Facts, as they say, are facts. On the other hand, untrue representations presented as facts are either uninformed, intentionally disingenuous, or a combination of the two. Secretary of State John Kerry’s statements attacking those who challenge the existence of a human-caused climate crisis likely fall into the third category.
Speaking at a February 16 press conference in a U.S. Embassy-run American Center held at a shopping mall in Jakarta, Indonesia, Kerry described climate change as the world’s “most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.” He also referred to those who don’t subscribe to that hell-in-a-hand basket global warming apocalypse as “Flat-Earthers.”
Kerry told the audience: “We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific facts. The science is unequivocal, and those who refuse to believe it are simply burying their heads in the sand. We don’t have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society.”
First of all, let’s briefly review just a few real facts:
* There has been no statistical global warming for the past 17 years…most of today’s high school students haven’t witnessed it in their lifetimes.
* There is absolutely no credible scientific consensus that human activities, including fossil burning, are having a dangerous (or even measurable) influence on climate change…either for warming or cooling.
* The climate crisis dogma-premised “sustainable energy” fetish has caused disastrous government policies in the U.S. and abroad, particularly in Europe where failures have produced economic distress.
* Nations are abandoning the UN’s climate hype-promoted Kyoto carbon emission reduction commitments in droves as its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change struggles to explain why its model-based predictions have been spectacularly disproven by Mother Nature.
* Climate changes without any help from us…has for millions of years…and as we can expect, always will…with Ice Ages occurring during about 90 percent of the time.
Kerry’s Very Original Talking Points Speech Writer
Perhaps the content and tone of Secretary Kerry’s pronouncements will strike some people as familiar, dating back to the UN’s 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro aimed at ginning up Kyoto Protocol support. Speaking at the opening ceremony, its organizing chairman, Canadian billionaire Maurice Strong, said “Every bit of evidence I’ve seen persuades me that we are on a [climate] course leading to a tragedy.”
Bear in mind here that this “persuading evidence” appeared just 12 years after three and one-half decades of flat or cooling temperatures had persuaded many scientists to conclude that the next Ice Age was nigh. Lots of major news publications trumpeted this alarm in headline articles.
Strong has never left any doubt where he places greatest blame for global climate and environmental problems, stating that “The United States is clearly the greatest risk to the world’s ecological health.”
As he explained in the UN’s world Commission on Environment and Development (UNCED) August 28, 1991, report: “It is clear that the current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, ownership of motor vehicles, small electric appliances, home and work place conditioning and suburban housing is not sustainable… A shift is necessary towards lifestyles less geared to environmentally-damaging consumption patterns.”
Maurice Strong – certainly no common run-of-the-mill billionaire – has an extremely interesting and active background. Early-on he and his wife, Hanne, an occultist, established a global headquarters in San Luis Valley, Colorado, for the New Age movement called “Baca.” after a mystic informed them it “would become the center for a new planetary order which would evolve from the economic collapse and environmental catastrophes that would sweep the globe in the years to come.”
As a close associate of Secretary General Kofi Anan, Strong was appointed to chair the panel that created the UN’s Iraq office for its “Oil-For-Food” program. Introduced by the Clinton Administration in 1995 under a UN Security Council Resolution, the program’s intended purpose was to allow Iraq to sell oil on the world market in exchange for food, medicine, and other humanitarian needs of its needy citizens without allowing Saddam Hussein’s regime to boost its military capabilities. As it turned out, however, the program also provided lots of humanitarian aid to some very non-needy financial recipients, and was later ended after revelations of corruption hit the press.
One of those found guilty of attempting to bribe UN program officials overseeing the Oil-for-Food program was Tongsun Park, a South Korean businessman who had sublet office space from Maurice Strong. Coincidentally, it seems, Park also invested nearly $1 million paid from his Jordanian bank account in Strong’s family business…one which later went bankrupt.
During the scandal Strong declared no wrongdoing or involvement in Oil-for-Food, and was never charged. He then left the UN that year and moved to Beijing where his close friendships with top Chinese government leaders dated back to the Cultural Revolution under Mao Tse-tung.
But count on Maurice to come back Strong when there’s a good opportunity to cash in on fossil-fueled climate alarm, reentering through the Green curtains of the anti-carbon scam stage as chairman of the China Carbon Corporation, and vice chairman of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX).
As I discussed in my February 11 column, passage of the international Kyoto Protocol plus proposed carbon cap-and-trade legislation in the U.S. promised a windfall profit bonanza for renewable energy subsidy seekers and their offset credit trading cronies. Al Gore’s famous and feverish 1988 congressional hearings trumpeting global warming danger, along with his frightening An Inconvenient Truth science fiction movie set the stage for a media thriller.
A less-publicized and more truly inconvenient truth at the time was that Gore and his partner David Blood, the former chief of Goldman Sachs Asset Management who held big stakes in CCX, would have been huge winners if cap-and-trade hopes hadn’t been swept way in the 2010 mid-term election Republican House cleaning. Speaking before a 2007 Joint House hearing of the Energy Science Committee, Gore told members: “As soon as carbon has a price, you’re going to see a wave [of investment] in it…There will be unchained investment.”
