On Friday, the Trump administration issue a congressionally mandated report about climate change that claimed it looked 100 years into the future and was designed to scare people. The liberal media were apoplectic that the administration dismissed the findings as they tried to spread the panic. New York Times reporter Helene Cooper, during her Sunday appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, was particularly adamant that everyone in America needed to be running around in hysterics over the report.
“I actually think we should be hysterical,” Cooper demanded in defiance of American Enterprise Institute’s Danielle Pletka who was the lone rational voice on the panel pleading for calm.
“I think anybody who has children or anybody who can imagine having children and grandchildren. How can you look at them and think this is the kind of world that through our own inaction and our inability to do something that we're going to leave them,” Cooper freaked out directing her ire at Pletka.
Cooper was irate that the Trump administration had released the report on Black Friday and not a more convenient time with fewer distractions:
I'm really glad you're actually having us talk about this on this show because I think it was the height of cynicism to release this report on Black Friday by the Trump administration. And I just think that at some point we are going to need not just the political leadership but also the corporate leadership to actually sit down and do something about this.
One would think the optics of a “black Friday” climate distress call would be the kind of hysterics Cooper would love.
Being the lone voice of rationality on the panel, Pletka had to remind the liberals that President Trump actually spoke for a large segment of the population. She also called out them out for ignoring how we’ve also experienced some of the coldest temperatures in recent years.
“We don't talk about that because it’s not part of the agenda,” Pletka shot back at them. She also burst their liberal elitist bubble by dropping the fact that even though America had pulled out of the Paris climate accord we’re still the only country meeting or exceeding the goal:
The United States has been dropping in CO2 emissions since we pull out of Paris. There are actually good things are happening. We are not using dirty coal anymore it's the Europeans who are using dirty coal. There actually is corporate leadership on this. Yes, we need to deal with the problems. Yes, we need to mitigate the things we see, but we shouldn't be hysterical.
In addition to Cooper demanding for hysterics, the panel included presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin who decried the “absolute lack of leadership on the corporate level, on the national level, even on the state levels of what we have to do.” Basically calling for climate indoctrination, Goodwin huffed at the end of the discussion that “this is why education of the citizenry is essential.”
And proving why she no longer works as a Republican aide, Elise Jordan suggested that the reason the GOP didn’t want to move on climate change was that they were in the pocket of corporate America. “I think it goes back to deeply entrenched corporate interest within in the Republican Party. And this is a very defined policy platform that you can see how Republicans have been history influenced by their donors on this plank,” she asserted.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
NBC’s Meet the Press
November 25, 2018
11:23:18 a.m. EasternCHUCK TODD: Back now with End Game. I want to get to the climate report. The Fourth National Climate Assessment was released by the government on Friday and detailed some dangerous consequences from climate change for the rest of this century. Some of the projected impacts include, according to this report, three to 12 degrees of additional degrees of warming by 2100, 0.5 to 1.2 feet of sea level rise by 2050 -- that’s not very far away guys -- and 30 percent increase in the area burned by lightning-ignited wildfires by 2060.
This report was put out on Black Friday it's Congressional mandated. Trump administration had to do this. Their own response to their own report was, “hey, this was a worst case scenario. We'll a different assess down the road.” What do you make of it?
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: I make of it that there is an absolute lack of leadership on the corporate level, on the national level, even on the state levels of what we have to do. Whether or not this is man-made or whether or not it is -- and it clearly man-made, but whether some is made from something else it doesn’t even matter.
(…)
TODD: Dani.
DANIELLE PLETKA: The problem, again, is that I think there is a perception among those for whom Donald speaks -- and let's admit that Donald Trump does speak for some people, that --
TODD: 46 percent is a number that seems to the number, for people wondering. It seems to be at least that.
PLETKA: And that's a pretty substantial bunch of people. The problem for many is that they perceive this as an agenda that is much more about corporate, and much more about law, and much more about the kind of governance that America has, and much less about climate.
So from the standpoint of those that have doubts about this, and I don't think we can have any doubts that there is climate change whether it is anthropogenic, I don't know. I'm not a scientist. I look at this as a citizen and I see it so I understand it.
On the other hand, we need to also recognize that we had two the coldest years, biggest drop in global temperatures that we have had since the 1980s, the biggest in the last 100 years. We don't talk about that because it’s not part of the agenda. The United States has been dropping in CO2 emissions since we pull out of Paris. There are actually good things are happening. We are not using dirty coal anymore it's the Europeans who are using dirty coal. There actually is corporate leadership on this. Yes, we need to deal with the problems. Yes, we need to mitigate the things we see, but we shouldn't be hysterical.
TODD: Helene, it does seem as like there is more corporate interest in doing something than there is government interest.
HELENE COOPER: Yeah, it’s just that the problem is not the corporation that's are polluting the most. And I actually think we should be hysterical. I'm going to disagree with you on this. I think anybody who has children or anybody who can imagine having children and grandchildren. How can you look at them and think this is the kind of world that through our own inaction and our inability to do something that we're going to leave them.
I'm really glad you're actually having us talk about this on this show because I think it was the height of cynicism to release this report on Black Friday by the Trump administration. And I just think that at some point we are going to need not just the political leadership but also the corporate leadership to actually sit down and do something about this.
TODD: It does seem as if we're afraid of buying this insurance policy. Why are we afraid? Elise, why is the Republican Party, in particular, afraid of buying this insurance policy?
ELISE JORDAN: I think it goes back to deeply entrenched corporate interest within in the Republican Party. And this is a very defined policy platform that you can see how Republicans have been history influenced by their donors on this plank.
TODD: You mean it's distrust that somehow the environmental-left will use it go after other interests rather than --
JORDAN: Philosophically the anti-regulation bend is there. But, I do think that if you look at donors, there is a direct correlation there.
GOODWIN: This is why education of the citizenry is essential. In the end, the citizenry has the power.
(…)
