The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Obama Official: ‘Climate’ Happiness is an Economic Downturn

Text Size

The Spectacle Blog

Obama Official: ‘Climate’ Happiness is an Economic Downturn

By Chris Horner on 4.5.11 @ 10:51AM

I mean, yes, they feel that way, but you're just not supposed to say it.

While I love the ClimateWire headline -- "U.S. vows continuing effort toward a 17% emission cut" (subscription required), sort of like I vow to continue my effort toward hitting fewer pedestrians when I drive...not to hit fewer pedestrians when I drive...ah, J-school -- the following excerpt from the piece is simply beyond belief.

Speaking to a U.N ‘Kyoto II' negotiating group in Bangkok, U.S. Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change Jonathan Pershing "noted in a series of slides that U.S. emissions have declined about 8.7 percent since 2005 -- and while he acknowledged that a portion of that is due to the economic downturn, Pershing insisted that the more important metric is whether America is meeting its target."

Re-read that.

I suppose now is a bad time to remind people that Bill Clinton said, fairly recently of the same agenda, "We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren."

Team Obama may be a little unclear on how to define success for, say, their Libya agenda. But on this one I'd say they've made themselves clear enough.

View all comments (9) | Leave a comment

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 4.5.11 @ 12:01PM

Their goal line is 50% unemployment. Half on, half off the government dole.

Irish22| 4.5.11 @ 12:19PM

When will people learn that when Obama, or any of his associates, says that we need higher energy prices, they are telling you that our standard of living is too high. And that they mean to lower it!

Wayne | 4.5.11 @ 12:47PM

The irony is that the environment degrades with poverty. San Francisco was once a beautiful place, now it is smells and looks rank. Oregon was once free of litter and now it is full of trash. Both places have gotten poorer.

Wayne | 4.5.11 @ 12:44PM

Prineville Oregon received a boon when Facebook built its data center there. However the Sierra Club and Greenpeace boycott Facebook because the power comes from an 80 year old coal plant. Prineville has 18 percent unemployment but the coal plant is the only thing that matters to the Eco-fascists. I personally have battled the San Francisco fascists of the Sierra Club for 40 years and know that they are RICH, Socialist Democrats, and arrogant as hell. They got Clinton to federalize the land of the Escalante Plateau in Southern Utah, and only the elite of the Sierra Club and Greenpeace get to go to that area. Its their private little oasis.

Leah| 4.5.11 @ 2:20PM

Eco-Nazi environmentalists are watermelons-- green outside, red inside. Marxists/Fascists are destroying our country right in front of our eyes.

michael| 4.5.11 @ 3:56PM

I can see a good side to it.
Personally, I believe the wheels will eventually come off the global-warming bandwagon: We just need to wait long enough for the real absence-of-evidence to accumulate.
If the zealots, the confused, and the willfully ignorant can be kept happy with some other foolish words in the mean time, then maybe that's the best available way. Even if it means curious statements like that one.

Nachum| 4.5.11 @ 6:16PM

The real story is that we are no longer surprised at the wild inane rhetoric of this administration. We are closer to a total collapse than ever and they continue with their agenda shamelessly.

mabel| 4.5.11 @ 6:58PM

So they aren't going to finally admit that the CO2 theory was a hoax. Instead they are just going to say that the emissions are reducing. Watch this space because I bet they are going to come up with another fake theory about why the globe is cooling finding a reason to blame it on mankind. You can't win.