Mr. Obama said climate change is real, and that global temperature trends are proving it annually. Jerry Brown. “Lake Tahoe, it’s the jewel of the Sierra, which Mark Twain called the fairest picture the whole earth affords”, said Calif. Sen. Mr. Obama told a crowd of about 9,000 people at Harvey’s in Stateline, that it was the first time he had ever visited the lake.
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Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., praised Nevada’s Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, for his work on Lake Tahoe restoration, and California Gov.
President Obama defended his legacy on the environment and criticized climate change denial Wednesday in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, saying “smart” environmental and economic policy aren’t mutually exclusive.
Later Wednesday, Obama was set to travel to his native state of Hawaii to address leaders from the Pacific Island Conference of Leaders and the IUCN World Conservation Congress.
The Lake Tahoe area is home to only about 50,000 full-time residents, but those numbers swell by four times during the height of the summer and winter tourist seasons.
Last week he established the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in north-central ME and expanded the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, creating the world’s largest marine protected area off the coast of Hawaii.
– If emptied, Lake Tahoe would cover the entire state of California in 14 inches of water.
The appearance is Obama’s first to the annual Tahoe summit, and the first for any sitting president since President Bill Clinton spoke at the inaugural event in 1997.
Reid opened the summit saying that thanks to almost $2 billion used to reverse a decline in lake clarity since 1997, Tahoe is now more pristine than it has been in decades.
Lake Tahoe’s loss of clarity has been fueled by housing construction, soil erosion, storm-water runoff, air pollution, automobiles and invasive aquatic species.
The White House said the federal government would spend $29.5 million to help prevent wildfires near the lake, along the border of California and Nevada, ramp up efforts to recruit private philanthropic donations, and provide $29 million in funding for geothermal research.
The executive order assigned the 87,563 acres formerly owned by Burt’s Bees entrepreneur Roxanne Quimby to the U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Park Service. “A changing climate threatens even the best conservation efforts”.
Obama opened a two-day environmental tour aimed at showcasing conservation efforts in Tahoe before traveling to Asia, where climate change is high on the agenda for his final trip to the continent.
To that end, Obama on Thursday planned an unusual presidential visit to Midway Atoll, a speck of land halfway between Asia and North America.
The G-20 meeting in Hangzhou on September 4-5 will offer Obama a chance to cement his environmental legacy, particularly on climate change.
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Before returning to Washington, Obama also was to become the first sitting president to visit Laos, where he’ll meet with the country’s leaders and attend a pair of regional summits.
