Secretary of State John Kerry has called climate change the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. Folks in many different parts of the world are finding out why this winter.
Can he really walk that back and approve the Keystone pipeline?
Since we’ve been talking about debates, Joe Romm gives an example of one way to effectively convey a message.
Below, in my interview with Joe last year, we discussed the Keystone decision, and the President’s new-found emphasis on climate.
In the overall battle to save the Earth’s ecosystem, the Keystone is primarily symbolic. Obama has made it clear that growth comes first, and I’m sure that any President would feel this way, at least in public. But how many tipping points can we tip? You might want to click ahead to the post about “Oops, we underestimated methane leakage by 50%” and add that to the list. Most people are still treating climate change as a minor annoyance, rather than the weapon of mass destruction that Kerry so accurately and surprisingly called it.
Peter asks: “Secretary of State John Kerry has called climate change the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. Folks in many different parts of the world are finding out why this winter.
“Can he really walk that back and approve the Keystone pipeline?”
John Kerry is substantially more duplicitous and conniving than either of us, Peter.
My guess is that the Indonesia speech was conceived as a shakedown tool. As a way to make it more costly for the Enbridge folks to persuade the Democrats to acquiesce to the Keytone XL pipeline.
I’ve followed John Kerry’s public pronouncements since he gained minor celebrity before the Senate in 1972 opposing the Viet Nam War. At that time he was articulating wisdom that I agreed with. Little did I realize that Kerry was simply posturing and that he’d take the imperialist tack when it mattered and George Bush needed bi-partisan support for his criminal war intentions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I’ve come to this conclusion. John Kerry is a patrician, a 1%er, a hypocrite and a liar and always looking out for Number One. He’ll be much better served by the financial and networking payoffs he’ll get from the oil & gas industry than he would be with the penniless attaboys that Bill McKibben and Jim Hansen could laud on Kerry for a decision to violate the “laws of nature”.
John Kerry will not be playing Howard Beale in this year’s version of “Oil Pipeline Network”. He will not meddle with the forces of nature. He will not defy the ecological ebb and flow of money. He will not fail to understand that there is only one multi-variate system of petrodollars. Kerry will not go against the natural order of things today. The pipeline’s a done deal. Why, I’ll bet a special combo pizza on it. 🙂
Recent news:
http://news.yahoo.com/nebraska-law-allowed-keystone-xl-struck-down-210316974.html
Climate Progress reported on this also—there are links to the actual ruling if anyone wants to read it
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/02/19/3309791/nebraska-keystone-pipeline-ruling/
Ooops—sorry, it doesn’t link to the actual ruling but back to the AP story and some other Climate progress pieces. I saw some of the text of the ruling somewhere, but CRS has overtaken me.