WH Climate Adviser: 'A War on Coal Is Exactly What’s Needed'

The Weekly Standard ^ | Jun 25, 2013 | Daniel Halper

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Daniel P. Schrag, a White House climate adviser and director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment, tells the New York Times "a war on coal is exactly what's needed." Later today, President Obama will give a major "climate change" address at Georgetown University. 

“Everybody is waiting for action,” Schrag tells the paper. “The one thing the president really needs to do now is to begin the process of shutting down the conventional coal plants. Politically, the White House is hesitant to say they’re having a war on coal. On the other hand, a war on coal is exactly what’s needed.”

Obama's speech today is expected to offer "a sweeping plan to address climate change on Tuesday, setting ambitious goals and timetables for a series of executive actions to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and prepare the nation for the ravages of a warming planet," according to the Times.

Here's the full context of Schrag's quotation:

Daniel P. Schrag, a geochemist who is the head of Harvard University’s Center for the Environment and a member of a presidential science panel that has helped advise the White House on climate change, said he hoped the presidential speech would mark a turning point in the national debate on climate change. “Everybody is waiting for action,” he said. “The one thing the president really needs to do now is to begin the process of shutting down the conventional coal plants. Politically, the White House is hesitant to say they’re having a war on coal. On the other hand, a war on coal is exactly what’s needed.”

[windsorknot]

It’s a war on common sense. The consumers of energy will pay a high price for a decision based on junk science and radical environmentalism.

[The Great RJ]

Obama’s utopia...being unemployed, sweltering or freezing in darkened homes, standing in line for rationed gasoline at $6/gallon, standing in line for a 10 minute visit with a nurse practitioner and waiting even longer to see an actual doctor, higher food prices and government snooping into every aspect of your life. Sounds a lot like Marxist East Germany.

[The_Media_never_lie]

War on coal = war on industry

The official birth of the Foidstamp Nation. Thank you, President Obama!

Thanks for nothing....

[Mogger]

Problem is, we built a lot of the coal plants in the wrong place.

Due to the mercury from all the Midwestern plants, we, in the northeast can only eat a small amount of freshwater fish per month.

Here are the guidelines for NH:

To reduce the exposure to mercury, the Department of Health and Human Services recommends that you limit the amount of freshwater fish in your diet according to the guidelines listed below:

Woman of childbearing age - One 8oz meal per month

Children under six years of age - One 8oz meal per month

All other consumers - Four 8oz meals per month

We should have built coal fired power generation stations all along the eastern seaboard so the wind would carry the mercury out to sea to sink to the bottom.

[The_Media_never_lie]

War on coal = war on industry

The official birth of the Foodstamp Nation. Thank you, President Obama!

Thanks for nothing....

[556x45]

Just last week I read that US coal production was at an all time high. I think the intent isnt a war on coal as such but a war on using it here.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

CO2 percentage in earths atmosphere 10,000 years ago - Zero point zero.

CO2 percentage in earths atmosphere 1000 years ago - Zero point zero.

CO2 percentage in earths atmosphere 100 years ago - Zero point zero.

CO2 percentage in earths atmosphere 10 years ago - Zero point zero.

CO2 percentage in earths atmosphere today - Zero point zero.

Yes, we better get right on this....If we wait any longer that level could reach zero point zero then we will be in a world of s**t.

[central_va]

Technically it is 0.035%. Not quite zero, but close.

[unixfox]

How about a war on fake science?

How bout a Civil War and let's get this crap over with!

[PATRIOT1876]

U.N. OFFICIAL PREDICTS DISASTER SAYS GREENHOUSE EFFECT COULD WIPE SOME NATIONS OFF MAP - entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of “eco-refugees,” threatening political chaos, said Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect - Associated Press June 30, 1989

By 2000, British and American oil will have dimished to a trickle......Ozone depletion and global warming threaten food shortages, but the wealthy North will enjoy a temporary reprieve by buying up the produce of the South. Unrest among the hungry and the ensuing political instability, will be contained by the North's greater military might. A bleak future indeed, but an inevitable one unless we change the way we live.....At present rates of exploitation there may be no rainforest left in 10 years. If measures are not taken immediately, the greenhouse effect may be unstoppable in 12 to 15 years. - 5000 Days to Save the Planet - Edward Goldsmith 1991

‘’I think we're in trouble. When you realize how little time we have left - we are now given not 10 years to save the rainforests, but in many cases five years. Madagascar will largely be gone in five years unless something happens. And nothing is happening.’’ - ABC - The Miracle Planet April 22, 1990

One of the world's leading climate experts warned of an underestimated threat posed by the buildup of greenhouse gases ‘ an abrupt collapse of the ocean's prevailing circulation system that could send temperatures across Europe plummeting in a span of 10 years. If that system shut down today, winter temperatures in the North Atlantic region would fall by 20 or more degrees Fahrenheit within 10 years. Dublin would acquire the climate of Spitsbergen, 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle. “The consequences could be devastating,” said Wallace S. Broecker, Newberry Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University's - Science Magazine Dec 1, 1997

Within a few years winter snowfall will become a very rare and exciting even. Children just aren't going to know what snow is,” Dr David Viner, Senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia - Mar 20, 2000

In ten years time, most of the low-lying atolls surrounding Tuvalu’s nine islands in the South Pacific Ocean will be submerged under water as global warming rises sea levels, CNN Mar 29, 2001

Arctic warming has become so dramatic that the North Pole may melt this summer (2008), report scientists studying the effects of climate change in the field. “We're actually projecting this year that the North Pole may be free of ice for the first time [in history],” David Barber, of the University of Manitoba, told National Geographic News aboard the C.C.G.S. Amundsen, a Canadian research icebreaker. - National Geographic News June 20, 2008
http://www.lowerwolfjaw.com/agw/quotes.htm

In the Bible, if a prophet was wrong, even once, you were not to believe him and he was striped of his prophet status.

What would you call the Climate Change prophets who are wrong every single time???

[thackney]

The last 52 weeks of coal production is down 6.8% from the previous 52 weeks.

http://www.eia.gov/coal/production/weekly/xls/weekly_production.xls

[HomeAtLast]

How about a war on the misuse of the word “war?”

[BlueStateRightist]

“However it is fairly obvious that even the data from the CRU of all places confirms no statistically significant global warming since 1997... nearly 16 years ago.”

Also note the 1957-1977 period, in the face of rising CO2.

[Tzimisce]

...terrorists are the only thing these people aren’t at war with...

[justa-hairyape]

If the US declares war on coal then my guess is most of the worlds population will declare war on the US.

[fireman15]

“Also note the 1957-1977 period, in the face of rising CO2.”

The computer models that they have been using to predict “global warming” were all designed to predict “global warming” no matter what data was input. True science these days!

[lbryce]

How about a war on fake politicians?

[a fool in paradise]

Why lie, why doesn’t he just call it the War on America?

[pepsionice]

Actually Joe Manchin came out late yesterday really tearing into the administration and giving them no kindness. Rockefeller was somewhat quiet and noted only that while global warming is real....this is a terrible day for jobs in the state. I believe if the Republicans can get Manchin to introduce a bill to stop this advance....there’s just enough Republican votes, and maybe a dozen Democratic senators that would cross the aisle. I wouldn’t make this complicated....just a ten-page bill that disconnects the ability of the EPA to deal with carbon, which is not a pollution item.