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    “This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy. . . that develops every available source of American energy. . . We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly one hundred years. . . The development of natural gas will . . . prov(e) that we don’t have to choose between our environment and our economy. . . And by the way, it was public research dollars. . . that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock – reminding us that Government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground. ”                                                           -Barack Obama, January 25 State of the Union speech

Obama said more than this about energy in his State of the Union speech almost a month ago. He talked about the near-doubling of renewable energy in the three years of his presidency and plans to develop “clean energy” on public lands. He stated that he “will not cede” the wind, solar or advanced battery industries to China or Germany. He supported programs to reduce energy waste in buildings. And he used the words “climate change” once, which was one more time than he used it in his 2011 SOTU speech.

But the most striking new idea in the area of energy was his full-throated defense of fracked natural gas as both an example of the important role of government research and the fuel that we can depend on to meet our energy needs for “nearly one hundred years.”

This was a very, very bad development. And it is, accordingly, incumbent upon the climate movement and the progressive movement generally to take up this challenge in this important election year. There must be a loud, popular outcry this year against fracking, as well as all of the other extreme energy extraction methods and fuels: mountaintop removal coal, deep water offshore and Arctic Ocean oil/gas drilling and tar sands oil.