Global Warming on Free Republic
Posted on 01/14/2008 9:23:47 AM PST by kellynla
During recent primary campaigning, John McCain came out of the global warming closet, so to speak, into which it seemed he had gone to hide his passion for the Left’s new signature issue. Alert voters must have been wondering, where’s the John McCain who promised to ride this issue to further “maverick” glory, the man who not so long ago whispered in the Natural Resources Defense Council’s ear “Campaign finance reform took us seven years. This may take longer, but we’ll stay at it”?
First we restrict speech, then we ration energy. It just makes sense.
Whatever the reason for this silence on “the greatest threat facing mankind”, we now know that the new, emboldened John McCain is back to bang the alarmist drum, if relatively slowly. Smelling victory in New Hampshire, he finally let cross his lips that “we have to address the issue of greenhouse gas emissions.” His colleagues politely let that one go. Which is what Republican candidates generally do, being genetically fearful it seems of the enviro-sobriety whose name shall not be spoken.
After all, who could withstand the ostracism that comes with acknowledging that the atmosphere hasn’t warmed in a decade, that last December was the coldest month -- and 2007 the coldest year -- this century, with 2008 slated to be the fourth straight year of (very slight) global cooling? Wouldn’t that be impolite, what with GE, BP, and a bunch of other Enron successors lobbying hard for this agenda, so they can cash in on the subsidy-and-mandate goodies at your expense?
Indeed, outside of two aberrant comments from former Sen. Fred Thompson it looked as if only alarmism were permissible. Following his “hands down” performance at the Iowa debate an apparently outraged Hawkeye asked the Tennessee Gentleman what he would do to solve “the global warming crisis” (Iowans know an excuse for more ethanol subsidies when they see one, even a very bad excuse like global warming).
Thompson replied that the first thing he’d do is find out if it was as the man described. Emboldened by this sanity, someone later asked “I, and I think a lot of other people, are waiting for someone who has the spine to stand up to Al Gore and the environmental left on global warming, and so that is that a stand as our President, are you going to do anything about it? Are you going to be that guy?”
We know who isn’t going to be that guy. At his New Hampshire victory celebration McCain grasped a supporter’s “Stop Global Warming” placard -- someone tell this kid the fight was won in 1998, when warming peaked -- which the Senator waved about until his judgment recovered.
Two days later, McCain revealed in the South Carolina debate how he plans to reconcile his heartfelt ardor with his instincts to clam up about this moonbattery, by volunteering the limp-wristed “Climate change, in my view, is probably real”. Well, yeah, it probably is, given that the one constant with climate is constant change -- the one undeniable thing in this debate, that gets you labeled as a “denier” if you speak it.
That’s quite a walk back, Senator, from sign-waving alarmism and the bizarre insistence in that “Schoolmarm” debate that Man controls the weather. In the cross-talk that followed Thompson’s refusal to play the show-of-hands game, McCain admonished another candidate for daring to suggest that Man is merely contributing to warming: “More than contributing, my friend”. Although it might not be real. Gotcha.
McCain is not alone in his pursuit of the alarmist agenda. Another candidate has decided that the way to handle the issue is to follow safely in the senator’s wake. Mike Huckabee also now supports Kyoto-style energy rationing. He was against it before he was for it, however, correctly noting not too long ago that it sounds “a bit like buying indulgences from the ancient church”. In the same interview Huckabee announced he opposes an alternative, the carbon tax, because it “sounds too much like a tax.” Gotta get up pretty early to slip one by ol’ Huck.
Unfortunately, the Congressional Budget Office says the same thing about McHuckabee cap-and-trade rationing; in fact, it’s several times more expensive than a simple energy tax due to its inefficiencies, while also being less transparent. Distilled, the scheme he embraces is worse for you, better for him. Can’t say you weren’t warned about those boys from Hope, Arkansas.
So, that lonely questioner from Iowa continues to await an answer, who is going to be that guy who will note, for example, how no one disputes that the dangerous, feckless gesture of McHuckabee rationing would have zero detectable impact on climate but, as the biggest outsourcing program in history, would greatly assist our economic competitors?
Who will be the candidate to note that such schemes are intrinsically a promise to go the distance, all the way and soon to the demanded 80% reduction of CO2 emissions in order to possibly impact climate -- you know it as deindustrialization? Or, if that’s not really the objective of this exercise, to simply admit instead that this is all mere pandering?
Now seems a good time to find out which it is, before we commit ourselves to too many expensive gestures in the name of avoiding potentially uncomfortable discussion.
