Following President Obama’s remarks earlier today at the Annual Lake Tahoe Summit on climate and conservation challenges, Deputy Secretary of the Interior Michael Connor and State of California Natural Resources Secretary John Laird signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen coordination of management activities to benefit the Salton Sea, boost the region’s climate resilience, spur the region’s economic growth, and improve public health.
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Obama, who is racing to cement his legacy on climate change before his presidency ends on January 20, will showcase both progress and looming threats in stops at Lake Tahoe, Nevada; Honolulu; and an ocean refuge in the remote Midway Atoll.
Mr. Obama said climate change is real, and that global temperature trends are proving it annually. Number, two, we’re incentivizing private capital to come off the sidelines and contribute to conservation, because government can’t do it alone.
Prior to Obama’s Tahoe speech, the White House pointed out that the average surface temperature for Lake Tahoe a year ago was the warmest ever recorded.
The president then quoted an unnamed former leader of the Washoe Tribe (which has called Lake Tahoe home for thousands of years): “The health of the land and the health of the people are tied together, and what happens to the land also happens to the people”.
“One need only gaze in these emerald blue waters to see the progress we’ve made to keep Tahoe blue”, Reid said.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., praised Nevada’s Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, for his work on Lake Tahoe restoration, and California Gov. Harry Reid convinced President Bill Clinton to attend the first summit.
The atmosphere was part rock concert complete with long food and beer lines (although the Drink Tahoe Tap line was almost as long), and part environmental summit as nonprofits worked to inform guests on everything from the plight of the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout to lake clarity and state parks. But California’s other Democratic Senator, Barbara Boxer, was at the summit.
Obama told a crowd of about 9,000 at the 20th annual Lake Tahoe Summit on Wednesday it was the first time he had ever visited the mountain lake that straddles the California-Nevada line atop the high Sierra. “That was because of Harry Reid”, said Obama at the August 31 event.
Scientists are anxious about the loss of clarity in the alpine lake caused by a wide variety of factors over past half-century, including housing construction, storm-water runoff, automobiles and aquatic species.
The president referred to the new measures by calling for greater innovation, cooperation and private investment to help solve the climate change threat.
In Nevada on Wednesday, Obama plans to visit Lake Tahoe and speak at a summit dedicated to the iconic lake’s preservation.
The president will get a firsthand view of the protected areas on Thursday when he tours Midway Atoll, a small coral island in the western reaches of the monument.
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Obama asserted that climate change is “manmade”, as a matter of dogma: “It’s not ‘I’m not a scientist, so I don’t know.’ You don’t have to be a scientist”.
