President being hypocritical with recent statements on climate change, nuclear weapons - Norfolk Daily News

President being hypocritical with recent statements on climate change, nuclear weapons | Commentary | norfolkdailynews.com

On more than one occasion, President Joe Biden has described climate change as an “existential threat” and worse than nuclear weapons.

Really?

There are several ways to respond to that kind of rhetoric. One is to consider the hypocrisy of the president in make that kind of statement.

Mr. Biden’s green energy mandates, for example, actually result in greater U.S. demand for wind turbines, solar panels and electric batteries from China, made from coal-fired power plants that increase the kind of emissions the president criticizes.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the U.S. Center for Energy, Climate and Environment, points out another double standard coming from the White House. “If Biden truly thought that climate change was an existential threat, he would try to lower global emissions through greater U.S. exports of natural gas,” Furchtgott-Roth recently wrote. “This would enable other countries to reduce emissions by substituting natural gas for coal, just as America has reduced carbon emissions by 1,000 million metric tons over the past 16 years.”

Instead, the president has blocked a new liquid natural gas export terminal in Louisiana, which results in greater worldwide use of coal, increasing global carbon dioxide emissions. Europe has already been turning to coal to deal with energy shortages in the aftermath of Russia’s cutoff of natural gas.

What’s more, new regulations from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Office of the Controller of the Currency discourage companies from investing in natural gas and banks from lending money to fund natural gas. In addition, new regulations from the U.S. Department of Energy raise the cost of natural gas stoves, water heaters and boilers.

From our perspective, Mr. Biden’s repetition that climate change is an existential threat simply gives him an excuse to impose more harmful regulations.

In addition to being hypocritical, the president also creates numerous skeptics over his contention that climate change is worse than nuclear weapons, including Ms. Furchtgott-Roth.

She points out that the United Nations has estimated that in the absence of reductions in carbon emissions, temperatures will rise by about 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. “The idea that such a temperature change is worse than deaths from nuclear weapons is ludicrous,” Furchtgott-Roth wrote. “Over 200,000 people died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after America dropped atomic bombs.”

We’re not suggesting that climate change won’t have an impact on the world. But it is worth noting that the observed rate of global warming over the past 50 years has been weaker than that predicted by almost all computerized climate models.

Calling climate change worse than nuclear weapons is rhetoric that the president should refrain from.