In his State of the Union speech, Obama called for a big boost in low-carbon energy, but didn’t mention carbon, climate or warming, as I noted last night.  Other people noticed, too.

Matthew Hope, a researcher in American politics at the University of Bristol, found that Obama has mentioned ‘climate change’, ‘global warming’ or the ‘environment’ fewer times on average than his two predecessors, as an article today by the UK’s Guardian notes.  That piece, which quotes my post, also quotes Dr. Robert J. Brulle of Drexel University, “an expert on environmental communications,” saying Obama’s “approach has several major drawbacks.”  I asked Brulle for all of his thoughts on Hope’s key word analysis and Obama’s speech.

Brulle has a lot to say that is worth reading.  Here it is:

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President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address was full of optimism and conviction about the future. That optimism will be greatly needed in the months and years ahead, as the global problems left unaddressed by our political system continue to build. Unfortunately, the president failed to discuss those threats, not even mentioning global warming once.

Even with the meltdown of the global economy in 2008 due to unregulated banking, the financial industry has remained largely untouched. Even with the devastation of New Orleans, Nashville, Pakistan, Russia, Australia, and points all over the world by climate disasters, with repeated oil and coal disasters, the fossil fuel industry has remained ascendant. Professor Michael Klare, writing at the Tom Dispatch, warns that “2011 could be the year of living dangerously“:

It’s not surprising then that food and energy experts are beginning to warn that 2011 could be the year of living dangerously — and so could 2012, 2013, and on into the future. Add to the soaring cost of the grains that keep so many impoverished people alive a comparable rise in oil prices — again nearing levels not seen since the peak months of 2008 — and you can already hear the first rumblings about the tenuous economic recovery being in danger of imminent collapse. Think of those rising energy prices as adding further fuel to global discontent.

Klare describes in stark detail how the destablization of our climate system is striking repeated blows to food production around the globe, driving prices:

Analysts attribute the rise in grain prices to growing demand in both developed and developing nations, along with a number of cataclysmic weather-related events and speculation by investors. An extreme drought and fierce fires last summer destroyed a large percentage of the wheat crop in Russia and Ukraine, while heavy flooding in India and the inundation of 20% of Pakistan damaged significant parts of the grain output of those countries. At the same time, unusually hot and dry weather suppressed production in a number of other key farming areas.

What makes the picture look so worrisome today are indications that the severity and frequency of extreme weather events appear to be on the rise. In the past few weeks alone, several such events point the way to serious supply problems ahead. Most significant has been the unprecedented rainfall and flooding in Australia that put an area more than twice the size of California largely underwater, significantly disrupting wheat cultivation there. Australia is one of the world’s leading wheat producers. Unusually dry conditions in the American Midwest and Argentina have also hinted at future problems in grain and corn output. It’s still too early to predict the size of this year’s grain and corn harvests, but many analysts are warning of a shortfall in supplies, along with sky-high prices.

Furthermore, as financial analysts of various stripes are warning, investors are flooding into commodities in the “inflation trade.” Efforts to even begin to expose the operations of these trillion-dollar financial flows are still at least a year away. “The Commodity Futures Trading Commission may not complete limits on commodity speculation until the first quarter of next year, according to a filing on the agency’s website,” Bloomberg reports.

The coming year is likely to bring extreme threats to the American economic recovery, in the form of whipsawing gas prices, food prices, and climate disasters, due to free markets grown cancerous. Winning this future will take more than optimism.

China provinces seek approval to set up local CO2 markets

Jiangxi in eastern China said this week that it would seek government approval to set up a local emissions trading platform, making it the latest region to bid for a stake in a potentially lucrative Chinese carbon credit market.

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — In the past year, every continent except Antarctica has seen record-breaking floods. Rains submerged one-fifth of Pakistan, a thousand-year deluge swamped Nashville and storms just north of Rio caused the deadliest landslides Brazil has ever seen.

Southern France and northern Australia had floods, too. Sri Lanka, South Africa, the list goes on.

And while no single weather event can be linked definitively to global climate change, a growing number of scientists say these extreme events represent the face of a warming world.

“Any one of these events is remarkable,” said Jay Gulledge, senior scientist for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. “But all of this taken together could not happen without the extra heat that’s in the ocean. It defies common sense to overlook that link.”

When even the national media starts to explain the link to human-caused global warming, you know the weather has become extreme (see Munich Re: “The only plausible explanation for the rise in weather-related catastrophes is climate change”).  ABC News coverage has been outstanding.  And now CBS News story publishes a crystal clear explanation of the link:

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Then hopes to triple sales of plug-in hybrids by mid-decade

General Motors Co. Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson plans to double the 2012 production capacity for the Chevrolet Volt to 120,000 as he works to boost the plug-in hybrid’s sales, said two people familiar with the matter.

Volt output this year may increase to 25,000 from an original plan of 10,000, Akerson said earlier this month. GM now is working with suppliers to raise 2012 capacity from an earlier target of 60,000….

Akerson, who became CEO in September, wants to sell more of the $41,000 Volt and is pushing to use its Voltec gasoline- electric drive system for models sold by other GM brands. Akerson has said he wants GM to have more fuel-efficient models ready for a possible increase in oil prices to $120 a barrel.

“We want to stay sharply focused on technology,” Akerson told analysts at Deutsche Bank’s Auto Industry Conference in Detroit on Jan. 11. “We don’t want to be caught flat-footed as we were in 2008.”

Crude oil that year climbed to more than $140 a barrel and average gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon.

If it’s really true that GM is planning for $4 gasoline, as the Detroit News reported last week, then they have truly made a remarkable turnaround in strategic thinking.  That alone would justify the Obama administration’s decision to save the company.

After all, serious consequences from peak oil are now unavoidable (see “Peak oil production coming sooner than expected“).  Most every major company is pursuing EVs (see “Our cup runneth over with plug-in hybrids“).  Indeed, electricity is the only alternative fuel that can lead to energy independence.  It also happens that plug-in hybrids are a core climate solution.

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While the SOTU disappoints on climate, on clean energy it’s light years ahead of the GOP plan, as CAP’s Kate Gordon and Daniel J. Weiss explain in this Wonk Room cross-post.

In last night’s State of the Union address, President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to American innovation and ingenuity by proposing new investments in clean energy research, development, and deployment. This stands in sharp contrast to the Republican Study Committee, whose plan undermines American competitiveness by chopping away at key programs designed to leverage private investment in clean energy solutions for tomorrow.

President Obama’s clean energy plan would launch the United States into the 21st century by investing in high tech vehicles. This would protect people from pollution, cut foreign oil imports and create jobs. The Republican Study Committee would keep us chained to oil imports by ignoring cars of the future while eliminating investments in high speed rail.

Here a great chart laying out the side-by-side comparison of Obama vs. RSC:

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