by Greg Gutfeld
There is an underlying assumption to the far left’s obsession with the environment: Humans are bad, and the fewer there are, the better. Of course, this rule doesn’t apply to them.
May 7, 2014
The science is settled: If we don’t do something now, we’re all going to die.
And so begins a video clip montage of the media response to the National Climate Assessment report.
ANCHOR 1: Torrential rain, flooding, heat waves, drought, and wildfires. It’s all getting worse.
ANCHOR 2: On the heels of America’s warmest decade, more heat waves and periods of severe drought.
ANCHOR 3: All these are set to be more severe, according to the latest National Climate Assessment put out by the White House Tuesday.
That’s the media’s loving take on the White House’s new climate change report. I’m telling you, the incestuous bond between the media and Obama makes Norman Bates’s crush seem wholesome.
So why does this report call for a course of panic? To beat you into cowering submission, so your wallet is more easily lifted? Perhaps.
Or it could be that the data just isn’t enough. The computer models have failed, as most predictions flunked. The prior hysteria didn’t help. They put politics before science, so trust is essentially dead.
The scientists used to embrace skepticism. But global warmers marshal only those who agree to ostracize the rest. It’s intellectual bullying by government and media together that’s meant to silence others.
The panic, the doomsday rhetoric, is so in sync, with such suffocating superiority, that you’re a leper just by questioning it. I’m one now.
See, the media used to ask questions. Now they’re a megaphone for their masters on everything from climate change to gun control, Benghazi, Obamacare, and the IRS. Which leaves only one real question: What can the average person do when he’s this outdone? Where do you go when no one speaks for you?
The beach? We’ve got the weather for it.
I’m trying to think of an example where the American public was ever persuaded by a panic to do the right thing. In just about every instance where we were told that something wicked would come if we didn’t change our ways, nothing happened. Or things simply got worse because of the panic. The Alar Scare? Artificial sweeteners? DDT? SARs? Any issue linked to the end of the world never is. But if you’re able to argue coherently armed with facts about something that concerns you, you make more headway, and come to some reasonable conclusion about what to do next. It’s how I look at terrorism. Rather than scream “We’re all going to die,” I focus on ideologies and technologies that make it easier to achieve goals. That’s how you deal with a real fear.
Panic never solves a problem. It only makes it worse—like truffle oil [which has ruined French fries for me in most neighborhood restaurants].
February 12, 2015
So last night, I had this nightmare. It was about a president who believes the media overstates the alarm people have about the threat of terrorism, over the threat of climate change.
I realized it wasn’t a dream when I saw this clip:
MATTHEW YGLESIAS, EXECUTIVE EDITOR OF VOX: Do you think the media sometimes overstates the sort of level of alarm people should have about terrorism and this kind of chaos as opposed to a longer-term problem of climate change, epidemic disease?
BARACK OBAMA: Absolutely.
Well, it’s almost as if the president’s saying, as he seems to be implying here, that the threat of climate change is greater than the threat of terrorism.
And they say Trump shouldn’t be in charge? This was a president whose view of national security apparently came from reading Hallmark cards.
JONATHAN KARL, ABC NEWS: As the president is saying, as he seems to be implying here, the threat of climate change is greater than the threat of terrorism.
JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think, Jon, the point that the president is making is that there are many more people on an annual basis who have to confront the impact, the direct impact on their lives, of climate change or on the spread of a disease, than on terrorism.
Christ, I need to throw up.
So the media’s ignoring global warming—the same media that blames climate change for shrinking sheep, increased shark and cougar attacks, cow infertility, and even global cooling. You think maybe this absurd obsession is why our president missed ISIS?
Uh, yes, Greg—you’re absolutely right on that . . . the more we focused on Celsius, the more we overlooked the mass murders propagated by an ideology that doesn’t fit neatly in the “blame America” box. Climate change was the acceptable threat because it was OUR fault. But ISIS? If only we could make that our fault, too. And in time, they do, by linking the rise of terror to . . . climate change!
Sorry, that’s not a cold front that kills innocents with machetes. Those aid workers didn’t lose their heads to drizzle.
Fact is, if climate change is a huge threat, what do you do about it? We know the temperature models were wrong. Scientists dispute both cause and harm.
Sorry, that 97 percent consensus was bunk. Exaggeration occurs when facts escape you.
I’m referring to what might be the most overused statistic on the planet about the planet. From what I gather, and I could be sloppily right, it was taken from a general questionnaire regarding opinions of academics on whether man might have an impact on climate change. To rephrase it better, the number from the survey is not “bunk,” but that it reflects overall agreement that we are heading to environmental armageddon is. And that the academic arena demands obedience to a set orthodoxy, I’m surprised it wasn’t 99 percent.
But with terror, you know what to do, the threat is palpable. We see the forecasts every day and it’s 90 percent bloody with a 50 percent chance of beheading.
So, why climate change? Well, it’s an ideology built for American blame. If the villain isn’t the West, then why bother with unrest? The result: snow blindness, where our president calls Yemen a success, right before our embassy evacuates—and says ISIS morale is low, as their forces grow. Seriously, how does Obama miss all these storms? He is not just a weak president, he is a crummier weatherman.