Kerry’s Kyoto, Cap-and-Trade and Climate Confusion
John Kerry voted against carbon restrictions before he voted for them. After all, he was among those who unanimously passed a 1997 Byrd – Hagel resolution against the Kyoto treaty. Along with then-President Bill Clinton who recognized the peril of submitting it for Senate ratification, Kerry knew better than to publicly support a politically unsavory treaty which the bill asserted “would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States.”
Then in 2010, Kerry and fellow Senator Joe Lieberman co-sponsored a failed attempt to pass a cap-and-trade end-run called the “American Power Act.” A more appropriate description, however, would have been “American power grab” since, in reality, it had little to do with developing our nation’s vast domestic fossil energy resources. Rather, it emphasized ways to mitigate the alleged effects of carbon-based energy upon climate and expand government bureaucracy by creating at least 60 expensive new agencies and projects.
The proposed act included a $7 billion annual “linked fee” added to gasoline prices to “improve U.S. transportation inefficiency.” The plan was to have producers and importers of gasoline and jet fuel purchase non-tradable carbon allowances paid according to a fixed price established by trading auction rates. While the language of the bill wasn’t actually referred to as a linked fee or tax, you probably wouldn’t recognize any difference when paying the added cost at the gas pump.
Another $2 billion in the bill was to be allocated per year for researching and developing effective carbon capture and see question method for coal plants…kind of like creating a GITMO for dangers posed by Kerry’s climate-ravaging carbon terrorist provocateurs. In addition, there was to be a multibillion–dollar revenue stream for agriculture to finance a carbon–offset program.
A Keystone Copout vs. Capstone Climate Legacy Conundrum
Secretary of State Kerry will serve as either the Obama Administration’s designated scapegoat or environmental activist hero for the final decision whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. He’s also a high-profile banner-carrier on the front lines of the President’s religious war on climate change. Have no doubt that he realizes there’s a lot of green at risk for his party, not to mention his own future ambitions, if decisions don’t go with the greenies on both issues.
Much of that green will be depend upon appeasing priorities of a billionaire and climate activist named Tom Steyer who has indicated willingness to earmark $100 million or more to help put or keep congressional candidates who support his priorities. Steyer threatened in an open letter that Obama better reject Keystone… or else! It warned: “Given that none of the chief arguments being put forth by supporters of the pipeline remain standing, NextGen Action [his political action committee] is going to be working with our friends and allies who are opposed to the development of Keystone XL to intensify our efforts in communicating what is the right policy choice to your Administration.”
Leaving no doubt which side of the fence those friends and allies stood on, the letter said, “On June 20, in Washington, DC, we will announce a campaign that will specifically focus on communicating to those Americans across the country that supported your election in 2012.”
Since the Keystone pipeline crosses the U.S. border, the State Department under Kerry’s authority will (at least officially) have final say on permitting. And it’s not as if the project is being rushed through without careful attention to environmental safeguards. After a 5-year wait, Keystone XL has met 57 specific pipeline safety standard requirements created by the State Department and the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). It passed all with flying colors, including acceptance by the State of Nebraska where it passes over the sensitive Ogallala Aquifer.
Last January another study concluded that the pipeline would have minimal impact on climate…not because there’s no scientific evidence that any pipeline would…but rather because the Canadian oil sands will be developed anyway. (Isn’t it remarkable that an expensive study was needed to figure that out?) Even if the pipeline isn’t built, Canada certainly won’t leave those resources in the ground. Instead, they will be sent to an energy-eager China.
Speaking of fossil energy-thirsty China, Kerry has deftly negotiated a “unique cooperative effort” with the country to combat climate change. Speaking at a press conference at a Beijing car-making factory he said: “I’m very pleased to report today that the leaders of China have agreed to join us in a mutual effort – China and the United States will put extra effort into exchanging information and discussing policies that will help both of us to be able to develop and lead on the standards that need to be announced next year in the global climate change agreement.”
Gosh, I bet China will have some really great ideas to share with him on how to end a millions-of-years history of climate change. Meanwhile, they might also direct attention to attacking real air pollution, not harmless and essential plant-nourishing CO2 that all carbon-based life – including environmental activists and billionaires – depends upon.
And maybe while we’re exchanging ideas with China about jointly addressing any climatological weapon of mass destruction threat, they can give us a hand with some other global dangers as well. China’s assistance in arresting WMD terrorism threats posed by Iran, North Korea, and Syria immediately come to mind as examples of climate changes in global security cooperation we can all wish for.
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A version of this article first appeared in Forbes Online (2/24/14).
Mr. President and Secretary Kerry, you avowed that your policies would create jobs, grow the economy and not do detrimental harm to the environment. Approving the Keystone Pipeline will help to grow the economy and create jobs and will do nothing to harm the environment as numerous government studies have shown.
