MSNBC’s Chris Jansing welcomed author David Lipsky to her Friday show to promote his new book The Parrot and the Igloo: Climate and the Science of Denial and amid the usual lamentations about “deniers,” the duo appeared to blame the current state of the environment on Americans for not taking well to Jimmy Carter’s infamous 1977 sweater speech.
Jansing began by reading from Lipsky’s book, “You make it clear that we’ve known about this for a very long time. Jimmy Carter put a group together to say is climate change real and they said yes, and then in February 1977, I'm going to read from your book, ‘two weeks into Jimmy Carter's presidency, he appeared on TV wearing a sweater. That cardigan was on purpose, a symbol of all the living rooms where thermostats would have to be turned down.’”
A disappointed Jansing decried that “We didn’t turn them down” and wondered “How did we get here?”
Before answering that, Lipsky urged the media, and especially NBC, to pat itself on the back, "It's interesting because the news, one of the things as journalists that we should be proud of is that the news media from the 50s on understood what was coming. Frank Capra, in 1958, on this network, on NBC, said on a show called The Unchained Goddess, said this will be happening if we keep doing carbon dioxide unchecked, if we keep emitting it. We never made the decision."
Lipsky then blamed climate change on supposedly-procrastinating Americans, “Basically, it's sort of like having an unpaid bill. If you don't pay your Wi-Fi bill and you keep coming home thinking “oh yeah, I’ve got to pay that bill” and then you see the bill again on the table the next day, and you're like, ‘oh, yeah, I got to do that.’ Just magnify that by 40 years.”
Adding more Jimmy Carter praise, Lipsky continued, “and then here we are because as of 1979, President Carter, serious president, he asked his scientists, the National Academy of Sciences, is this going to happen? They met for a week on Cape Cod, a very nice place to research I imagine, and they said if carbon dioxide continues to increase, we have no reason to doubt that climate will change as a result, and no reason to believe those changes will be negligible.”
People generally like having their homes heated in the winter just like they tend to like having them cooled in the summer. That environmentalists struggle with concept is why Carter’s speech was received so poorly as will MSNBC’s attempt to modernize it for 2023.
This segment was sponsored by E-Trade.
Here is a segment for the July 14 show:
MSNBC Chris Jansing Reports
7/14/2023
2:48 PM ET
CHRIS JANSING: You make it clear that we’ve known about this for a very long time. Jimmy Carter put a group together to say is climate change real and they said yes, and then in February 1977, I'm going to read from your book, “two weeks into Jimmy Carter's presidency, he appeared on TV wearing a sweater. That cardigan was on purpose, a symbol of all the living rooms where thermostats would have to be turned down.” We didn't turn them down. How did we get here?
DAVID LIPSKY: It's interesting because the news, one of the things as journalists that we should be proud of is that the news media from the 50s on understood what was coming. Frank Capra, in 1958, on this network, on NBC, said on a show called The Unchained Goddess, said this will be happening if we keep doing carbon dioxide unchecked, if we keep emitting it. We never made the decision.
Basically, it's sort of like having an unpaid bill. If you don't pay your Wi-Fi bill and you keep coming home thinking “oh yeah, I’ve got to pay that bill” and then you see the bill again on the table the next day, and you're like, “oh, yeah, I got to do that.” Just magnify that by 40 years, and then here we are because as of 1979, President Carter, serious president, he asked his scientists, the National Academy of Sciences, is this going to happen? They met for a week on Cape Cod, a very nice place to research I imagine, and they said if carbon dioxide continues to increase, we have no reason to doubt that climate will change as a result, and no reason to believe those changes will be negligible
