John Kerry at MIT warns of climate ‘catastrophe’: We are in an urgent ‘race against time’

At MIT, U.S. Secretary of State highlights peril of climate change, economic promise of clean energy.Watch Video

Peter Dizikes | MIT News Office
January 9, 2017

Amid record temperatures and rising sea levels that stem in large part from carbon emissions, Kerry stated, we must act quickly “to avoid the catastrophe we will inevitably see if we allow carbon emissions to go up, and up, and up.” Moreover, he added, “We need to speed it up dramatically because we are in a race against time.”

However, speaking before a capacity audience of about 250 people in MIT’s Samberg Conference Center, Kerry talked at greater length about the upsides of a prospective clean-energy revolution, referencing the falling prices of wind and solar power and observing that by making renewable energy a major growth industry, “we can put millions of people to work.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at MIT on Jan. 9, 2017.

Video: MIT Institute Events

The speech constituted one of the last major public statements Kerry is expected to make on climate change as Secretary of State before he leaves office with the change of administration later this month. Climate change efforts have been a key part of Kerry’s portfolio, and he highlighted the State Department’s recent work on the topic.

Kerry hailed the 2015 Paris Agreement, in which over 190 countries agreed to limit greenhouse gas emissions, and contended that the extensive bilateral U.S.-China climate negotiations, leading to a 2014 announcement of climate cooperation, “changed the whole playing field” by showing how committed the two countries were to an evolving approach on energy.

The Paris Agreement also signaled to entrepreneurs, innovators, and investors that the renewable energy sector would remain a growth industry, Kerry said, and he called on his audience to participate in the transformation of energy.

“Brilliant minds trained at MIT are behind some of the most transformative innovations in history,” Kerry said, suggesting the Institute’s students and entrepreneurs could help mitigate climate change while developing “the greatest economic opportunity the world has ever known.”

Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, introduced Kerry before

‘The real deniers’: The hypocrisy of ‘climate change’ advocates

BY JULIE KELLY, CONTRIBUTOR –

So who are the real deniers: those who are reasonably skeptical about climate change or those who give lots of lip service to it while living a lifestyle totally inimical to every tenet of the climate change creed?

To that end, you might be a climate change denier if:

You are the Holy Father of the largest denomination of the Christian faith who calls climate change “one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day” and that coal, oil and gas must be replaced “without delay” yet lives a palatial lifestyle powered by fossil fuels.

You are the president of the United States who tried to ban fracking on public land because it emits greenhouse gases but then takes credit for cutting “dependence on foreign oil by more than half” thanks to fracking.

You are a presidential candidate whose primary message is blasting big corporations from Exxon to Monsanto for destroying the planet but then demands a private jet to make meaningless campaign appearances on behalf of the woman who beat you so you can keep getting attention for yourself.

You are a movie star who works in one of the most energy-intensive and frivolous industries but now earns fame by leading protests against fracking and demands the country live on 100 percent renewables by 2050 then jets your family off from Manhattan to Australia on a jumbo jet to take pictures of the Great Barrier Reef.

You are Robert Kennedy, Jr.

You drive a Tesla but don’t know the electricity comes from a grid supported by fossil fuels.

You are a legislator who pushes solar panels and wind turbines without having the slightest clue how much energy and materials — like steel, concrete, diesel fuel, fiberglass and plastic — are needed to manufacture them.

You are Leonardo DiCaprio

You are a suburban mom who looks down at other moms who don’t care/know/believe in climate change but you spend the day driving your privileged kids around in a pricy SUV and have two air-conditioners in your 6,000 square-foot house,

You oppose nuclear energy and/or genetically engineered crops.

You eat meat because meat production allegedly emits about 14.5 percent of greenhouse gases or some made-up number according to the United Nations.

You eat any sort of food because agriculture uses all kinds of climate polluting energy not to mention the big carbon footprint …

Sec. Kerry to UN climate summit: ‘I’m not a Cassandra’ – Climate Depot Response: Oh Yes You Are! Kerry makes false climate statements

MARRAKECH, Morocco — Full Sec. Kerry Remarks http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2016/11/264366.htm

John Kerry – Secretary of State – Marrakech, Morocco – November 16, 2016

Sampling of False Kerry Climate Claims:

Kerry claim to UN: “The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is a sword of Damocles hanging over our entire way of life”

Reality Check: Media has been hyping Antarctic melt fears for over 100 years! – Recycle same melt fear claims in  2014, 1990, 1979, 1922 & 1901!