The real harm to the environment are Wind and Solar which should be stopped immediately. Just look at the land use issues involved in current wind and solar energy initiatives sponsored by your Administration. They are so horrific that they might be accurately described as a war on nature. If one does the math the US would have to dedicate 500,000+ square miles or approx. 15% of her entire land mass to solar to provide all of the US energy needs. Wind is no better. Wind energy providers in the US provide between 25 and 50 acre buffer zones for each wind mill and many of these wind farms are gobbling up prime farmland in the process; reducing America’s ability to produce food. Bottom line wind and solar are not ready for primetime, kill thousands of birds, bats and eagles and in the once idyllic deserts of California and Arizona birds are literally burned alive when in flight over the vast array of solar panels that scar the Desert. Please stop the devastation to Nature and Humanity caused by Wind and Solar and approve the Keystone Pipeline.
Please also accept this as an official public comment on the State Department’s National Interest Determination for the Keystone XL pipeline (Docket ID: DOS-2014-0003).
CJ, I’m in agreement basically but only the end result. Wind & solar don’t use up that much PRIME farm land. The basic problem with W&S is they are by far more expensive than oil or gas…and they are not reliable being intermittent sources. Opponents might argue W&S are free but so is oil &gas. It’s just lying there in the ground.
The alternative transport method is truck, RR or ship which have proved prone to accident. There are thousands of miles of pipe line throughout the US with little problem history. We have the energy is the primary argument. To import it is ridiculous. The news today is all about Russia & how to stop their invasion & empire building. They can not be stopped because they control oil and pipelines to Asia & Europe. 50% of Russia Federal budget is O&G. 70+% to Europe and 32+5 to Asia and these numbers continue to climb. How can Europe or Asia assist in stopping Russia aggression? They can’t because Russia has the energy supply as we should and can by “drill baby drill” & build Keystone! Stop empire building….supply cheaper energy competition and food competitive supply.
Regarding wind: Google how many endangered bat and bird species have been killed by wind turbines. If you don’t already know, the numbers (and the coverup) will astound you.
Mr. Burkhead, you are right . Mama Nature see’s to it that the WIND does not blow 365/6 Days a Year . Some days there is no wind – except, of course, in and around the Washington D.C. White House. Thank you for your comment. TSgt., USAF Retired.
That’s not considered wind even though it’s hot air because it comes out of the wrong end!
Congatulations Mr Bell with your article, which should be read by all uninformed people.
(As far as the greens are concerned, your facts will fall on bare ground.)
In your support underneath you will find the comment I sent around the globe for many years already, to get a likewise impregnating effect as the red/green brigade of CO2 swindlers were having for more then 30 years with their lies about Climate Change etc., to convince the uninformed majority of the world population with “the science is settled” lies, while tens of thousands of REAL scientists have dismissed the faulty and fraudulent IPCC conclusions.
Earth’s GLOBAL CLIMATE is for at least 95% decided by our sun’s activity (solar flairs changing the earth’s magnetic field) and the quantity of cosmic rays (nano particles) entering the earth’s atmosphere ‒producing more or less cloud cover, which
causes global temperatures respectively to fall or rise‒ and consequently is not influenced by whatever quantity of CO2 there might be in our atmosphere.
CO2 ‒natural and manmade (only 0,001152% ≈ nil)‒ is an inert, colourless, tasteless,
innocuous, very beneficial and indispensable “GREEN” gas, necessary for all life on earth to keep nature functioning as it did during eons, so there can never be “too much” manmade CO2 in the atmosphere!
Exhausts and chimneys should even spew more CO2 unhampered!
Politicians with some knowledge and/or insight might even understand this!
Immediately stop wasting trillions $/€ on the worldwide construction of all those totally
inefficient windmills and solar panels!
Instead, build as many as possible nuclear reactors to safely deliver the electric energy needed to develop all human communities on our globe!
The experts have been proving it over & over again that the Keystone Pipeline will not hurt the environment! It is just typical Obama Bullshit to STOP job creation & prove again how useless that he is as as POS POTUS & a human being! 1 1/2 years ago they had a horrific train derailment in Alabama carrying the oil over the railway instead of the pipeline. Well guess what, it spilled all over the place whereas if had of been in the pipeline it would have made it safely to Canada!
Secretary will not sign for building the pipeline. This gives President Obama an easy way out to do nothing. Kerry can fall on the sword for him.
For what it is worth, the same environmental groups opposed the original Alaska Pipeline in the late 1960s and delayed its construction start until 1973. It didn’t come into operation until 1978. If the pipeline had been in operation by October 1973, the Arab Oil Embargo would have been a fizzle. History is repeating itself. Lack of a solid oil and natural gas production is making the country a limp noddle in international relations.
James H. Rust, Professor of nuclear engineering
Larry Bell, “Hanoi” John Kerry will stand behind Barry Hussien Obama, as usual, so he can kiss Obama’s Butt every time he (Obama) comes to a stop. The same can be said about all of the other Obama White House Appointee’s. Just my Opinion. TSgt., USAF Retired