Obama On Climate Change: "We Don't Have Time For A Meeting Of The Flat Earth Society"

“Nobody has a monopoly on what is a very hard problem, but I don’t have much patience for anyone who denies that this challenge is real,” President Obama said today during his climate change/global warming address. “We don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society. Sticking your head in the sand might make you feel safer, but it’s not going to protect you from the coming storm.”

Here’s the problem with that with-us-or-against-us rhetoric: There are a lot of good reasons to doubt that any sort of a storm is coming.

Like the fact that we haven’t seen any noticeable rise in global temperatures in 15 years despite global carbon emissions increasing. That’s something climate scientists admit they don’t have a good explanation for.

Or the fact that American carbon emissions are in sharp decline. American carbon emissions are down to 1992 levels, thanks to power generation being switched over from coal to natural gas in many areas (something made possible by the natural gas boom that has, in turn, been made possible by fracking).

Maybe there is a storm coming, but it’s a flat-out lie to suggest there’s any sort of a scientific consensus for that standing, and President Obama demeaning critics of the sweeping legislation he wants to base on the idea of an impending global warming apocalypse as flat-earthers does the entire environmental debate a serious disservice.