U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday called climate change perhaps the world’s “most fearsome” destructive weapon and mocked those who deny its existence or question its causes, comparing them to people who insist the Earth is flat.
In a speech to Indonesian students, civic leaders and government officials, Kerry tore into climate change skeptics. He accused them of using shoddy science and scientists to delay steps needed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases at the risk of imperiling the planet.
A day earlier, the U.S. and China announced an agreement to cooperate more closely on combating climate change. American officials hope that will help encourage others, including developing countries like Indonesia and India, to follow suit.
China and the United States are the biggest sources of emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that cause the atmosphere to trap solar heat and alter the climate. Scientists say such changes are leading to drought, wildfires, rising sea levels, melting polar ice, plant and animal extinctions and other extreme conditions.
Also in the Jakarta speech, Kerry said everyone and every country must take responsibility for the problem and act immediately.
“We simply don’t have time to let a few loud interest groups hijack the climate conversation,” he said, referring to what he called “big companies” that “don’t want to change and spend a lot of money” to act to reduce the risks.
Kerry later singled out major oil and coal concerns as the primary offenders.
“We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific facts,” Kerry told the audience at a U.S. Embassy-run American Center in a shopping mall.
“Nor should we allow any room for those who think that the costs associated with doing the right thing outweigh the benefits.”
“The science is unequivocal, and those who refuse to believe it are simply burying their heads in the sand,” Kerry said. “We don’t have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society,”
Kerry said the cost of inaction will far outweigh the significant expense of reducing greenhouse gas emissions that trap solar heat in the atmosphere and contribute to the Earth’s rising temperatures.
He outlined a litany of recent weather disasters, particularly flooding and typhoons in Asia, and their impact on commerce, agriculture, fishing and daily living conditions for billions of people.
“This city, this country, this region, is really on the front lines of climate change,” Kerry said. “It’s not an exaggeration to say that your entire way of life here is at risk.”
He added: “In a sense, climate change can now be considered the world’s largest weapon of mass destruction, perhaps even, the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.”
The solution, Kerry said, is a new global energy policy that shifts reliance from fossil fuels to cleaner technologies. He noted the President Barack Obama is championing such a shift and encouraged others to appeal to their leaders to join.
The U.S.-China statement issued just after Kerry left Beijing on Saturday said the two countries agreed on steps to carry out commitments to curb greenhouse gases, including reducing vehicle emissions, improving energy efficiency of buildings and other measures.
Beijing and Washington launched a climate change discussion last year, promising progress in five areas: reducing vehicle emissions; advanced electric power grids; capturing and storing carbon emissions; gathering greenhouse gas data; and building efficiency.
Kerry was in Indonesia on the last leg of a three-nation tour of Asia that started in South Korea. After leaving Indonesia on Monday, he planned to visit Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.
Before the climate change speech, Kerry toured Jakarta’s Istiqlal Mosque, one of the largest in the world, to pay his respects to Indonesia’s Muslim majority population.
(AP)
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13 Responses
1. They also mocked those who question the science of Eugenics, which was well established and was the basis of many government policies (e.g. immigration quotas to keep out inferior races, forced sterilization of people deemed to be inferior, racial segregation in America and mass execution of “untermenschen: in Europe. All the leading scientists supported the policy. It was good science.
2. Unless Archeology is a “lie”, there has been constant climate variability, and the cold weather (in the east) and the warm weather (in the west) are all within normal variance. Past changes could not have been caused by human factors.
3. The “flat earth” shows how ignorant Kerry is since ABSOLUTELY NO ONE believed the Earth was flat. What Columbus rejected was the accepted (and by the way, accurate) estimate of big the earth was. Columbus wrongly believed in a much smaller earth and thought he could go from Spain to Japan without stopping for supplies which would have been fatal, had it not been for finding land where he didn’t expect it. Columbus died thinking he had discovered some islands off the coast of Asia.
Well, John Kerry has stated it so strongly – it must be so! Let us ignore all the evidence to the contrary. After all, when John Kerry feels strongly about something, that MAKES it right!
There is simply not enough evidence to work with to prove that there is climate change. The scientists claim that the world is billions of years old. How many years of accurate data has been collected? 25? 50? 100?! If they were collecting 1000 years of data they wouldn’t have enough information to work with. This is not a science, it’s an art and should be moved to the liberal arts departments where it could be studied like all the other stuff they study there.
There are some very strong arguments against pollution and for clean air. Perhaps, climate change exists, but there is simply not enough evidence to prove it scientifically.
Global warming = 21st Century communism.
Baruch Hashem that Kerry never made it to the White House. As unbelievable as it seems, here is someone who would have been a worse president than Obama.
If nuclear war will start all climate could change and even world could be destroyed ( chasve sholom). And this could be done by human , so why the climate couldn’t be change man ? Without political part attach to it , it is possible ?
The only one that is flat is john Kerry
Akuperma: Regarding #3 – The Tzemach Dovid writes that Columbus knew with certainty, based on the winds off the coast of Spain (or perhaps ocean currents, I don’t recall), that there was land on the other side of the Atlantic (between Spain and Japan or India). I presume (perhaps he says this as well), that the King okayed (and likely financed) the trip, in order to claim that land as Spanish territory.
kerry; earth is flat, world is getting warmer, plo are a people of peace and iran is trustworthy. kerry is a total IDIOT. I do not think anything he says is to be trust worthy. no kerry, obama, holder inthis worth it would be a better world without these LIARS
Since Kerry is of the opinion that carbon dioxide is harmful to the environment, I would like to urge him as well as all other believers in this manure to hold their collective breath for at least 10 mins just to prove how manly all y’all are.
There are hardly any words to describe his great accomplishments. He has now earned the title of ” the biggest fool in the whitehouse”, which ain’t too easy!
Never mind that the Arctic Sea now has 50% more ice now than it had in 2012. http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/16/global-warming-satellite-data-shows-arctic-sea-ice-coverage-up-50-percent/?onswipe_redirect=no
Any climate change in the U.S. is caused by Kerry. The same week that he first arrived in Israel to pressure us to give up the parts of our Land, that’s when your severe snowstorms started. Every time the U.S pressures Israel to give up land, a natural disaster strikes there. Did anyone notice?