We haven’t had a worse prognosticator in the U.S. since Custer. How wrong Obama was on ISIS will never enter history—because it’s the liberals who write the history books. And also, Trump cleaned up Obama’s mess. But Team Obama couldn’t have gotten this one more wrong if they emptied Gitmo and expected the prisoners to go straight. Wait a minute . . . oh.
I do believe that Obama’s obsession with climate change has one origin, and one consequence. The origin: It’s an issue where one can blame the U.S.—and if you can blame us, you’re on safe ground with everyone else [who hates us]. The consequence: By keeping his eye on climate change, he took his eye off terror and allowed the rise of ISIS. And the fact that the media still clings to the idea that an incremental increase in Celsius is deadlier than a raging mass of murderous ideological zombies speaks to their blindness. This trend, for now, was reversed by Trump. He took the foot off the gas of climate change hysteria [pulling out of the Paris climate accords], while throttling up the wholesale elimination of ISIS by easing rules of engagement. We could now win a war by actually TRYING to win it. Which meant killing. The result—we eliminated, for the time being, an apocalyptic death cult, and saved countless lives in the immediate future.
Even during horrible events—like a Jordanian pilot being burned alive by ISIS—our government still prattled on about its climate change obsession. It’s not like you can’t hold two different thoughts in your head [one about terror and another about the planet], it’s just that one thought commands so much space over the other. It makes you wonder that if ISIS had actually grown and spread to a force that could take over the West, annihilating hundreds of millions of Americans, our government would be saying, “Well, as long as they’re recycling!”
April 22, 2015
So at an Earth Day thing at the N
ational Mall, activists made an unearthly mess. I guess if your heart’s in the right place, the trash can go anywhere. But it’s never about the earth, but about ego and retribution. Take Bill Nye, the denial guy, bragging on Twitter about flying with President Obama today. See, for him, it’s all about status. The attention bestowed for parroting the right platitudes.
My “side” can also be guilty of this—when the dude in power decides to anoint you with his admiration or friendship, your ego expands and you suddenly pull back on your usual sober critical analysis. I’ve seen it: The president says something nice about you, and it changes you. We’re all susceptible to flattery from above (and below).
The scarier belief, however, is that climate change poses a greater threat than terror. It’s fine coming from loons, but the president . . . yikes.
BARACK OBAMA: Today, there’s no greater threat to our planet than climate change. The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risk to our national security. Climate change can no longer be denied or ignored. (How is this not a cult?)
I call this the strawpocalypse, a mix of straw man and Armageddon. Sure, it’s the earth and it trumps everything, but with that absurd comparison, then we should devote nothing to fight present danger and fight only figments of imagination. It’s nuts. But Republicans must be better. If you say the science isn’t settled, then you cannot dismiss warming out of hand.
You need to be persuasive, even when they mock you—and they will mock you. Earth Day is Christmas for earth’s avengers. For most climate change activists, it’s less about carbon and more about consumers and consumerism and trashing the systems that save countless lives.
For the green movement believes that the root of every evil is a beating human heart.
Their bile toward human enterprise is the howl of the nonproductive—nurtured on bitter slogans. “I’m here to help,” they tell the earth. If the earth could talk, she would say, “Please, get lost.”
Slipped inside this monologue is some sound advice to Republicans: Going “whole denial” is not a strategy. It gives the opponents too much turf. And if you believe the science isn’t settled [and it isn’t], then you must allow for the possibility that there is truth to the climate change claims, even if the claims are often exaggerated. And, yes, it forces you to take the high road: Though even if you’re willing to meet the other side halfway, they’ll still want to run you over in their Teslas. The good news: Your F-150s will crush them.
December 1, 2015
Did you know that the Paris climate talks emit three hundred thousand tons of CO2? Here’s some of that gas.
BARACK OBAMA: This is an economic and security imperative that we have to tackle now. Everybody else has taken climate change really seriously. They think it’s a really big problem.
Thanks, Einstein.
CHARLES, PRINCE OF WALES: Your deliberations over the next two weeks will decide the fate, not only of those alive today, but also of generations yet unborn.
Oh, stop it, Dumbo.
DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Let’s just imagine for a moment what we would have to say to our grandchildren if we failed. What was it that was so difficult when the earth was in peril? When the sea levels were rising in 2015, when crops were failing, when deserts were expanding. What was it that was so difficult?
I’d say your flowery panic made it unbelievable, chap.
And then the media added their own stink.
SCOTT PELLEY, CBS EVENING NEWS ANCHOR: The president warns it will soon be too late to stop climate change. We find evidence in China’s pollution emergency and in the melting Arctic.
DAVID MUIR, ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT ANCHOR: Overseas United to Paris into that unprecedented Climate Change Summit tonight, a major gathering of world leaders, nearly 150 in all, including of course President Obama, who said today the United States deserves some of the blame for climate change.
Seriously, it’s like they all got the same phone call.
