Why the "Green Blob" owns the US Democrat Party

The President and the Pipeline (The New Yorker, 2013)

Steyer is, at first glance, an unlikely leader of the environmental movement. He is rangy and square-jawed, and he has exquisite establishmentarian credentials, to say nothing of a vast pile of money. ......Steyer’s goal, at his fund-raiser for Obama, was not so much to berate the President, he said, as to “do the old F.D.R. thing,” showing Obama that the green movement was growing, and that supporting its goals was good politics.    ......For many activists, the opposition to Keystone isn’t really about the pipeline; they admit that no single project will tip the balance on climate change. Rather, they want Obama to use Keystone as a symbolic opportunity to move America away from fossil fuels. ....The stakes for Obama are higher. There are few opportunities to influence the politics of climate change and leave a legacy on the issue."