The Arctic test and how Obama failed in it

Two steps forward one step back, that's what US President Barack Obama is likely to say if asked how he could promise Washington's grandest plan to fight climate change - the "historic" Climate Action Plan announced on Aug 3 - and give the green light to Shell for oil exploratory drilling in the Arctic Ocean two weeks later.

But Obama's move is more like "one step forward, two (actually dozens of) steps back" in the fight against climate change.

More than a century ago, Lenin used the term "one step forward, two steps back" to defend his role at the Second Congress of the RSDLP (Russian Social Democratic Labour Party). In fact, he released a pamphlet titled One Step Forward, Two Steps Back - The Crisis in Our Party that examined the developments leading to the split of the RSDLP into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Although the revolution launched in Tsarist Russia the next year failed, the ultimate triumph of the Bolsheviks in 1917 lent credence to Lenin's "one step forward, two steps back" theory.