Commentary
The more things change, the French say, the more they remain the same. And in the case of the modern libo-progressive, that means when times are hard, when things aren’t turning out exactly the way you expected, when Adam Schiff really isn’t the reincarnation of Thomas Jefferson, and Jerry Nadler doesn’t look much better, it’s time to return to that most familiar of security blankets, Mother Earth… in the form, of course, of climate change, né global warming, né bad weather. (Oops, scratch the last part. )
And now that the impeachment contretemps appears more and more a fiasco so that abandoning ship seems de rigueur, all the more reason to get out of town, this time abandoning not just a ship but any hope of doing something sensible for the American people (like approving the USMCA) and, devil take the carbon footprint, hightail it—Speaker Nancy Pelosi, her 14 congressional ducklings and whatever staff they bring along—to the UN climate conference in sunny Spain known as COP 25.
Now such events are among the biggest snore-athons known to man and woman, a complete waste of time on almost every level and an even more excessive waste of money, totally pointless. You can learn more about climate science while multi-tasking on your computer or certainly by reading one essay by Danish author
Bjorn Lomborg who takes the balanced view that some warming may be occurring but it is not nearly worth the panic evinced by the left. In fact, that panic may be retarding a rational solution.
How would I know? I went to one of the previous UN climate events as a reporter, COP15 that was held in the midst of a blinding blizzard in Copenhagen, December 2009. Nothing was accomplished, as I wrote in
PJ Media at the time:
This whole event so far, what I can see of it anyway, is just silly. Basically, it’s a combination of a trade fair for eco products that are being flogged everywhere (I’m staying in a CO2 neutral hotel - you can see it on PJTV), third world operators looking for hand-outs (a couple of African scientists admitted to one of the skeptic scientists they knew AGW was a shuck, but it was a great oppo to get some cash) and leftover, re-upped hippies doing what they do -- demonstrate and carry-on. To be clear, I’m not totally sure AGW (anthropogenic global warming) is a shuck—I agree with Lomborg—but it certainly was an opportunity for confidence men of various sorts, including Al Gore who some say made close to a billion through the sale of carbon credits. To this day the former veep has a carbon footprint the size of tyrannosaurus rex, as do many of the most devoted Hollywood climate activists like Leonardo DiCaprio.
But none of this should stop Nancy & Company. Her entourage is only flying in one measly jet (as far as we know anyway). And what would you do in their shoes - stay here and try to pass legislation the few remaining days of the session? That would mean acting like grownups. The Democrat’s leftwing wouldn’t stand for it. For AOC and ‘The Squad’ — mercifully for Nancy not on her flight — it’s impeachment or bust. And now that Trump is essentially boycotting the proceedings that will only ratchet up.
Actually, the trip to Spain is an act of desperation on Pelosi’s part with the speaker simultaneously escaping Washington embarrassment and trying to change the subject. After failing to bring down a president for dubious purposes and reasons, inadvertently achieving the opposite, she is wrapping herself in the mantle of climate goody-goodyism to prove she is on the “right side” of the preservation of Mother Earth (as if the rest of us aren’t).
The hypocrisy is overwhelming. Even that word is not enough. Perhaps we should put it this way, channeling Samuel Johnson. Virtue signaling (not patriotism) is the last refuge of scoundrels.
Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Roger L. Simon’s most recent book is “The GOAT.” Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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