In a segment on Wednesday, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly praised the climate youth activists who participated in the Power Shift 2011 conference. O’Reilly’s producer Jesse Watters — best known for stalking young women on camera — attended the conference and interviewed many of the attendees, mostly students from colleges and universities across the nation. O’Reilly, who has recognized that the planet is warming but is unwilling to recognize that fossil fuel pollution is responsible, supported the mission of the 10,000 Power Shift participants to build a “cleaner country” with “alternative energy.” In his own words, here’s Bill O’Reilly’s take on the youth clean energy movement:

– Most of the younger people are well-intentioned people. They want a cleaner country and there’s nothing wrong with that.

– I like the spirit of people actually going somewhere and trying to do something positive. I want to say that.

– I hope we can get alternative energy! I’d love to have windmills everywhere. I like windmills. You go into Holland, they have windmills everywhere. They’re nice.

Watch it:

Reflecting Glenn Beck’s conspiracy theories about Power Shift, Watters sneered at the attendees as naive, “pie in the sky” redistributionists. However, as Watters made thinly veiled pot jokes, O’Reilly recognized that the youth climate activists of Power Shift are actually hard-working, responsible young people who want to keep our nation safe by protecting the only planet we have.

Media Matters has the full segment.

And how do you apportion blame among all parties?

The pro-action side made a number of mistakes, as I’ve said many times.  Here are three:

• Failure to create a grassroots movement that could seriously cost an opposing politician (as, say, the NRA can).
• Messaging flaws, especially by Obama, who simply didn’t use the bully pulpit to make his case to the public.
• Inadequate Senate strategy

Of course, making mistakes is not the same thing as shouldering most of the blame.  Let’s not fall into the trap of the “blame the victim”  counterfactual historians.

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A cyber-penny for your thoughts “¦ and links.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OIL) claims hydraulic fracturing has “never” contaminated the water supply — one day after spill contaminates stream. 

Think Progress has the story on the Senate’s denier-in-chief.

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Communities of color face risks, strongly support climate action

Jorge Madrid and Alejandro Garcia in a CAP repost.

This week we celebrate Earth Day, an international campaign for environmental awareness and protection. While this is a time to celebrate our planet, we are also reminded of the great environmental risks facing communities of color and their resilience to protect both the planet and their communities. We need to address environmental justice in communities of color and recognize their valuable contributions toward a larger climate movement. This should be part of the policy discussion going forward.

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