Peter Murphy
cfact.org
At the second and final presidential debate, former Vice President Joe Biden went all in on climate change extremism. He promised to effectively put America’s oil industry out of business and declared Earth was facing the point of no return in “eight to ten years.”
President Donald Trump and even the liberal moderator, Kristen Welker of NBC News, caught the significance.
Mr. Biden said, “I would transition away from the oil industry, yes,” in response to Trump’s question “Would you close down the oil industry?”
President Trump noted the gravity of his position, “That’s a big statement.” Biden agreed, and justified it by claiming, “we have to move toward net-zero emissions.”
Mr. Biden at the outset of the climate discussion said that climate change “is an existential threat” to humankind, and that Earth soon faces the proverbial tipping point, after which, presumably, we can do nothing to stave off planetary catastrophe. Wouldn’t you want to end fossil fuels and throw millions of people out of work and destroy America’s economy to try and save humans from boiling over and/or being flooded in three decades from an overheating planet and melting icebergs? As Biden would say in other contexts, “C’mon man!”
Planetary alarmism is nothing new. This is familiar hysteria with a long fraudulent history spoken by many a snake oil salesman (and woman).
Marc Morano of Climate Depot has documented such huckster predictions going back to the Civil War era of the 1860s. Bogus end-of-the-world claims failing to come true for the last 150-plus years, unfortunately, hasn’t stopped people from making more. Al Gore, a prominent modern-day example, has gotten wealthy by making planetary doomsday predictions for the last three decades. Mr Biden continued this dubious tradition and his are as false today as they’ve been from the outset.
President Trump during the debate presented a clear contrast to Biden’s climate extremism. Trump embraced America’s energy independence and hydro-fracturing for natural gas that has lowered overall carbon emissions. He also supported solar energy yet acknowledged the obvious that it cannot replace fossil fuels. The President further dismissed wind energy as harmful to birds and heavily reliant on other energy sources (fossil fuels) for their manufacture and operation.
This final presidential debate offered Americans a taste of the implications of climate extremism. It’s one thing to acknowledge overall warming in the last 150 years since the end of the Little Ice Age. That does not, however, portend the planet’s demise. For too long, politicians, activists and pseudo scientists have asserted this abstract “existential threat” of global warming/climate change without presenting credible scientific basis for such claims. Computer modeling doesn’t cut it, as climate variables are way more complicated and unpredictable.
During each of the three debates, neither Biden nor his V.P. running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, was asked for scientific details that justify the coming human extinction and the justification for trillions of dollars in new spending, ending the oil industry and destroying millions of blue collar, middle class jobs. It’s also not enough to claim a non-existent “scientific consensus” on these climate issues.
From a political standpoint, Biden is trying to thread a needle by maintaining his embrace of climate alarmism during the Democratic primaries while pivoting to a pro-fracking stance in the general election to win battleground states. While Biden continues his doomsday claims about the planet and reiterates his plan to end the oil industry, he insists he won’t ban hydro-fracturing, despite having made such pledges repeatedly during the campaign for the Democratic nomination for president. His late pivot on fracking is a dishonest attempt to win Pennsylvania, a major pro-fracking battleground state, and is wholly inconsistent with his parroting the climate alarmism of human extinction from a warming planet.
Mr. Biden said in the debate that he’s not Sen. Bernie Sanders; that he defeated him in the primaries. However, his alarmist claims about climate change are the exact words of Bernie. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as Biden embraced climate extremism in the “Unity Task Force” recommendations, which are the work product of Sen. Sanders and fellow climate extremist, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The 36-year Senator Joe Biden with working-class roots from Delaware was never associated with such Green extremism. That has changed dramatically, as evidenced in his campaign promises and in the debates.
Climate change policies are among the many issues for American voters to sort out as Election Day draws closer. Last night’s final presidential debate again revealed the contrast between the candidates.
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