By Cat DiStasio / Source: Inhabitat

In President Barack Obama‘s second-to-last State of the Union (SOTU) address, he talked about a great many things. Although hints from the White House in the days leading up to the address would have had us believe that the environment would be a shining star in the speech, it just wasn’t. Obama spent less than 5 minutes discussing climate change and made no ground-breaking statements. He did, however, admit that “no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.”

Obama confirmed prior news reports that he would use the speech to move past conflicts and call for continued bipartisan cooperation toward the administration’s goals. None of the policies announced really classify as ground-breaking, but the president is making a steady push forward in the hopes of securing his administration’s reputation for being concerned about the declining state of our planet. The only real surprise of the SOTU, in fact, was that Medium released the president’s remarks prior to the beginning of the speech – an unprecedented move.

As the president spoke to a joint session of Congress, he patted his administration on the back for making the right moves toward cleaner energy, wider healthcare coverage, and lower gas prices. Obama pushed the point that he hopes Democrats and Republicans can revel in their past agreements and use those warm, fuzzy feelings to continue to work in cohesion, toward “discoveries that unleash new jobs — converting sunlight into liquid fuel; creating revolutionary prosthetics, so that a veteran who gave his arms for his country can play catch with his kid; pushing out into the Solar System not just to visit, but to stay.”

Read more @ Inhabitat