What self-perpetuating poop. You’ve got to wonder why such drama hasn’t been directed at terror. Maybe it’s the difference between those who fight for such causes. The climate crazies are elitists—lavishly educated, expensively caffeinated, and predominantly white. The older and richer they are, the more this elite status becomes obvious. See Prince Charles, Leo DiCaprio, Al Gore.
But I beg you, try finding a poor Indian, a working-class Asian, or a struggling Latino on this activist front. No, they are almost entirely white European elitists who wish to deny cheap fuel to the billion in the third world not on the electricity grid. Maybe they’re racist!
As Prince Charles falsely links drought to terror, this war on cheap resources is more likely linked to terror—for when you ensure the poverty of a billion people, a death cult becomes viable. So climate panic helps terror in two ways, by diverting resources from the fight and punishing the poor.
Now let’s look at those who see terror as a bigger threat than climate change, they aren’t in Hollywood, they aren’t in the media, they’re not tenured. They don’t have private jets, they don’t drip with royalty or party with Leo on a yacht stacked with topless supermodels. They aren’t chic. They look like you and, sadly, me. Could that be why the climate crusade gets the summit and the attention and the accolades that terror warriors never get? Imagine if we flipped this and made the war on terror the glamorous one. ISIS wouldn’t stand a chance.
This script finally got flipped, and as I edit this in early October 2017, ISIS forces are surrendering by the hundreds to the Kurds. It proves the point: What if a new leader shifted emphasis from climate apocalypse to the more urgent existential threat of ISIS? It shows you how climate blind ness was preventing us from fighting terror, and in turn ushered in a leader who wanted to change that.
And all of this climate hysteria blather really was about securing $100 trillion bucks for the climate accords, which would have again diverted precious funds from solving more urgent problems to capping the temperatures by a fraction of a degree over a century. When Trump pulled out of the accords, the outrage told you everything you needed to know. It lasted a few days, then everyone went on their merry way. Everyone—perhaps even the environmentalists—knew it was a scam. There may be a better deal to be made, but only Trump had the guts to say so, out loud. And we all pretty much knew he was right. Including his critics. God bless the orange Godzilla!
December 14, 2015
This is a monologue on the great triumph of the Paris accords. The good news: It didn’t last long.
Good news. The Paris climate thing was a smash.
Hmm, I wonder if Captain Planet said this agreement represents the best chance we have to save the one planet that we’ve got, and believes that this moment could be a turning point for the world.
I love doing this. Although it works better on TV than on the page.
BARACK OBAMA: This agreement represents the best chance we’ve had to save the one planet that we’ve got. So I believe this moment can be a turning point for the world.
And the media loved it, greeting this deal with wild applause. It’s like they won a car on Oprah. And you wonder why terrorists enter America unnoticed. It’s because these adults are too obsessed with Celsius to see the real threats. But it’s no shock, they all fester in the same campus swamp where prosperity is deemed evil, but violence is a means of the powerless. So while these fools whoop it up, our government—out of fear—won’t review social media posts for people who are applying for visas here. Political correctness stops vetting of potential terrorists, so we die. I can’t cheer for that. And what about that drywall with Botox known as Secretary of State John Kerry? What are his thoughts on the accord?
JOHN KERRY, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF STATE: I think it actually sends a very powerful message to the marketplace, but one of the reasons why there is no enforcement mechanism is because the United States Congress would never accept one. So it has to be voluntary. And a lot of nations resent that, but we have accepted th
at because we believe it’s going to move the marketplace, and already you see countless new technologies, a lot of jobs being created, and I think it’s going to produce its own form of oversight.
What is he talking about? What an oaf. They didn’t solve anything. It was a consensus of the senseless.
The liberal reply always is “We can chew gum and walk at the same time.” Meaning, we can tackle climate change and terror—but where is the proof? Forget walking and chewing gum, Obama’s climatism is like texting while driving. He’s not doing two things well, but doing the wrong thing instead of the right thing at the wrong time and endangering all of us.
He’s driving a packed Greyhound around a tight corner, while texting Leo about the weather. Forgive us, dear media, but we aren’t cheering, we’re screaming.
Now, I do think we can handle two things at the same time, but in an era of terror, let’s get those things in the right order. Which is when something like ISIS happened to cross. But instead of hitting it, they hit us.
Right now [late February 2018] someone floated a rumor that Kerry is considering another run for the presidency. I’d love to see that! The debate with Trump would be the equivalent of a race between an Olympic sprinter and an Adirondack chair.
March 28, 2016
Like a rusted garage door needing a gallon of WD-40, John Kerry opened his mouth this weekend, defending Obama’s recent terror response. I bet he says the president’s schedule isn’t set by terrorists.
JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: The president of the United States’ schedule was not set by terrorists. The president of the United States has major diplomatic responsibilities. He has to engage with other countries. That was an important part of trying to build a relationship and achieve some of our goals with respect to human rights, with respect to transformation in Syria, in Cuba, and elsewhere. Life doesn’t stop because one terrible incident takes place in one place.