Former failed Democratic nominee for president and Secretary of State John Kerry took his initiative to declare war on climate change to CNN Newsroom on Tuesday where he found an agreeable audience in co-hosts Jim Sciutto and Poppy Harlow. Throughout the segment they could be heard adding the approval to Kerry's long list of contradictions, non-sequiturs, and belief that history began in 2017 when Donald Trump became president.
Sciutto began by hyping a United Nations report that "says that countries are not doing enough to keep Earth's temperature from rising to near catastrophic levels." That would be countries with an 'S.' Sciutto then introduced Kerry, declaring "He and a star-studded bipartisan coalition, they’re rolling out a new initiative to combat this growing crisis called World War Zero." Later in the segment Sciutto would cite former Obama Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Republican "stars" that Kerry is working with.
Despite the report saying that no country is doing enough to satisfy the urging of the UN, Sciutto lobbied Kerry to take a swing at Trump, "You say that the U.S. way behind. As you know, President Trump has reversed many emission standards during his three years in office. What has that done for the possibility the U.S. can make up that ground to get where it has to be to make its contribution?"
If it is true that even countries that accept the UN's findings that this time the Doomsday predictions will be proven true, then maybe Sciutto's premise that polling out of an agreement that nobody's really paying attention to or repealing some EPA regulations does not mean the end of the world is near.
Kerry added: "Well, it makes it far more difficult, Jim. I mean, the fact is that we are so far behind that you need now to organize nations almost as if we were at war, that is why we call this new organization World War Zero because no one country can solve the problem of climate change." Despite saying no one country could solve climate change, he accused Trump of being indifferent to deaths caused by "Mudslides, fires, floods, [and] droughts" in this country as if he could do anything about them. He also blamed Trump for giving an excuse to leaders of other nations who do not want to do anything as if countries like China and India needed one.
As for going to war, "You've got to start to make a set of decisions that are really enormous, not unlike decisions that were made in the course of World War II to make sure we could win the war." Kerry is hardly the first Democrat to use the World War II analogy, so it would be nice that if, instead of uncritically accepting it as Sciutto and Harlow did, that journalists might ask what victory in such a war would look like and how much goverment power would need to expand to everyday aspects of life, but they never do.
Here is a transcript for the December 3 show:
CNN
CNN Newsroom with Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto
10:26 AM ET
JIM SCIUTTO: As this unfolds delegations from around the world are coming together in Madrid at the annual U.N. Climate Change Conference. The meeting comes after a recent U.N. report says that countries are not doing enough to keep Earth's temperature from rising to near catastrophic levels. This is the agreement of the scientific community. We're joined by former Secretary of State John Kerry. He and a star-studded bipartisan coalition, they’re rolling out a new initiative to combat this growing crisis called World War Zero. Secretary Kerry, we appreciate you taking the time this morning.
JOHN KERRY: Thank you, Jim, I’m happy to be with you.
SCIUTTO: Let me begin, because the climate report really put a sharp point on this to describe that time is really running out to have a chance of addressing this rise in temperature. You said no country is getting the job done. You say that the U.S. way behind. As you know, President Trump has reversed many emission standards during his three years in office. What has that done for the possibility the U.S. can make up that ground to get where it has to be to make its contribution?
KERRY: Well, it makes it far more difficult, Jim. I mean, the fact is that we are so far behind that you need now to organize nations almost as if we were at war, that is why we call this new organization World War Zero because no one country can solve the problem of climate change. You have to have every country at the table. Most importantly the 20 or so largest economies in the world which are about 85%, 90% of all emissions. Secondly, you've got to start to make a set of decisions that are really enormous, not unlike decisions that were made in the course of World War II to make sure we could win the war. We're not doing that today. We need to accelerate the transition to decarbonize transportation, to move to electric vehicles. That means you have to accelerate the process of building the infrastructure so you can charge those vehicles around the nation. A whole set of interlocking decisions, none being made by the United States at a large national level because we have a president that says that climate change is a Chinese hoax and the result of the American presidency moving out of the position of leadership that President Obama and the administration gave it is that other nations that want to be slower and laggard about it are doing so. So the entire effort has been slow. It's very dangerous, lives are being lost now here in our country. Mudslides, fires, floods, droughts, and in other parts of the world which is all interconnected. There are challenges to food production, to habitability. People are going to be refugees. There are climate refugees, there are all ready climate refugees.
