by Alex Newman
for The New American
Posted 11/13/2014
President Obama and brutal Communist Chinese dictator Xi Jinping signed a sweeping and unconstitutional deal in Beijing this week to limit emissions of carbon dioxide, which scientists refer to as the “gas of life” but which the United Nations and the Obama administration characterize as “pollution.” Obama and Xi claimed the agreement was aimed at tackling “climate change,” the new catch-all term that replaced “global cooling” and “global warming” amid global temperatures that have remained flat for 18 years and counting. Republicans in Congress, though, immediately vowed to stop the deal between Obama and his Communist Chinese counterpart.
The supposed “agreement” signed in Beijing purports to mandate that the people and businesses of the United States slash CO2 emissions by more than 25 percent from 2005 levels by 2025 — with all of the economic pain and rationing that would entail. The Communist regime ruling China, meanwhile, which misrules the economy that produces the highest levels of carbon emissions worldwide, would be expected to force the Chinese people to stop “increasing” their CO2 output by 2030. The autocracy in Beijing also vowed that it would force the people it enslaves to use more “renewable energy,” eventually. No credible analyst actually expects the Communist regime to follow through.
Of course, without ratification of the scheme by the U.S. Senate, as required by the Constitution for treaties to be valid, it remains unclear what authority Obama imagines he possesses to impose the radical energy-rationing plot on the American people. For now, media reports suggest he is plotting another deluge of unconstitutional “executive orders” and “regulations,” which actual lawmakers in charge of making the laws have vowed to crush. Also key to the Obama “climate” plan will be further abuse of the Environmental Protection Agency to impose by regulatory decree what Congress has repeatedly refused to adopt — even when it was controlled by Democrats.
China’s dictator, on the other hand, does not need permission from those he rules under the communist system to impose his end of the scheme on the Chinese people. According to UN climate boss Christiana Figueres, the “executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change,” that makes the barbaric tyrannical system run from Beijing better suited than the U.S. constitutional system to fight “global warming.” The dictatorship, famous for forced abortions and mass murder, is “doing it right” on climate by imposing its demands via decree, Figueres told Bloomberg earlier this year.
Seemingly following the advice offered by Figueres, who claimed “legislative hurdles” and the “political divide” in the United States were “very detrimental” to imposing a climate regime, Obama appears to have decided to work with the world’s largest Communist dictatorship (responsible for murdering more people than any government in history) rather than the U.S. Congress. In other words, despite fierce opposition and a majority of Americans who do not believe the UN’s discredited global-warming theory, the president is plotting to bypass both the Constitution and the American people’s representatives to foist this draconian restrictions on the nation — at least if he can get away with it.
“We have a special responsibility to lead the global effort against climate change,” Obama claimed about the two governments at a joint news conference after signing the deal with Xi, omitting the obvious fact that climate has always changed and will presumably continue to do so regardless of their lawless plotting. “Today, I am proud we can announce a historic agreement.” Again, the Senate has not ratified Obama’s “agreement,” making it essentially worthless unless and until the GOP-controlled Congress can be prodded into funding the unconstitutional schemes.
But that appears unlikely — at least if the rhetoric of Republican leaders is to be believed. “I read the agreement,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell, who is expected to become the next leader of the U.S. Senate after Democrats and climate alarmists were crushed in the mid-term election. “[It] requires the Chinese to do nothing at all for 16 years while these carbon emission regulations are creating havoc in my state and other states around the country.”
The top Republican on the Senate Environment Committee, meanwhile, Sen. James Inhofe, has also been among the leading climate realists in Congress. Like McConnell, Inhofe, who is expected to take over the Environment Committee after Democrats lost control, vowed to fight Obama’s “climate” schemes and rein in the EPA’s bureaucratic anti-CO2 machinations. Sen. Inhofe also ridiculed the “charade” of a deal, saying the Chinese dictator’s promises were “hollow and not believable.”
“The American people spoke against the president’s climate policies in this last election,” Inhofe continued in a statement to the press after Obama and Xi announced their pseudo-treaty. “As we enter a new Congress, I will do everything in my power to rein in and shed light on the EPA’s unchecked regulations.” With Inhofe in charge of the Environment Committee and McConnell in charge of the Senate, and both vowing to rein the “climate” scheming and spending, Obama will be unable to follow through with his latest plot — assuming the GOP is serious.
In the House of Representatives, meanwhile, which possesses the “power of the purse” and can therefore refuse to fund any of Obama’s schemes, Republicans were also lashing out. House Speaker John Boehner called the pseudo-treaty another example of Obama’s “job-crushing policies.” The scheme is also the latest illustration of “the president’s crusade against affordable, reliable energy that is already hurting jobs and squeezing middle-class families,” Rep. Boehner added in a statement released after Obama and Xi’s grand announcement.
Predictably, the usual chorus of billionaire-funded climate alarmists celebrated the deal while claiming it was not “enough” to save the world from “climate change.” However, with no warming in 18 years in defiance of every UN “climate model,” record levels of sea ice, and virtually every falsifiable prediction on “climate” over the last four decades having been proven spectacularly wrong, the alarmist position has increasingly become a punch-line for jokes. Polls also consistently show that a solid majority of Americans rejects the half-baked theory that human activities are driving “global warming.” Even among those who still believe — widely ridiculed as the “climate cult” — so-called “climate change” remains at the bottom of the priority list based on surveys.
Of course, the Obama administration and its constitutionally illiterate apparatchiks in the establishment press repeatedly parroted their false claim that the latest “agreement” does not require congressional ratification — as if Obama, like Xi, was some sort of all-powerful dictator rather than a president with a narrowly defined job outlined in the Constitution he swore to uphold. “Congress may try to stop us, but we believe that with control of Congress changing hands we can proceed with the authority we already have,” an unnamed administration official was quoted as saying by CNN, which preposterously “reported” that “only legislation” (that could be vetoed) would be able to stop almighty Obama. In the real world, the House simply refusing to appropriate a dime for the implementation of Obama’s plots would crush them.
The ruthless autocracy ruling China has previously boasted that its savage “one-child policy” — enforced via forced abortions with help from the UN — had prevented the births of 400 million human beings, thereby ensuring that those people would not release “carbon emissions.” While Obama’s “Science Czar” John Holdren is also a fanatical population-control crackpot who has advocated forced abortions under the U.S. Constitution, Obama has instead focused mostly on imposing his “climate” schemes by issuing unconstitutional executive decrees purporting to order Americans to stop releasing carbon “pollution” in energy and other fields. More “orders” are reportedly on the way.
All of it, though, involves the false premise that human emissions of CO2 — a natural gas exhaled by people and required for plant life — is dangerous “pollution” that is dangerously warming the climate. With no warming in 18 years despite increased emissions, the alarmists have come up with over 50 excuses to try to explain it. None of them are credible. The simplest explanation, however — the theory is just wrong and should be discarded — has been ignored by governments, the UN, and bureaucrats foaming at the mouth for more globalism, carbon taxes, wealth redistribution, and economic controls.
Republicans in Congress must do their job and ensure that the Obama administration and its lawless agencies do not receive a penny in taxpayer funding to implement the “climate” schemes. Despite the implosion of global warming and global cooling theories, the UN and many of its member regimes are still hoping to shackle humanity to a devastating global “climate” regime in Paris next year. Thanks to American voters, the GOP has the power to stop the charade all in its tracks.
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more.