Another day, another limousine liberal making ignorant pronouncements about global warming. This time, it's long-time actor Robert Redford in an op-ed for USA Today claiming that "our weather is out of whack."
Redford (or his ghostwriter) wrote the piece as part of a campaign with the National Resources Defense Council to place television ads in the Washington, DC, area in the hopes of getting President Obama to indulge in extra-Constitutional behavior in the form of more unilateral EPA regulations against industries he hates. (One wonders how he'd feel if a president did that sort of thing against the movie industry.)
Such measures are necessary, according to Redford, because, as he headlined his piece, "natural disasters are not odd coincidences."
And of course, we can trust the word of a guy who pretends to be other people for money instead of the word of actual scientists who say that the number of tornadoes and hurricanes has not actually increased. Forget about the facts, Redford wants action:
Indeed, what is the presidency for? It is to lead America where it needs to go, even when the road is pockmarked by political obstruction and special interest roadblocks that always crop up as reasons not to do the right thing.
Today, we can no longer put off a presidential response to the increasing chaos in our climate. Our weather is out of whack. Climate change is happening, and fast.
It's heartbreaking to see destructive forces hit families, farmers, business owners and communities across our country. It's frustrating as the costs pile up to see next to nothing in response from Capitol Hill. And it's ominous as the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere passes 400 parts per million – levels that haven't been experienced in 3 million years, long before even cavemen walked the Earth.
Pouring more carbon pollution into the sky is setting the table for growing intensity of extreme weather, with more persistent drought, devastating wildfires, costly floods, scorching summers and storms that punish more with each punch.
Ironically enough, it would appear that Redford is also going against the Bible of conventional liberalism, the New York Times, which acknowledged Monday that the Earth's temperature has not increased in the past 15 years, despite increased carbon in the atmosphere. As the Times put it: "The situation highlights important gaps in our knowledge of the climate system, some of which cannot be closed until we get better measurements from high in space and from deep in the ocean."
But never mind that, a washed-up actor is telling us we need to do something. What are we waiting for?!
Hat tip: Weasel Zippers.
