Posted on May
31, 2014
The Worst That Can Happen
Is You, Sec. Kerry
by
Daniel
Clark
Rather than try to inspire the graduates at Boston
College, Secretary of State John Kerry used the occasion of his commencement address
to proselytize on behalf of the “climate change” doomsday cult.
As reported by The
Weekly Standard, the former senator and presidential nominee charged global
warming skeptics with “risking nothing less than the future of the entire
planet.” If, on the other hand, he and
his fellow alarmists prove to be wrong, he asked “What’s the worst that can
happen?”
For
starters, we might needlessly retard our production of fossil fuels, based on
the naive hope that expensive, inefficient, and technologically problematic
sources like wind and solar energy can make up the difference. Many thousands of honest, hard-working
Americans could be put out of work for the benefit of a small number of
“renewable energy” con-artists, who devour billions of dollars in taxpayer
subsidies with practically nothing to show for it.
Kerry imagines that, by preventing America from
exploiting its vast supplies of oil and coal, his party will somehow make us
less dependent on foreign energy. If he
really wants to know the worst-case scenario, he ought to consider the
likelihood that a reduction of American energy production will render us more
dependent on unfriendly foreign nations.
It could also be that rising gasoline and
electricity costs will drive up grocery prices, making people reluctant to
spend money on basic items like ground beef and orange juice. Many families would be nudged toward
government assistance who otherwise 
would
not be inclined to accept it.
Between the scarcity of jobs and the rising cost of
living, the American people could have a great deal of economic harm inflicted
on them, for no good reason. Among the
results would be burgeoning welfare rolls, a flatlining GDP, and an
unemployment rate that only declines because of the number of people who have given
up and left the workforce.
What else can happen, as unlikely as it may sound,
is that our president and his secretary of state declare global warming to be
our top national security concern. With
such terribly misplaced priorities, the president may find himself unresponsive
to a terrorist attack on an American consulate that leaves one of our
ambassadors among the dead. Moreover,
this lack of focus might lead him to gullibly support terrorist elements in
foreign conflicts like those in Egypt and Syria. He could also become strangely detached when
discussing the supposedly lesser threat of Islamic terrorism, to the point of
callously chirping that America can “absorb” another 9-11 attack.
We might encourage yet more megalomaniacal
initiatives from the United Nations, such as its repeated efforts to promote
the eating of insects in lieu of meat.
Our government might even react credulously when the UN points the
finger of blame at “land use change,” which results from private ownership of
property.
What’s
more, we can scare the pomegranates out of the entire Millennial
generation, who have been relentlessly carpet-bombed with global warming
fearmongering for their entire lives.
Tens of millions of people who have been raised to believe a “phobia” is
an attempt to uphold societal norms will unwittingly fall victim to real
phobias, by living in fear of their cars, air conditioners, widescreen TVs and
other electronic devices, as well as their eating habits, and even their
breath. The true believers will have to
conclude that their very existence is detrimental to The Planet.
Schoolchildren can be turned into an army of finks,
whose mission is to harass and shame their parents into compliance. These innocent kids will suffer immeasurable
distress from being thrust into a phony conflict, with their mothers and
fathers on one side, and the entire animal kingdom on the other.
Scientists, including meteorologists and college
professors, can have their livelihoods threatened for refusing to bow to “the
consensus.” Many times more would be
intimidated into silence, or even into professing things they don’t
believe. Ditto that for journalists,
whose careers would be jeopardized if they did what they’re supposed to do, by
objectively seeking and reporting the truth.
Of course, this would all be contingent on the
reins of governmental and institutional power being handed over to the
totalitarian Left, which has conveniently tied global warming to nearly all of
its favorite causes: from anti-industrialism to wealth redistribution, to
population control, to vegetarianism, to the abolition of property rights, to
whatever else it can think of. In other
words, Secretary Kerry, the worst that can happen is you.
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