remixed a White House video to make it clear the climate hypocrisy between the president’s words and his deeds. Please watch the video and then share it with friends who want to see this president show real leadership on climate.

The mainstream press is reporting on CREDO’s campaign — from The New York Times to CNN. CREDO’s Elijah Zarlin was even on the NBC Nightly News on Sunday helping to frame this debate: This is President Obama’s “Mission Accomplished” moment on his climate agenda.

President Obama ignored their warnings and approved Arctic drilling, even as he recently said in a White House video that global warming’s impacts on Alaska were “our wakeup call. The alarm bells are ringing.”

The science is indisputable, and so is the hypocrisy in the White House’s PR spin about his historic trip to Alaska.

Unless President Obama changes course, the tragic irony and denial of this Alaska trip is so thick, it brings to mind President George W. Bush’s infamous declaration of “Mission Accomplished” just six weeks into his decade-long war in Iraq.

As the president makes speeches and poses for photo ops in Alaska, we need to keep the pressure on him to change course. More than 67,000 people have signed our petition and more than 2,000 have called the White House. Will you join them?

It’s long past time for President Obama to end this self-defeating strategy of trying to have it both ways. Sign the petition now and then call the White House to tell President Obama: Climate leaders don’t drill the Arctic.