As President Obama departed the Conference of Parties (COP21) today, he gave another high-handed speech on the perils of global warming, one that walked the fine line between science fact and science fiction. He also “smirked” that a Democrat would continue his legacy when asked about his successor. What was clear from his latest Gaia-themed sermon was that no binding agreement had been reached, and that the United States would continue to lead the world in carbon dioxide reductions (take that, ISIS!).
Interestingly, Wired magazine first noted that the attendees of the Paris Climate Talks will use roughly 300,000 tons of carbon, emitted from private jets to limousines to other accoutrements. “That does not include the NGOs, businesses, activists, high school students, and many, many journalists” at the summit to “influence, capitalize on, or catalog the two week event,” Wired writes.
During the Q&A session before Obama left for Washington D.C., one reporter posed the following what-if scenario: If a Republican is elected as president, do you expect him or her to carry out your executive orders and to keep in place the tens of thousands of new regulations targeting carbon dioxide emissions (CO2)? Obama, channeling enough smug conceit to make Kanye West blush, retorted that he is “anticipating a Democrat succeeding me. I’m confident in the wisdom of the American people on that front.”
He then added that “even if somebody from a different party succeeded me,” the nature of the job is much different from commitments made on the campaign trail than those of the position. In other words, being the president is a lot harder than most people realize, because “you now are in fact at the center of what happens around the world,” and that “America’s ability to influence events depends on taking seriously what other countries care about.” Yes, Obama believes he is at the center of what happens around the world and global warming is the top concern of the citizenry.
Except here and abroad, global warming ranks dead last in just about every poll and the only countries that care about it are the poorer nations who are looking for climate restitution. As Obama began to answer the rest of the reporter’s questions, he trotted out some global warming tidbits that we’ll tackle below.
First the president told the reporter: “Now the fact of the matter is, there’s a reason why you have the largest gathering of world leaders probably in human history here in Paris. Everybody else is taking climate change really seriously. They think it’s a really big problem.” Actually, they don’t. As noted here, poorer countries are looking for a trillion dollars before they sign any climate agreement, and richer countries are trying to deal with terrorist threats and a lousy global economy.
President Obama also said: “It spans political parties. I mean, you travel around Europe and you talk to leaders of governments and the opposition, and they are arguing about a whole bunch of things. One thing they’re not arguing about is whether the science of climate change is real and whether or not we’re going to have to do something about it.”
This isn’t about science. This is about governments exerting more and more control over you, your decisions, your actions, your money. This is green ideology at its worst: It knows what’s best for you, the world, and you’re not smart enough to get it. The Earth has a fever, we are the virus, and either the virus dies or the host dies. If that sounds like the plotline of a Hollywood blockbuster, look no further than Kingsman. In only two decades, this has gone from a scientific issue to a political issue.
Which begs the question: Is the president getting his news from Real Time with Bill Maher or is he terribly ill-informed? No one is disputing that the climate changes. What people are disputing is that the infinitesimal amount of CO2 added into the atmosphere by man can (or will) raise temperatures significantly. The satellite temperature data record all but buries any notion that the planet is dangerously or even modestly warming.
But Obama doesn’t want you to look up the science yourself (and most reporters are loathe to dig too deep into climate science as it’s extremely complicated, murky, full of jargon, and primarily based on computer models). Obama went on to say, “So whoever is the next president of the United States, if they come in and they suggest somehow that that global consensus, not just 99.5 percent of scientists and experts but 99 percent of world leaders think this is really important, I think the president of the United States is going to need to think this is really important.”
First, 99.5 percent of scientists do not believe that global warming is man-made, partially man-made, or somewhat man-made. That is an outright falsehood and the president should be ashamed of himself for making such statements for the “common good.” For a more detailed explanation on the so-called scientific consensus (which is anathema to the scientific method), see these essays on climate consensus and the climate change debate.