 

Kerry: ‘The East Antarctic Ice Sheet three miles deep. And if all that ice were somehow able to melt away completely because we are irresponsible about climate change…’

Reality Check: NASA Study: ‘Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise’ – ‘Mass Gains of Antarctic – Ice Sheet Greater than Losses’

 

Kerry: If Antarctica melts, ‘in the coming centuries, sea level would rise somewhere over 100 to 200 feet.’

Reality CheckFormer NASA Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer in 2016: “Sea level rise, which was occurring long before humans could be blamed, has not accelerated and still amounts to only 1 inch every 10 years.

 

Kerry: Recently “average of 22.5M people have been displaced by extreme weather events annually. We never saw that in the 20th Century

Reality Check: “Extreme weather is either on no trend or declining trends! 25 New Papers Confirm A Remarkably Stable Modern Climate: Fewer Intense Storms, Hurricanes, Droughts, Floods, Fires…

 

Kerry: “Storms that used to happen once every 500 yrs are becoming relatively normal”

Reality Check: PROF. ROGER PIELKE JR: TESTIMONY ON THE CURRENT STATE OF WEATHER EXTREMES: ‘It is
misleading, and just plain incorrect, to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally’

 

Kerry: “The reason both [wind and solar] will continue is that the marketplace will dictate that, not the government”

Reality Check: Then why the hell do we need a UN treaty to centrally plan our energy supplies and economies if the marketplace will dictate?

 

Kerry’s Antarctica Trip Produced As Much CO2 as Average American Does in a year

By Patrick Goodenough | November 14, 2016 | 4:13 AM EST

Secretary of State John Kerry disembarks from his U.S. Air Force aircraft at the Pegasus ice runway near McMurdo Station, Antarctica on Friday, Nov. 11, 2016. (AP Photo/Mark Ralston, Pool)

(CNSNews.com) – Secretary of State John Kerry winged his way Monday from New Zealand to the Middle East on the next leg of what may be his longest trip yet, a journey during which America’s top diplomat will account for roughly 16.5 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

That’s more or less the amount of CO2 – one of the key “greenhouse gases” blamed for global warming – produced by the average American in a full year, according to World Bank data.

Climate change features prominently on Kerry’s itinerary on his current trip, an eight-day haul from Washington to New Zealand to Antarctica – where he became the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit – and on to two Arab Gulf states and then Morocco before winging to Peru and then back home.

The Antarctica visit, which included a stop at the McMurdo research station on Ross Island, was focused primarily on climate change – Kerry spoke about concerns that should a huge ice sheet break up and melt sea levels could rise by 12 feet.

The trip to Morocco is also climate-focused: Kerry will attend the U.N. climate conference in Marrakesh, where is expected to deliver a speech to an audience deeply concerned about President-elect Donald Trump’s views on climate change and the new Paris climate accord.

An imprecise calculation of the route Kerry is taking on this trip indicates he will travel around 35,300 miles, which would make it the longest of Kerry’s many journeys as secretary of state.

Secretary of State John Kerry waves as he boards his plane. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

Prior to this one, his longest trip was around 31,900 miles last fall, when he visited East and West Africa, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, and then flew east to Bangladesh, India and on to China to join President Obama for a G20 summit.

Kerry’s personal ‘Bucket List’? No ‘real technically diplomatic’ reason for South Pole trip

John Kerry lands in Antarctica, highest US official to visit

Update: ‘Bad weather’ cancels part of Antarctic tour – taken instead ‘to one of the few parts of Antarctica that are largely free of ice year-round’  Earlier, a planned visit to the South Pole was scrapped because of bad weather. Instead, Kerry and members of his entourage were taken on a helicopter tour of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, one of the few parts of Antarctica that are largely free of ice year-round.

State Department spokesman John Kirby on the cost to taxpayers of Secretary Kerry’s trip to the South Pole:

“I– I– will see if I can get you– uh– an estimate. I don’t have that, but– uh– uh– I think– you know– eh– any basic understanding or attempt to understand climate change you have to understand what’s going on in the Arctic and the Antarctic, especially with melting glaciers and ice and the sea level rise that can come from that. […] He wanted to go down there and see that for himself.”

Reporter asks if the trip is “basically that the Sec. wants to knock Antarctica off his bucket list and he is doing it sort of on the taxpayer.”

US State Department
November 4, 2016

Daily Caller: A reporter grilled Kerry’s staff on why the secretary of state was going to Antarctica if there was no “real technically diplomatic component” to the trip, and another asked how much it would cost taxpayers for him to “go look around” the continent.  “I will see if I can get you an estimate,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters in a recent press conference. “I don’t have that, but I think any basic understanding or attempt to understand climate change you have to understand what’s going on in the Arctic and the Antarctic, especially with melting glaciers and ice and the sea level rise that can come from that.” “He wanted to go down there and see that for himself,” Kirby said. One reporter said there was concern this trip was simply for Kerry to “knock Antarctica off his bucket list” on the taxpayer’s dime.

