Obama, Who Vowed Rapid Action on Climate Change, Turns More Cautious - NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — President Obama came to office promising swift and comprehensive action to combat global climate change, and the topic remains a surefire applause line in his speeches here and abroad.

Yet the administration has taken a cautious and rather passive role on the issue, proclaiming broad goals while remaining aloof from details of climate legislation now in Congress.

The president’s budget initially included roughly $650 billion in revenue over 10 years from a cap-and-trade emissions plan that he wants adopted. But the administration, while insisting that its health care initiative be protected, did not fight to keep cap-and-trade in the budget resolutions that Congress passed last week, and it wound up in neither the House’s version nor the Senate’s.
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The administration’s caution leaves many environmental advocates frustrated, although most are reluctant to speak on the record for fear of alienating their allies inside government.

Auden Schendler: Still guzzling the global warming Kool-Aid like it's 2007

Taking on climate change is like climbing in the ring with Muhammad Ali in his prime, Schendler said. "You have this unbelievably scary adversary that you have to engage."
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Another positive is that confronting climate change gives people something larger than ourselves, he said. "It's the biggest shot at meaning humanity's ever had since religion was created."