Opinion

OPINION: Trump Understands Climate Change Better Than CBS, CNN

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Peter Ferrara Contributor
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Lesley Stahl has no idea how she embarrassed herself and her network, CBS, by spouting nonsense on climate change in her interview of President Trump on 60 Minutes on October 14.

But to be fair to Lesley Stahl, she is overconfident on the issue like her network CBS is overconfident. And CBS is overconfident on the issue like the Democrat Party is overconfident.

U.S. satellites orbiting the Earth measure global atmospheric temperatures 24/7. Those satellites show that global warming stopped 20 years ago.

While carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use have increased steadily throughout the 20th century, atmospheric temperatures have not. Throughout the 20th century to today, those temperatures have followed up and down patterns of natural cycles and causes. Those same natural patterns go back over a thousand years and more. Where is that ever reported on by CBS and CNN?

President Trump said in the interview, “I don’t want to give away trillions and trillions of dollars. I don’t want to lose millions and millions of jobs. I don’t want to be put at a disadvantage.”

By that, he means that America today is now, once again, the world’s leading oil producer, the world’s leading natural gas producer and would be the world’s number one coal producer after President Obama’s regulatory jihad was on track to shut down America’s coal industry.

That means that America today is not only energy independent but energy dominant. In his latest book, “Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy,” Trump advisor Steve Moore writes, “America has more recoverable energy supplies than any nation — by far. We have more oil and natural gas than Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, China and all of the OPEC nations combined.”

Giving up on all that, as Democrat Party socialists want, would involve the greatest opportunity cost in world history — trillions, just like Trump says.

That abundant supply of proven, reliable energy gives America a decisive global advantage in manufacturing, which is energy intensive.

Former industrial powerhouse Germany, following the favored policies of green extremists and fake news CBS and CNN, already tried to replace fossil fuels with unproven, unreliable, already outdated wind and solar “energy.” That policy has only chained German manufacturing to the anchor of electricity costs three times the American average.    

That and Trump’s modern, pro-growth tax reforms have already ignited resurgent American manufacturing, as plants have already begun returning home. That is already reinforcing decisively the now well-developed trend of blue-collar manufacturing workers realigning from Democrat to Republican. 

Democrats have not yet realized that blue-collar exodus is why they lost in 2016.

Next month, Democrats will lose Senate seats in shale oil-producing North Dakota and in coal mining Montana, with Sen. Manchin from coal mining West Virginia apparently only saved for now by the vote that saved Kavanaugh’s nomination. The voters agree with President Trump — not fake news CBS and CNN. Which is why Trump is president and Lesley Stahl is not.

Stahl persisted in the interview, “I wish you could go to Greenland, watch those huge chunks of ice falling into the ocean, raising sea levels.”  That is not happening, Lesley. You don’t know what you are looking at.

Trump replied, “We have scientists that disagree with that.”

Not at fake news CBS and CNN, which only broadcasts the approved party line opinions of Democrat Party approved “scientists.”

Why don’t you interview Richard Lindzen, Professor Emeritus from MIT, or Will Happer, former Professor of Physics at Princeton? Or Dr. Roy Spencer, who leads the NASA team reporting the results of those pesky satellites that can only tell the truth? Or former University of Virginia Professor of Environmental Sciences Pat Michaels?

President Trump told Stahl, “I’m not denying climate change. But it could very well go back. You know we’re talking over millions of years. They say that we had hurricanes that were far worse than what we just had with Michael.”

That is what happens when climate change is driven by natural cycles and causes.

Stahl retorted, “Yeah, but what about the scientists who say it’s worse than ever? Trump replied, “You’d have to show me the scientists because they have a very big political agenda.”

Stahl confessed, “I can’t bring them in.” Precisely.

Peter Ferrara, senior policy adviser to the FAIR Energy Foundation and to the National Tax Limitation Foundation, teaches economics at King’s College in New York City. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan and as associate deputy attorney general of the United States under President George H.W. Bush.


The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.