#

 

Despite widespread scientific agreement climate change is not affecting Antarctica, Secretary Kerry flew there anyways for a two-day visit.

PHOTO: Secretary of State John Kerry signs the Paris Agreement at the United Nations General Assembly Hall while holding his granddaughter, Isabelle Dobbs-Higginson, April 22, 2016, in New York.

Kerry threatens climate skeptics: They ‘put us all at risk’ – Warns ‘we cannot sit idly by and allow them to do that’

Climate Depot’s Scientific Round Up of Data & Studies On Antarctica:

NASA Study: ‘Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise’ –

John Kerry Says DiCaprio’s New Global Warming Doc Will Turn GOP Into Believers

Secretary of State John Kerry is convinced actor Leonardo DiCaprio’s documentary about climate change will transform Republicans into climate change warriors.

DiCaprio’s global warming-themed documentary, “Before The Flood,” will almost certainly persuade climate change skeptics in Congress to soften their hearts on the environment, Kerry told a United Nations panel Thursday night.

The documentary shows the Oscar winner jet-setting around the world, watching glaciers from helicopters, and convening with President Barack Obama and electric vehicle automaker Elon Musk, who sees himself as an anti-oil crusader.

“As a 28-year veteran of the Senate who knows Jim Inhofe well and many of the other people depicted in the film, maybe Nov. 8 will produce a capacity for the entire Republican caucus to go to the Goddard Space Center, NASA, see that map and to see this film,” Kerry said, referring to Republican Sen. Jim Inhoffe of Oklahoma.

Sponsored Content

“It should be required for every single one of them,” he added.

DiCaprio, who attended the panel in New York alongside Kerry, mirrored the former Massachusetts senator’s sentiments, telling those in attendance that he was “incredibly moved” by the climate scientists in the film.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/22/john-kerry-says-dicaprios-new-global-warming-doc-will-turn-gop-into-believers/#ixzz4O1aldnga

Kerry Praises Obama: ‘He Has Been Able to Circumvent Congress’ on Climate Change

http://www.mrctv.org/blog/kerry-praises-obama-he-has-been-able-circumvent-congress-climate-change

In between waxing poetic about the coming climate apocalypse and exchanging no less than two dozen self-congratulatory praises for being such an awesome guardian of Planet Earth, Secretary of State John Kerry rejoicedduring a panel discussion on climate change that a great American industry responsible for supporting hundreds of thousands of blue-collar jobs is “now bankrupt.”

At a screening of Leonardo diCaprio’s new global warming film, “Before the Flood,” Kerry lamented that it took this long for coal companies to go out of business – a fate brought on largely by President Obama’s aggressive environmental regulations – saying that it would have happened earlier if “big coal” hadn’t been so busy buying political support during Kerry’s time in the Senate.

“Big coal – which now, by the way, is bankrupt – spent enormous sums of money against other colleagues, scaring them and making it clear to them that they were going to have a very difficult re-election because of the funding mechanisms we have in America for our elections, and that’s why people backed off. We never got to that critical mass,” Kerry said of his past efforts on climate change.

“We were deprived of the opportunity to ever get a vote because not enough people felt compelled to move by this,” he whined. “They were compelled to move by fear.”…

Sign Petition: ‘Remove air conditioning from all US State Department property’ – Prompted By Kerry’s comments

Sign Petition Here: https://www.change.org/p/remove-air-conditioning-from-all-us-state-department-property

Petitioning US Department of State

Remove air conditioning from all US State Department property.

WHEREAS, Secretary of State John F. Kerry has suggested that air conditioners are as big a threat as ISIS, and (Kerry: Regulating refrigerator chemicals are ‘of equal importance’ to battling ISIS & Kerry: Climate Change as Dangerous as Terrorism)

WHEREAS, it is the duty of our elected and appointed government officials to lead by example,

THEREFORE, we call upon the U.S. Department of State to remove air conditioning from all property that the Department owns, rents, or otherwise employs, including but not limited to embassies, consulates, office buildings, etc., all vehicles owned and/or operated by the Department, and any other property, real or movable, owned, rented, or otherwise employed by the Department.

This petition will be delivered to:

  • US Department of State

Sign Petition Here: https://www.change.org/p/remove-air-conditioning-from-all-us-state-department-property