Kerry Should Resign
Gingrich Productions To receive Newt’s weekly newsletters, click here. If in recent history an American secretary of State has made a speech as delusional as John Kerry’s in Jakarta last week, I can’t remember it. Discussing the most dangerous threats facing the world, Secretary Kerry said that “terrorism, epidemics, poverty, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction” are all problems, but added, “the reality is that climate change ranks right up there with every single one of them.” That was extreme enough, but then came the claim that should disqualify him from serving as Secretary of State. “In a sense,” he said, “climate change can now be considered another weapon of mass destruction, perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.” At a time when Iran is on the verge of building a nuclear weapon, Ukraine is erupting into violence, Syria has collapsed into civil war, Venezuela is falling apart, Iraq and Afghanistan continue to devolve, and China is asserting itself all over the world, the American Secretary of State stated that the most urgent threat we face is a small rise in sea level by the end of the 21st century – a threat even greater than nuclear war, terrorism, or catastrophic attacks on critical infrastructure. It’s a disaster for someone in that position to announce global warming is the greatest threat to the human race. It’s dangerous. If these are really his priorities, he should not remain in office. Kerry clearly doesn’t intend his statement as hyperbole, though. He actually believes climate change could be worse than nuclear war. You realize that when you hear the doomsday scenarios he goes on to prophesy: droughts and dry spells, floods and monsoons, typhoons, famine, the end of species (“cod or sardines,” he says), entire countries submerged, and more. Kerry predicts economic disaster, too — for instance, a trillion dollars every year in flood damage to ports in Asia, “unless we make big changes to the infrastructure of those ports” (which, presumably, “we” would, rather than bear a trillion dollars in unnecessary costs each year…). All of these catastrophes, Kerry says repeatedly, are “facts”. The science of climate change, in his telling, is as indisputable as it is simple–a scientific truth in the same way that gravity is a scientific truth. “When an apple separates from a tree, it falls to the ground..It’s a scientific fact,” he says. Similarly, climate change “is not really a complicated equation…This is simple. Kids at the earliest age can understand this.” The computer model projections, of course, are not scientific fact — they’re hypotheses — and they are not simple, either. They are based on thousands of variables, and many educated guesses and assumptions. Guesses and assumptions that failed to predict the last 17 years without warming (a scenario none of these “scientific” models projected). Secretary Kerry has no time for questions about his bumper sticker science, however. As a lifelong politician, he implored the world to ignore “a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues” who are skeptical of his claims. It’s not just the science skeptics Kerry can’t tolerate, however. Your view is equally unacceptable to the Secretary of State if you grant him his forecasts but question the left’s policy prescriptions (which always involve giving more power and trillions of dollars to the government in a futile attempt to prevent the Earth’s climate from changing). We should not allow “any room,” Kerry says, “for those who think that the costs associated with doing the right thing outweigh the benefits.” We must follow him anywhere, apparently, even if it does more harm than good. Not only do Kerry’s injunctions verge on totalitarianism — intolerance of any view but the state’s — but they are also the opposite of the scientific method, which is based on openness to doubt. Unfortunately, Kerry’s eagerness to shut down the conversation is increasingly common on the left. A climate scientist at Penn State is suing the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute for libel because they dared to question his research. (Scientists who sue columnists for questioning their findings are reason enough to be skeptical of the global warming “consensus.”) How can anyone take seriously a secretary of State who gives a speech like Kerry did in Jakarta and actually means it? Clearly the Iranians can’t take him seriously. The day after Kerry announced that America is more concerned with global warming than nuclear weapons, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, said of his nuclear negotiations with the west: “I am not optimistic about the negotiations and they will lead nowhere — but I am not against them.” But Secretary Kerry has bigger problems on his mind. In a delusional administration, he is the most delusional cabinet member. If Kerry really thinks like this, he needs to resign. 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