Issue 15: Environment

Featured Response: Stephanie Kinnear || Managing Editor, Re-nest.com

Stephanie Kinnear

For the past 8 years, we’ve witnessed an all out war waged by the White House against the environment. As Obama enters office, it seems that war will finally be over.

It’s time that our president began working with, rather than against, the environmentalists of this country. And although Obama didn’t lead with the environment in his campaigning, he seriously gets it. He doesn’t think CFLs will save the world; he understands that the type of environmental change he’s responsible for enacting will have to come in the form of something much larger. He recognizes that effectively addressing climate change will mean meeting the challenge “collectively.”

The man knows how to move a large number of people. I hope he can inspire a new generation of environmental activists the way he inspired a whole new demographic of people to vote. Environmentalism has always been a grassroots culture – and we’re getting the king of grassroots organizing as our president. There are definitely reasons to be optimistic.

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44 Issues in 44 Days

Explore and respond to the issues that matter to you.

# 35: Diplomacy

Featured Response: Eric Martin || American Footprints

# 41: The Arts

Featured Response: Hiroshi Sunairi || New York University

# 10: Immigration

Featured Response: Annie Lai || American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Arizona

# 24: Gun Control

Featured Response: David B. Kopel || Independence Institute

# 42: Theatre

Featured Response: Adam Feldman || New York Drama Critics’ Circle

# 37: Interior Design

Featured Response: Lana Burroughs || Topsy Turvy Style

Inaugural Insight

  • The inauguration for the first U.S. president, George Washington, was held on April 30, 1789 in New York City.
  • Should January 20 be a Sunday, the President is usually administered the oath of office in a private ceremony on that day, followed by a public ceremony the following day.
  • Immediately following the oath, the bands play four ruffles and flourishes and "Hail to the Chief", followed by a 21-gun salute from howitzers of the Presidential Salute Battery.
  • The inaugural celebrations usually last ten days, from five days before the inauguration to five days after.
  • Since Thomas Jefferson's second inaugural on March 4, 1805, it has become tradition for the president to parade down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House.
  • According to tradition, in the first inaugural, President Washington added the words "so help me God" when reciting the oath, although there is no contemporary evidence of this.
  • In 1977, Jimmy Carter started a new tradition by walking from the Capitol to the White House, although subsequent presidents have only walked part of the way for security reasons.
  • The War of 1812 and World War II forced two swearing-ins to be held at other locations in Washington, D.C.
  • The new President assumes power at noon on January 20th, regardless of whether or not he has actually taken the oath of office.
  • There is no requirement that any book, or in particular a book of sacred text, be used to administer the oath, and none is mentioned in the Constitution.

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