With Ukraine suffering defeat at the hands of Vladimir Putin’s military, John Kerry shared his true concern about the conflict: climate.
To state the obvious, John Kerry is an unserious person. That’s not a reference to his wind-surfing or flip-flops or other classic campaign faux pas from days gone by.
With Ukraine suffering death and destruction at the hands of Vladimir Putin’s military, Kerry shared his true concern about the conflict: climate.
“A war is the last thing you need with respect to a united effort to try to deal with the climate challenge,” Kerry told a Reuters reporter. He then decried the “emissions” consequences of Russia’s invasion, adding, “You’re going to lose people’s focus . . . certainly big country attention, because they will be diverted” from the climate agenda.
Kerry’s remarks are aloof, callous, clueless — but, most of all, unserious.
In fact, his climate agenda is partly to blame for the current geopolitical mess. The Biden administration, from its first day in office, unleashed an attack on our once-robust energy industry. In pursuit of the Green New Deal, the socialist utopia that would ban the combustion engine, regulate diets and employ solar panels and wind turbines alone to power the nation, President Joe Biden & Co. sought to get rid of fossil fuels.
But by throttling the industry, they cut the global supply and prices rose accordingly. That hurt Americans, while making Vladimir Putin rich.
And a Vladimir Putin with surplus cash is a dangerous thing.
America’s shortsighted climate-change efforts are destabilizing world peace. This was not Biden or Kerry’s intention, but it is the consequence — and the more dangerous the world becomes, the more unserious “climate change” hysteria is.
Telling Putin not to invade Ukraine because of emissions is akin to lecturing those fleeing Kyiv to mask up and social distance. It’s a luxury they don’t have.
That is the climate agenda: the luxury of privileged elites. Families who can’t afford their heating bill or grocery bill thanks to energy-price-caused inflation don’t have the luxury of fretting about climate change. The 7,000 US soldiers headed to Germany right now don’t have the luxury of handwringing about their climate footprint.
John Kerry does, and he loves luxury, too.
Asked about the green contradiction of traveling on his private jet to win an environmental award in 2019, the unserious statesman claimed it was “the only choice for someone like me.” Reporters have tracked numerous such Air Kerry flights. Emissions? What emissions?
Kerry made his latest cringeworthy comments in Egypt as preparations begin for COP27, the international climate-change conference coming this fall to the Red Sea resort town of Sharm-el-Sheikh. If you’re going to fuss about the climate, you might as well do it in comfort. Last year’s conference in Glasgow, Scotland, boasted 40,000 people in attendance, along with 670 private jets: Kerry isn’t the only green hypocrite.
We didn’t elect John Kerry, so as climate czar in the White House, he’s unaccountable to Congress and therefore the American people who pay his salary. No one gets to look at his budgets. No one has oversight over his meetings, but there he goes on his private jet committing the United States to emissions reductions and punitive measures on fossil fuels.
Meanwhile, the real threats are Russia, China, Iran and North Korea continuing to build weapons, steal technology, launch cyberattacks, engage in terrorism and now start a full-scale war, the likes of which Europe hasn’t seen in 75 years.
Take the threat of climate change seriously when John Kerry forgoes the private jets and luxury mega-conferences. Worry about rising sea levels when John Kerry sells his oceanfront mansion.
Until then, we need to stop the attack on America’s energy industry, attacks that have strengthened our enemies and weakened our own nation. Until we reverse Biden’s reckless and dangerous energy policies, we don’t have the luxury of worrying about tomorrow when we can’t afford life today.
Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit that advocates for American energy jobs.