A Democratic climate

Nov. 23, 2015
Although oil, gas, and energy merited no mention in the Nov. 15 debate of Democratic presidential candidates, all three participants managed to kiss the climate baby. No one should think, therefore, that American energy welfare eluded jeopardy.

Although oil, gas, and energy merited no mention in the Nov. 15 debate of Democratic presidential candidates, all three participants managed to kiss the climate baby. No one should think, therefore, that American energy welfare eluded jeopardy.

Former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton embedded the standard chant in a list of liberal affirmations she's certain the party faithful would rather address than a federal investigation into her handling of classified e-mails. "I mean, all of us support funding Planned Parenthood. All of us believe climate change is real. All of us want equal pay for equal work," she professed at Drake University in Des Moines.

More tangential

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley was even more tangential. Responding to a question about raising taxes, he seemed nearly to forget the obligatory reference in his rush to redefine "entitlement" at the expense of rich people. "I believe that we pay for many of the things that we need to do again as a nation, investing in the skills of our people, our infrastructure, and research and development and also climate change by the elimination of one big entitlement that we can no longer afford as a people, and that is the entitlement that many of our super wealthiest citizens feel they are entitled to pay-namely, a much lower income tax rate and a lower tax rate on capital gains," he said.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont addressed the sacred subject more boldly after having been asked, the day after jihadists murdered 129 people in Paris, if he still believed climate change represented the greatest threat to national security. "Absolutely," he said. "In fact, climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism. And if we do not get our act together and listen to what the scientists say, you're going to see countries all over the world-this is what the CIA says-they're going to be struggling over limited amounts of water, limited amounts of land to grow their crops, and you're going to see all kinds of international conflict."

At least Sanders attempted to address climate change within a framework more substantial than the usual, judgmental thoughtlessness. Still, linking terrorism to climate change stretches credulity. Someone at the CIA no doubt has warned that climatological distress would aggravate terrorism. If worst-case predictions for the climate came true, after all, human desperation, a precursor to terrorist behavior, certainly would increase. But intelligence analysts know no better than anyone else whether worst-case assumptions will prevail. In fact, the temperature record, the best available test of worst-case model assumptions, increasingly indicates they will not.

Sanders's eager annexation of contemporary terrorism to worry about climate change represents distortion typical of climate politics. Activists driving the issue demand economic sacrifice-even, increasingly, overhaul of whole economic systems-in deference to what they have twisted into iconic fear. A recent manifestation of this bizarre process is pressure to foreclose development of oil and gas resources. The impulse to "leave it in the ground," as the slogan goes, drove opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline border crossing, which President Barack Obama rejected on Nov. 6. It motivated protests against federal oil and gas lease sales in Colorado Nov. 12 and in Utah Nov. 17, the latter of which forced postponement of the event. And its demonstrated effectiveness as an economically blind tool of obstructionism gives the oil and gas industry strong reason to sharpen its resistance to climate extremism.

Undermining strength

Refusing to develop hydrocarbon resources and requiring the use of costly energy in place of commercial forms would hobble US economic growth, which lately has been fortified by resource development. A weakened economy inevitably undermines military strength. That's the real link between climate change and terrorism-although not one likely to receive attention in a Democratic debate.

Politicians willing to let fabricated fear undermine national security should have to clarify whose interests they truly serve.