Do you remember one of the first debates many months ago when Duncan Hunter referred to some of his fellow candidates as , “THE KENNEDY WING OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY”?
THAT is why Hunter is out of the media coverage and the debates. He told the truth. CAN’T have that! Not to mention stopping any discussion of China and immigration.
McCain, Huckabee, Rudy....look who they’re giving us...LOOK who the media and globalist pundits are pushing!
I think we should start calling it exactly what it is, don’t you? Hunter, as usual, called it first and called it right.
“THE KENNEDY WING OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY”
California’s Arnold is certainly a perfect example.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUz-AgMGLQA
YouTube - New Hampshire Debate: The Kennedy Wing of the Gop Duncan Hunter Watch video - 1 min 11 sec -
Be sure to read what people say in the comment section when they’re allowed to hear Duncan Hunter.
Those who surrender personal liberty to lower global temperatures will receive neither.
~~Anthropogenic Global Warming ™ ping~~
“Do you remember one of the first debates many months ago?”
Sorry, I haven’t been watching the debates.
I’m ol’ school. As far as I’m concerned, the 2008 election doesn’t start ‘til after Labor Day. :-]
And just like Bill Kristol said, I’m hoping that there is a stalemate at the GOP convention and Dick Cheney is nominated and elected the next POTUS.
I know, I know...I’m dreaming. LOL
Kelly, I know you have this great love for Cheney. Have you checked out his position on illegal immigration? He supported Bush’s amnesty and had as his head of domestic policy, Ceasar Conda, one of the biggest open border advocates who now works for George Soros.
Well ya got me there...
no I haven’t delved into Cheney’s position on the borders & illegals...
I’ll put that on my “to do” list. LOL
After Thompson shut down the GW reporter at that debate, he jumped to the top of my list. This insane anti-human religion has to be stopped and not surprisingly McCain and Huck seem to be one of the many followers of it.
Wow...the "someone" who asked him that question was me!
Global Warming on Free Republic
Don’t leave us hanging? How did he answer???
By the way, thanks and congrats....I’ve wanted someone to ask SOME candidate that very question. I’m looking for someone to take the fight to the ecoloons and have long said I’ll go charging into battle behind the first pol who does.
Inhofe looks promising.
Hank
I had been waiting awhile for the chance too. For that event I arrived early and got a front row seat with a friend of mine; I was the first person he called on in the Q&A session. The last thing I expected was to show up in Human Events two weeks later...imagine my surprise when, reading the article, I realized the anonymous person being quoted was me, using (mostly) my exact words and phrasing!
Don’t leave us hanging? How did he answer???
Well, he didn't go quite as far as I would have liked (I was trying to get him to make national news). But he gave the best answer any candidate has given this year. And for the first 45 seconds or so I thought he might take the bait; my friend said she thought he was "really thinking about it", especially after the crowd (200+) loudly applauded my question. His mouth was kind of on auto pilot for that time; I think maybe he realized his advisors would kill him if he went as far as I wanted him to (using the words "hoax" and "scam", which Human Events left out of my quote).
When he got around to the meat of the question, he talked about being resentful of "scientific experts like Al Gore" (sarcasm was his) telling us the "debate is over" and that we need to just do what they tell us to do. He stated that we don't really know where we're at in terms of the natural climate cycles, we don't know what the human component is if anything, we don't know the intended and unintended consequences of proposed "remedies"; basically he said we don't know much of anything. He called for further research and study, and said we need to avoid doing anything precipitously that would harm the economy, and that we need to avoid doing anything unilaterally that would put us at a competitive disadvantage.
Basically he sounded like someone who very much wanted to call it a hoax and a scam, but who had decided to play it a little bit safe. His answer was the best I've heard from a candidate, and he's the guy I trust most not to cave to the idiotic anti-human Warmist cult.
Inhofe rules; he almost makes me want to move to Oklahoma.
I’m looking for someone to take the fight to the ecoloons and have long said I’ll go charging into battle behind the first pol who does.
I'll be right there with you.
By the way...do a google search for the word "ecotard" and see which (probably too-proud) Freeper is the source of the number one result...[hint: me]
If McCain wins at least we will still have Inhofe in the Senate.
I am hoping Inhofe will fillibuster any ECOFASCIST legislation that attempts to stop global warming.
I MUST have that bumper sticker! It’ll go next to my “Alaskans FOR global Warming!”
At the NH debate when the moderator asked, “Raise you hand if you think Clinate Change is a serious problem and that man is the major cause?” four hands were going up, McCain, Romney, Huckabee, and Rudy - - - Until Fred Thompson saved their butts by saying were not going to answer that by a show of hands.
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