President Obama is making combating climate change a priority. He plans to try and cut greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 30% by 2025, which could cannibalize American jobs. Nevertheless, the president said it became a personal struggle when his daughter, Malia, has an asthma attack (via the Hill):

President Obama said in an interview broadcast Wednesday that his push to address climate change has been partly influenced by a frightening moment when his daughter Malia had an asthma attack as a 4-year-old.

What I can relate to is the fear a parent has, when your 4-year-old daughter comes up to you and says, ‘Daddy, I’m having trouble breathing.’ The fright you feel is terrible,” the president said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Wednesday.

“And if we can make sure that our responses to the environment are reducing those incidents, that’s something that I think every parent would wish for.”

Obama has made climate change a major priority of his White House. This week, he announced a global warming report that focuses on how people can take action to reduce health risks associated with a changing climate. He’s also negotiated a deal with China to cut greenhouse gases.

But that strategy hasn’t been welcomed by all of Congress, including a number Republican lawmakers who don’t feel that climate change presents as pressing of a risk as the president suggests.

Obama encouraged a societal approach to climate change, involving public health officials, doctors and community leaders in developing strategies to fight climate change. And he argued that the issue affects all Americans, so there needs to be a large buy-in.

Climate change ranks as one of the lowest priorities of the American people. We’ve experienced the calmest Hurricane season in 30 years, the quietest tornado season in 60 years; the creation of 19,000 Manhattan islands worth of sea ice, and the Arctic Ice Cap has grown by 533,000 square miles. In 2007, the BBC warned the cap could vanish by 2013. Oh, and we’re at the most industrialized point in human history–and air quality couldn’t be better, according to the EPA.

As for Malia, I’m glad she’s okay. Yet, I don’t think the president is going to get much traction, if any, regarding this push to combat climate change. It’s a fool’s errand. It always has been since the same people who warned of global cooling in the 1970s.

It never happened.