A World In Chaos and Kerry's Talking Climate Change
IBDEditorials.com
Secretary of State John Kerry bids farewell in Sydney, Australia, on Wednesday. During a brief stop in the Solomon Islands, Kerry called for cooperation on climate change, saying it was “the biggest challenge of all that we face right now.” AP
Diplomacy: Great leadership isn't necessarily about intelligence, expertise or background. It's more about wisdom and judgment. Based on this, Americans should be very concerned about Secretary of State John Kerry.
As the world melts into chaos and threats to the U.S. homeland multiply, America's top foreign policy official seems bizarrely, even dangerously, fixated on ... global warming.
In remarks at the East-West Center in Honolulu on Wednesday, Kerry repeated his claim that climate change is "the biggest challenge ... we face right now."
To which we respond: Can he be serious?
In recent days, we've seen the establishment of a terrorist mini-state across northern Iraq and Syria, our ally Israel under siege by terrorists, a deadly Ebola outbreak in Africa that threatens to arrive on our shores, a collapse of U.S. border controls accompanied by a tidal wave of illegal immigration, Russia rampaging against Ukraine and threatening its smaller neighbors, and China engaging in a massive military buildup to directly challenge the U.S. defense hegemony.
But Kerry thinks "climate change" is our biggest problem? Maybe he should talk to Ali Khedery about that.
Khedery, the Powerline blog informs us, served as "special assistant to five U.S. ambassadors and a senior adviser to three commanders of U.S. Central Command." As such, he's deeply knowledgeable about the Mideast, its culture, rivalries and many conflicts.
So we were inclined to listen when he warned Americans this week: "Another 9/11 is imminent."
Excuse us, Mr. Secretary, but don't these mundane concerns about potential terrorist and other proliferating threats trump your weird climate-change fixation?
Apparently not. In other remarks recently, Kerry advised African leaders to stop creating new farms and focus instead on what they already have. Why? "Certain agricultural processes can actually release carbon pollution," farming expert Kerry explained to the stunned Africans.
Heaven forfend that a little CO2 should be released in feeding Africa's starving people.
Africa faces many serious problems, including Islamic terrorist insurgencies, the most corrupt governments on Earth, wars, AIDS and the Ebola outbreak. But Kerry worries about them adding CO2 to the atmosphere.
Further remarks Kerry made Wednesday in Hawaii add to the impression he's gone off the climate rails. "Climate change is here now," he told Asian officials. "It's happening, happening all over the world."
Hey, guess what? The climate is always changing. It's meaningless to say climate change "is here now." It's always here now. But the science is by no means settled.
As a University of Wisconsin researcher recently said when discussing climate research: "Data from observation says global cooling. (But) the physical model says it has to be warming."
In short, there's an apparent conflict among scientists' models. Someone please tell Kerry. This Ahab-like obsession of his raises serious questions about his common sense, judgment and leadership.