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Obama tells young reporters: Climate change a top challenge for young people
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing young people, President Obama said in a recent interview with young reporters from Scholastic News.
“Another big challenge that your generation is going to face is the environmental challenge,” Obama said in an interview with Scholastic News Press Corp. that was conducted in July but posted online this month.
“Although we’ve made big improvements over the last 20 or 30 years in making our air clean and our water clean, there are some big challenges around climate change.”
The president's comments come as Republican presidential candidates, including Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), are questioning climate science on the campaign trail.
The vast majority of the world's scientists say climate change is occurring and is caused in large part by human activity.
Climate change could result in more hurricanes in Florida or drought in other areas of the country, Obama said.
“So we’ve got to get started trying to deal with this issue and we’ve got to make sure that your generation finds better ways to use energy more efficiently so we’re not sending out as much pollution into the air,” Obama said. “So that’s going to be something that we’re really going to have to focus on.”
The Obama administration has made energy and environmental policy a major focus of his agenda in recent months. The Environmental Protection Agency, for example, is moving forward with a series of regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change.
Republicans and some centrist Democrats oppose the administration’s efforts, pushing legislation to limit or outright block major EPA air regulations.
