By Kevin Mooney —
Even the New York Times has been forced to concede that global warming alarmism no longer resonates with the public on both sides of the Atlantic. At the very least, The Times deserves credit for acknowledging the obvious.
“If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet?” a recent report asks. “Nowhere has this shift in public opinion been more striking than in Britain, where climate change was until this year such a popular priority that in 2008 Parliament enshrined targets for emissions cuts as national law. But since then, the country has evolved into a home base for a thriving group of climate skeptics who have dominated news reports in recent months, apparently convincing many that the threat of warming is vastly exaggerated.”
To the consternation of the liberal news media, this means it is problematic to say the least to use environmentalism as a rationale for “cap and trade” regulatory regimes modeled after the Kyoto Protocol.
However, President Obama signaled in his State of the Union address this past January that even if the science is not persuasive it is still makes sense to move away from fossil fuels as a matter of sound policy. The BP oil spill has provided the administration with the opening it has been looking for to push the anti-emissions bill that Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) reintroduced in the U.S. Senate last month.
What follows are some the comments Obama was scheduled to make in Pittsburgh, Pa. on Wed.
“The only way the transition to clean energy will succeed is if the private sector is fully invested in this future — if capital comes off the sidelines and the ingenuity of our entrepreneurs is unleashed,” he said.
“The only way to do that is by finally putting a price on carbon pollution,” Obama said, noting that the House of Representatives had already passed a climate change bill, which had become stalled in the Senate.
“The votes may not be there right now, but I intend to find them in the coming months,” said Obama, who is increasingly under political siege over his handling of the BP oil spill.
“I will make the case for a clean energy future whenever and wherever I can, and I will work with anyone to get this done. And we will get it done,” the president added.
“The next generation will not be held hostage to energy sources from the last century.”
After losing out on the science thanks in no small part to “climategate,” the statists and central planners have not given up on their grand scheme to remake America, no matter what the rationale.