Hypocrisy and climate hysteria 

“The sky is falling” should begin each and every future news story regarding the Paris Climate Accord. The leftist media are acting with the zealotry of new converts in the climate-change religion, which tolerates no dissent.

The hypocrisy of the self-appointed leadership of the climate-change/global warming cabal is unlimited and brazenly in-your-face. While we mortals are incessantly hectored to limit our choices and accept limits on our freedom and are chided to stop complaining, shut up, and pay our taxes (and higher costs for everything), climate celebrities live the high life.

They jet to conferences to accept climate awards and the praise from fellow climate-groupies regarding their “courage, leadership, and virtue” while dining at resorts/locales most common folk such as us only see portrayed in a James Bond movie.

For example, the most strident of the climate harpies, like billionaire Richard Branson, flies in a Desault Falcon 50EX private jet. Elon Musk flies in a Gulfstream G650 ER; Bill Gates, the second richest man in the world with more than $50 billion in assets, flies in a $62 million Bombadier BD7 Global Express. These aircraft all operate at costs reaching $1,000 per hour or more and use up more fuel in a single flight than most Americans use in 10 months of driving an SUV. If we could get these guys to stop attending climate conferences, America could probably reach its targeted reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in short order.

Hillary Clinton, while lecturing us during the election about the dangers of climate change and evil “climate denier” Donald Trump, exhaustively used private jets during her campaign for president. Then there is the campaigner in chief, former President Barrack Obama. After departing the White House he lodged in an 11,000-square-foot mansion in Palm Springs, (how much air conditioning does an 11,000 square foot mansion require?), followed up by use of Branson’s private aircraft to Hawaii, then to Tahiti and onward to Milan, to accept a “climate award.” The fuel and emissions the former president used likely exceeded the carbon footprint of a family of four for a decade.

Then there is “Mr. Climate” himself, former Vice President Al Gore, who while breathlessly warning us of the danger of rising sea levels, bought a multi-million-dollar beachfront property in Southern California. Maybe it floats? Gore hasn’t seen the inside of a commercial aircraft in years, and his carbon footprint would likely resemble Godzilla’s. All of this is justified, of course, for all of them are beyond reproach in their moral authority, thus their energy excesses are excused. No doubt, lots of conservative politicians also burn lots of energy, including presidential candidate Trump last year, but they tend not to incessantly lecture us about our own failure to save the planet.

The Paris Climate Accord, we’re told, was non-binding, no teeth, it won’t hurt at all. So, why all the outrage directed at President Trump? Other than the fact that it was President Trump making the decision (obviously justification in itself for outrage), Trump and company have blasphemed against an icon of the new climate religion, its adherents’ outrage closely resembling the ferocity of the Taliban in denouncing a heretic.

Meanwhile actual facts are ignored. Media scream, “Rising sea levels will flood our cities,” but the data says sea level rise has been roughly consistent at about one-eighth of an inch per year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. We’re told the polar ice caps are melting, but according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the East Antarctic ice sheet (two-thirds of the continent) is showing no discernable trend and the Western ice sheet and peninsula are losing mass. “Terrible storms will ravage the earth,” but the data shows “little trend in the frequency” (National Centers for Environmental Information) of strong-to-violent tornadoes, no trend in the frequency of tropical cyclones, frequency of hurricanes, or accumulated cyclone energy. The International Panel on Climate Change has also reduced by half the projected increase in global temperatures.

In reality, the Paris Accord was a legal minefield laden with traps for the American economy. The lack of formal enforcement provisions fails to take into account the pitfalls of the American legal system. No doubt, every environmental law firm in the country salivated at the prospect of years of litigation against the EPA. This was aptly demonstrated these last three months as federal judges imposed their agenda on the nation via sweeping rulings against administration policies of which they disapproved.

Who needs Congress when you have the federal courts? The EPA has shown its willingness over several decades to cooperate with environmental lawsuit complainants, developing thousands of regulations to mandate court-ordered environmental policies that never would have made it past the people’s representatives in Congress. Paris was bad policy to be implemented with an end-run around our Constitution. Good riddance!

Al Fonzi is an Army lieutenant colonel of military intelligence who had a 35-year military career, serving in both the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Send comments through the editor at clanham@newtimesslo.com.

-- Al Fonzi - Atascadero