EDITORIAL: Mr. Kerry’s costly fantasies on global warming
Secretary of state goes to Asia to sound call for higher taxes, more spending
Secretary of State John Kerry gestures during a speech on climate change on Sunday, Feb. 16, 2014, in Jakarta. Kerry called for a “global solution” for climate change in the first of several speeches he will deliver this year on the topic. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci, Pool)
When John F. Kerry complains of too much warming, it’s usually to tell his driver to turn down the heat in the heated leather seats in the back seat of his limousine.
Over his weekend in Asia, Mr. Kerry said the eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Kelud was a consequence of the planet’s looming fever. “Because of climate change,” he said, “it is no secret that today, Indonesia is also one of the most vulnerable countries on Earth.”
To America’s top diplomat, global warming is “the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction” — worse than “terrorism, epidemics, poverty.” Perhaps also worse than chupacabra, vampires, toothaches, the Loch Ness monster, stubbed toes in the middle of the night, the abominable snowman, the bogeyman lurking under the bed. Maybe even worse than George W. Bush, the all-purpose villain for every Democrat.
The administration uses global warming as the universal justification for any spending program — the more expensive, the better. The latest example is the “resilience” fund the president announced on Friday, which will distribute $1 billion in Solyndra-style grants to “mitigate” the damages caused by global warming.
Whenever there’s a dry spell or high water, a heat wave or a cold snap, it will be an occasion to give away federal dollars because global warming is responsible for it all. Anthropogenic climate change has been identified as the culprit for everything from bigger spiders, depression, increased sightings of jellyfish, frogs with two heads and teenage prostitution. A mere billion dollars seems like a bargain to right all these wrongs.
Some House Republicans think creation of such a giveaway fund has less than a snowball’s chance in Congress. “Drought is a serious problem,” Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, chairman of the House Science Committee, told Politico, the Capitol Hill daily, “that should not be used to justify a partisan agenda or a new billion-dollar climate-change fund. I look forward to a day when the weather is no longer used to gain political leverage.”
We do, too, but that happy day lies in the far distance. Mr. Kerry derides those who question the administration’s schemes as “shoddy scientists,” “flat-earthers” and “extreme ideologues.” To maintain their own confidence, liberals paint everyone who disagrees with them as delusional.
That’s a description that applies to President Obama, who as a candidate in 2008 predicted his election would be the world’s most celebrated event. “I am absolutely certain that generations from now,” said Mr. Obama, “we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when … the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
He was right, in a way. He was elected, and the oceans aren’t rising and the planet is healthy, not having warmed in more than the past decade. The “healing” began long before an obscure state senator in Illinois let the world know he had his sights set on the White House.
Whether he and his like-minded like it or not, the sun, the tides and other natural forces are the causes of the globe’s weather. Each is stronger than even an executive order or a joint resolution of Congress.
Rain men, oracles and other charlatans throughout history have claimed to hold the power to alter the weather, always for a price. For Messrs. Kerry and Obama, the price is the prosperity of America. The nation can’t afford to divert its scarce resources to banish imaginary monsters from under the bed.
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