The AP reports on our Nobel prize-winning physicist Energy Secretary, Steven Chu:
The U.S. energy secretary says the debate about climate change reminds him of the old argument that smoking isn’t bad for you.
Steven Chu also urged greater investment in clean energy as he spoke Tuesday in Paris to an International Energy Agency meeting of energy ministers and industry leaders.
He says that because the evidence of climate change is growing more compelling and the price is oil is likely to rise, countries must turn to clean-energy production.
Chu criticized attempts to “muddy the waters” on climate change science.
He said the debate in the U.S. reminds him of what he “heard as a young person growing up about how cigarette smoking was not really bad for your health.”
This isn’t the first time Chu has made this argument. Last year he spelled it out in a little more detail that the AP does:
San Jose Mercury News: Are you worried that the political will to enact a national policy or somehow tax or price carbon emissions is gone now? If you look at recent polls, the number of Americans who believe that global warming is real and man-made is declining. The political trends are not in your favor.
Chu: Americans were believing because of sound bites, and now they’re disbelieving because of sound bites. One can honestly say that if we don’t do this, we will not be economically competitive. Ten and 20 years from now, the price of oil will likely be higher “” this is not a stretch of the imagination. The debate for whether smoking causes lung cancer and emphysema was actually in the first decade among scientists, but they muddied the waters for 2½ more decades. Climate change, on a global scale, is a much bigger deal, and people are trying to muddy the waters, particularly people who think they might lose. Unfortunately, it’s easier to propagate fear than seeing a vision of prosperity.
Precisely.
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Gross Negligence
Sorry to say this, but at this point I view what Secretary Chu and President Obama are doing as gross negligence of the highest order.
For goodness sake, we all know that the “just like the tobacco industry” argument — a genuine one, of course — has been around for years and years. Yes, it should be repeated, explained, and utilized. But Chu’s actions (inactions!) and those of the Administration are enabling the foolishness, of course. So Dr. Chu talks about this in Paris and occasionally over here, but President Obama will rarely and barely even utter the words ‘climate change’?
At this point, WE are responsible for lowering the bar, lower and lower, for our own so-called “leaders”. We put up with whatever they do, and we presently seem to be starting a habit of celebrating whenever they muster the will to make periodic utterances about … about the largest problem and biggest moral issue ever to face humankind!
I’m sorry, but I’ve come to this conclusion: that CAP has become, or is fast becoming, more part of the problem than part of the solution. Why? Because by lowering the bar for our so-called leaders, and falling far short of sending the types of messages, and doing the types of things, necessary to EFFECTIVELY PROMPT the current Administration and Dems to do what’s necessary, and to do it straightforwardly, with honesty and verve, CAP is enabling the problem.
That’s my view. I do hope that CAP will eventually prove me wrong, but the clock is ticking.
Jeff
At this point, the deck is so heavily stacked against against doing anything about climate change that there’s nothing to lose but come out swinging with the only thing one has left, utterances. It’s a step forward to once again talk directly about “climate change” rather than try to avoid giving offense by talking about “energy security”, “economic competitiveness”, or “jobs”.
If Obama had given climate change priority over health care, it would’ve suffered the same fate as “Obamacare”. The cry would be “repeal the ‘job killing’ climate change legislation”. But it wasn’t given priority. Even as a secondary issue in the background, “green jobs”, “renewable energy” is now coming under attack, seen as something negative, against the backdrop of a failing economy.
We can fault our leaders for being timid. But leaders are effective precisely because they are in some ways a “mirror” of the larger forces in society and can edge the mass forward. Currently, these larger forces are arrayed against fundamental change, maintaining the fossil fuel status quo. Even if the “leaders” were to succeed in passing legislation to deal with climate change, it would be a “legislative gimmick” that would not succeed long term if business/societal forces are not behind it. (Witness what is happening to financial reform, Dodd-Frank. If not repealed, it would be watered down, resisted, not executed.)
So, I celebrate whatever utterances I can get from any quarter. But I also realize we are in a losing battle (short and probably medium term) until there is a groundswell for fundamental change. Currently, the country is bitterly divided.
That’s great, Jeff, but that’s not how the US government works–we have different branches and none can really do anything without cooperation from the others. Suffice it to say, the house is full off [snip] right now.
“Here in Washington we feel the dark hand of the polluters tapping so many shoulders. And where there is power and money behind that dark hand, therefore, a lot of attention is paid to that little tap on the shoulder” – Senator Whitehouse
Jeff, tell me, please, how the administration is going to get a climate bill past the legislative logjam? Obama even has “moderate” dems running away from a decidedly centrist, paid-for jobs plan. The votes never existed for a substantive climate change bill once Lindsey Graham got his tutu in a fire. It simply was not going to happen. Rather than engaging in the kind of magical thinking I associate with republicans, how about working to elect better Dems so the President has something to work with – rather than doing the republican’s work by depressing the vote for Dem candidates?
wvng, thanks for your comment and question. I didn’t say — and I’m not sure where you read — that Obama should or must get a climate bill past the present legislative logjam, in this term. Given that the past cannot be changed, he can do these two things, among others: say ‘NO’ to the Keystone XL, and give a compelling, coherent, and credible speech (and indeed more than one) to the public on climate change. He can do those things, and those types of things, and even other things too. I’m not asking for the impossible. Instead, I’m demanding that he do what he promised to do, what he still can do, what he should do; and I won’t vote for him again unless he does. He can — and should — say ‘NO’ to Keystone XL, and he can — and should — give a compelling and courageous speech about the climate situation and its relation to energy and jobs. What amazes me is that the movement has been so weak-kneed in asking him “please”, rather than demanding-with-leverage, that he do so.
Cheers for now, and thanks for your comment. Be Well, Jeff