The news media insist that democracy has withered dangerously under President Trump, but on certain issues, these same journalists insist there can be no debate. Exhibit A: Climate change.
On Saturday, PBS and NPR aired segments on climate that only talked to Obama appointees about what a President Biden might do. The PBS NewsHour segment carried the headline “Biden has big climate change plans. But can he get it done?”
The massive government intervention, all the regulation and federal spending, is described by the liberal propaganda networks as “ambitious.”
Weekend PBS NewsHour host Hari Sreenivasan introduced the segment: “President-elect Joe Biden has pledged that on day one of his administration the U.S. will rejoin the Paris Accords. It's part of a set of ambitious climate pledges Biden made during the campaign.”
Reporter Christopher Booker repeated: “Biden campaigned on an ambitious plan to combat climate change, including a $2 trillion proposal to spur the transition to clean energy, aiming to remove greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 2035 and the entire economy by 2050.”
Biden actually said he would move to “end fossil fuels.” Any opposition to that? No.
Booker only interviewed two Obama administration appointees, Jason Bordoff of Columbia University and Nat Keohane of the Environmental Defense Fund, to lay out how these “ambitions” need to be met. There wasn’t any opposing view on anything.
On NPR’s Weekend Edition on Saturday morning, host Scott Simon interviewed former Obama EPA director Gina McCarthy. Simon began: “President-elect Biden says contending with the pandemic will be his priority when he takes office in January. But another global crisis is before the world - climate change. And experts say time is running out.”
No “expert” could possibly disagree.
Simon began by asking how Biden would go around a Republican Senate: "Assuming there's going to be divided power in Washington, what critical climate policies do you believe President Biden should use executive authority to get through?"
Simon was mediating a climate debate, but a narrow one between elected Democrats and the red-hot “progressives” who want to end fossil fuels as quickly as possible.
SIMON: Progressive groups have called for a transition and administration that doesn't include any people with connections to the fossil fuel industry. Does that strike you as wise? Or does it risk losing some talented people who know how to make politics and government run?
McCARTHY: You know, I think that it's very understandable that people are worried that they do everything possible not to allow the kind of appointments that President Trump put into place, which was all fossil fuel people.
Simon followed up. “But if at one point, let's say, they represented a fossil fuel industry company or figure. As far as you're concerned, that would be enough to take them out of consideration?” McCarthy said no.
Simon concluded with the admission that there’s an opposing view, and the A-word: "Candidates who deny or discount climate change won millions of votes in this last election. How does a President Biden propose to get through an ambitious program with that kind of Congress?"
PS: Just for fun, here's a piece of last Tuesday's All Things Considered to underline the unofficial lingo:
ARI SHAPIRO, host: Biden's climate plans were the most aggressive ever put forth by a major party candidate. How much do they depend on congressional support?
NATHAN ROTT, climate reporter: Quite a bit to accomplish everything that he's pledging to do because, yeah, I mean, as you said, he set some very ambitious goals…
