Many people would likely agree that a nuclear holocaust is the greatest threat to the survivability of the human race, but President Joe Biden said Sunday that global warming is actually a greater concern.
The comments were made at a press conference in Hanoi, Vietnam. The president was talking about climate goals at the G20 Summit in India, a gathering of nations to discuss international economic cooperation.
“In addition to helping the environment overall — and the only existential threat humanity faces, even more frightening than a nuclear war, is global warming going above 1.5 degrees in the next 20, 10 years. We’re — that’d be real trouble. There’s no way back from that,” Biden said.
‘So Stupid’
World leaders often make extreme statements about climate change and urge action, and the press usually responds favorably.
In July, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that the “era of global warming has ended, and the era of global boiling has arrived.”
The quote was repeated by multiple outlets in the international media, but the president’s remarks in Vietnam have received comparatively little coverage.
“The mainstream media is happy to tear into the global boiling comment from Guterrez, which was really bad — it was equally bad. But they did not report what Biden said because it’s so stupid,” Steve Milloy, an adjunct analyst with Competitive Enterprise Institute who served on the EPA transition team for the Trump administration, told Cowboy State Daily.
Milloy said much of the coverage of the odd comment came from conservative media outlets.
Cooler Heads Prevail
State Sen. Brian Boner, R-Douglas, who is a former nuclear watch officer who manned missile silos, said that the alarmist language from world and national leaders on climate change are not helping formulate sound energy policies, but Biden’s comments in Vietnam went too far.
“I just want to go on record and say that those comments are absurd,” Boner said.
He said that any policy requires a certain amount of competence, and events like the withdrawal from Afghanistan, he believes, show the president lacks it.
But even with capable leadership, calmer heads produce better results, Boner said.
“They could have had another ‘Cash For Clunkers’ program, but instead they decided they’re going to subsidize the daylights out of electric vehicles, even though that’s not going to be a big bang for your buck in terms of reducing carbon,” Boner said.
The Obama-era Cash for Clunkers program provided money for people to turn in less fuel-efficient vehicles for newer models that produce less emissions.
Boner said that it’s not helping that Biden and the Democrats aren’t acknowledging that fossil fuels are going to be part of the energy mix for a long time to come.
“Their obsession with technology that isn’t ready is a detriment to what their stated goals are,” Boner said.
Never Wrong
Milloy said that carbon emissions have doubled since 1988, and none of the claims of catastrophe came to pass. This hasn’t led to any hesitation in making dire predictions to push for urgent action.
“They’ve never been right about anything,” Milloy said.
Milloy pointed to Stanford University Professor Paul Ehrlich as an example. In his 1968 book The Population Bomb, Ehrlich predicted global famines and societal upheaval if population continued to rise.
Every prediction in the book wasn’t just a little wrong or a little off. The exact opposite of what Ehrlich predicted actually happened. Population doubled since the book was published. Since 1970, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, undernourishment in the world’s poorest countries has fallen from 34.5% to just under 13%.
Yet, in January Ehlich received a positive interview on 60 Minutes that only mentioned in passing that his predictions were entirely wrong.
“It’s just non-stop apocalyptic predictions with them. And there’s nothing you can do or say, there’s nothing that will happen to get them to change their minds,” Milloy said.
