This is a very interesting article from The Guardian.co.uk that even Obama supporters sort of can agree with. (Now let me just put it out there - I’m neither a Obama Lover or Obama Hater, I just want what’s best for my country and the world.) Some key points:

• The US is not only the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases but is by far the largest per capita emitter of carbon and other pollutants.
• Barack Obama promised to reverse the Bush administration’s terrible ecological record. Yet so far the world has seen more symbolic gestures from the Obama administration than accomplishments. Its biggest achievement so far has been a disappointment. President Obama signed an executive order to increase US motor vehicle mileage standards – but only to a level that will push fuel efficiency by 2020 to a level that European and Japanese cars reached several years ago, and even China has already achieved.
• With the US Senate bogged down in the fight over reforming healthcare, American leaders have said that the senators might not move on climate legislation until 2010, well after the global climate change conference in Copenhagen in December. John Bruton, head of the European Union delegation: “The United States is just one of the 190 countries coming to this conference, but the United States emits 25% of all the greenhouse gases that the conference is trying to reduce. I submit that asking an international conference to sit around looking out the window for months, while one chamber of the legislature of one country deals with its other business, is simply not a realistic political position.”
• Many leaders and supporters are beginning to wonder what is causing this growing gap between the Barack Obama that many people saw on the campaign trail, and the Obama they see in the White House? He is mostly untested as a politician. His previous experience was only a few years in the US Senate and a few years more as a state senator. A sinking feeling is arising among many that President Obama may not be up to the task, that he may not possess the artful skills needed to accomplish even his own goals.

It’s scary to see how drastically the US has fallen from the top of the pack to quite possibly a liability. Many countries are starting to put a lot of heat on us.