WSJ’s Holman Jenkins on Congressional Climate Extremist Emperors’ Lack of Intellectual Clothing
Late last week we highlighted how some far-left climate radicals in Congress mindlessly, obsessively and ostentatiously continue to demonize domestic energy producers – who achieved what was once considered fantasy by securing U.S. energy independence and lowering energy costs for American consumers – even while they and the Biden Administration beg OPEC and Russia to increase petroleum production. The Wall Street Journal’s always-insightful Holman Jenkins brilliantly notes the proverbial emperor’s lack of clothing on that same Congressional obsession:
As it cyclically does, the hypocrisy show returned this week to ‘Big Oil.’ To cover up the political class’s, and particularly Joe Biden’s, inability to do anything meaningful about climate change, a House hearing on Thursday accused industry CEOs of blocking action as if somehow the pennies they spent on advocacy could haven countered the 30-year torrent of climate-change propaganda coming from governments, universities, green lobbyists and scientific organizations. ‘They are obviously lying like the tobacco executives were,’ intoned Rep. Carolyn Maloney, in windup-toy fashion. This line she was guaranteed to utter no matter what was said at the hearing (in fact, executives repeated what their companies had long said about the risks of climate change and the lack of alternatives to fossil fuels).
Most of us would be repulsed to behave the way politicians routinely do, which brings us to an unexpected counterpoint. For want of something shiny to wave at next week’s global climate summit, and not too discerning about what it was, President Biden caused the U.S. intelligence services to gin up a new climate assessment. Lo, the result is notable mainly for its skepticism about the kind of summits Mr. Biden will be attending…
At least one establishment institution has stopped paying lip service to the pipe dream that the world will give up fossil fuels on a timespan relevant to our climate risks.”
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