Obama calls for alternative energy in wake of BP oil spill

Speaking from the Oval Office for the first time, President Obama gave a national address outlining his response to the Gulf oil spill. His words were, as usual, inspirational and aspirational, but is that enough given the dire circumstances?

The Obama administration has been criticized in recent weeks for a tepid response to the oil spill, an attitude the president refuted with some hard numbers: 30,000 personnel in four states, authorization of the deployment of 17,000 national guardsmen, and 15,000 barrels of oil captured per day. Those are strong numbers, though of course not without caveats; only a few of those 17,000 national guardsmen have actually been deployed, and while 15,000 barrels of oil captured per day is a lot, it's not even half the amount being spilled each day.

Alongside the speech, the government released a document saying about 45,000 barrels, and as many as 60,000 barrels, are leaking into the Gulf each day. That 15,000 barrels captured isn't nothing, but it's also not without room for improvement.

Obama used military terms and lofty rhetoric to describe the nature of the crisis. "We cannot consign our children to this future," he said. "The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now." Indeed, a large portion of the speech was devoted to clean energy--a "pivot," as FiveThirtyEight put it, to allow Obama to push one of his campaign issues more forcefully.

Yet the speech itself did not lay out any particular goals, but rather expressed enthusiasm for the general concept of alternative energy. Instead of laying out specific policy proposals, Obama noted that discussions on alternative energy--wind and solar; nuclear was conspicuously absent--would be conducted with greater fervor and frequency in the coming months.

The president condemned inaction in his speech, and we can only hope he's as good as his word. Now is indeed the time to push alternative energy policy: public approval of such initiative is at an all-time high, and even staunch Republicans might have a tough time rejecting it at the moment. But that moment will pass; FiveThirtyEight, masters of polling, suggests there will be only a short-term approval bump on such matters.

This speech wasn't to announce alternative energy policy, it was to explain the government's response and future reaction to the oil spill. But alternative energy was a keystone. Now we just have to wait to see what comes of it.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com