Add climate alarmists to the list of liberals freaked out by the 2014 midterm election results. If you believe the far-left eco-blog Grist, “the worst is yet to come” for “environmental policy.”
Former Newsweek.com editor Ben Adler warned readers not to mistake conservatives for “rational human beings or patriotic Americans.” Adler said that because conservatives gained control of the U.S. Senate on November 4, they are going to take the economy “hostage” and destroy the planet.
Adler accused conservatives of “gearing up to cause climate mayhem,” and pointed to conservative efforts to reign in the EPA and approve construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Despite polls that show otherwise, he alleged that these policies are not what Americans want, and conservatives were “lying” when they claimed a popular mandate.
With no sense of irony, Adler cited “Dark Overlord” Karl Rove as saying that conservatives might try to pass legislation on the Keystone XL pipeline and other environmental issues “that could get Democratic votes.” Apparently conservatives can’t do anything right by Adler, even when they propose bipartisan legislation.
President Barack Obama can still veto any bill that crosses his desk, but Adler alleged a conservative conspiracy to push a scary agenda. He said conservatives would “force Obama’s hand” by threatening to “cause a government shutdown, or trigger a global financial collapse by breaching the debt ceiling and defaulting on the U.S. national debt.”
Despite winning the Senate, conservatives have no popular mandate according to Adler. When they claimed a mandate, Adler said “they are lying, and should be called out for it.”
Adler apparently missed the ABC/Washington Post poll from earlier this year that found 65 percent of Americans support the Keystone XL pipeline project. This represented an increase from two years ago, Huffington Post reported March 7, 2014. Adler also ignored the survey released by Gallup on September 15, 2014, that showed only 22 percent of Americans believed that the federal government should increase regulations on business and industry.
No Grist article would be complete without a rant about the extractive energy sector. Adler said soon-to-be Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell “loves” fossil fuels, “especially coal.” McConnell apparently baffled Adler, who doesn’t seem to understand how someone like McConnell could harbor even a shred of doubt about liberal climate science.
Adler went on to accuse Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La., of being “too pro-fossil fuel.” Although Landrieu will likely lose her Senate seat, Adler advised readers to “just wait” until conservative senators like Lisa Murkowski, James Inhofe, and Ted Cruz ascend to key committee chairmanships.
Adler argued they will undoubtedly try to advance their nefarious agenda to “stop EPA from regulating CO2 and approve the Keystone XL pipeline.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: Adler protested that he referred to Republicans in Congress, not to conservatives in general (although his targets like Cruz and Inhofe are clearly conservative, Murkowski is not). The headline has been changed:
My sentence reads, "Don’t be so naive as to mistake congressional Republicans for rational human beings or patriotic Americans." I wrote "congressional Republicans" because that's what I meant. If I wanted to say conservatives I would have. I’m not even talking about all Republican voters. And conservative voters and Republican voters are not necessarily the same thing. Throughout the piece, it is abundantly clear that I'm referring specifically to Republicans in Congress. The word Republican appears 27 times in my piece, while conservative only does once, in reference specifically to George Will. In your piece the word "conservative" appears 14 times and Republican not once. But you cannot just substitute the word conservative for Republican. They are two different words with different meanings. I have no idea why you did this, and I would like to know. It is plainly unethical. You changed the meaning of what I wrote.
