The Washington Times is the other DC newspaper, the “conservative” one. That’s assuming you can call the primary DC paper — the one that loves un-fact-checked op-ed pieces attacking climate science and clean energy and that is now run by former Wall Street Journal editors — not conservative (see “Washington Post recycles another disinformation-filled WSJ op-ed, this time from coal apologist Bjorn Lomborg. Funny how two new senior Post editors came from the WSJ).
Still, as Wikipedia notes, The WashTimes was “founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and is subsidized by the Unification Church community. The Times is known for its conservative stance on political and social issues.”
The WT puts out a very useful daily Washington Insight/Energy (sub. req’d), which gives another perspective on inside-the-beltway analysis. As was widely reported last week, Obama to attend Copenhagen, announces “a U.S. emissions reduction target in the range of 17% below 2005 levels in 2020.″
Now, much of the status quo media remains stuck in an everything-progressives-are-doing-will-fail bandwagon, so they missed the key implications of that amazing announcement — Obama just doubled down on a domestic climate bill. Yes, I know, you keep reading stories about how the administration is walking away from the bipartisan climate and clean bill. Not. As the WT put it last Wednesday:
Obama digs in on global warming
President Obama’s decision to attend the Copenhagen climate summit next month is an indication of how seriously he takes the fight against global warming.
He could have allowed the conference to happen without his presence. It had already been downgraded to a political meeting from its original purpose of finalizing a world treaty.
In addition, his administration has been working long hours on health care reform, the economy and a new Afghanistan war strategy. All three are more pressing to the public.
Yet those who thought Obama might pass on Copenhagen were not watching closely.
And were not reading Climate Progress.
Over the last two weeks, he won climate cooperation agreements with the leaders of China and India — the two major developing nations needed to make a global plan a success. What’s more, Obama aides confirmed this week that he would propose a specific U.S. emissions cut at Copenhagen.
The cut he will take to Copenhagen turns out to be the same 17 percent, by 2020, that the House included in the bill it passed in June.
Much remains to happen in Washington and in Copenhagen to turn Obama’s hope into action. But he appears to be confident that with his direct involvement, something useful will happen. In any case, he clearly is putting the Senate on notice that he will not let the chamber slough off the climate bill expected soon from Sens. Kerry, Graham and Lieberman.
Environmental groups were relieved Wednesday that Obama had scheduled the trip. Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, called the decision “an important statement of his deep personal commitment to addressing this issue.”
His opponents should take heed as well. The president will take every opportunity he can to press for an issue that remains a priority: reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Precisely.
There is going to be a bipartisan climate and clean energy bill voted on by the Senate in the spring — and with the President pushing for it, I expect it will pass.
WT also has some comments today on the scandal-known-as-climategate, noting in a headline “… stolen e-mails mean less than they seem“:
… it would be a mistake to believe that decades of scientific consensus that the planet is warming largely due to human activities will be erased or reversed by the disclosure of a few e-mails….
The world’s major political leaders … accept without reservation that global warming is a problem that must be addressed and are moving, though slowly, to do so. The saga of the purloined e-mails may be red meat to the anti-climate-change faithful, but it is nothing more than a sideshow in the grand scheme….
In summary, the stolen e-mails will not end the quest to reduce global warming….
And so, the WT concludes, they are not “game changing.”
Duh.
Related Posts:
- Reuters: “ANALYSIS-Hacked climate e-mails awkward, not game changer”
- Michael Mann updates the world on the latest climate science and responds to the illegally hacked emails
- The newspaper that publishes George Will (and Sarah Palin) editorializes: “Many — including us — find global warming deniers’ claims irresponsible.”
