At Commencement, Obama Mocks Lawmakers Who Deny Climate Change

ANAHEIM, Calif. — President Obama on Saturday ridiculed members of Congress who deny climate change or plead scientific ignorance as an alibi for avoiding an uncomfortable truth.

Speaking in gleefully sarcastic terms to a commencement ceremony at the University of California, Irvine, Mr. Obama likened those who deny climate change to people who would have told John F. Kennedy, at the dawn of the space program, that the moon “was made of cheese.”

He saved his most scathing words for lawmakers who say they are not qualified to judge the issue because they are not scientists. These people, the president said, recognize the truth but will not utter it for fear of being “run out of town by a radical fringe that thinks climate science is a liberal plot.”

“I’m not a scientist either,” Mr. Obama told this young audience, “but we’ve got some good ones at NASA. I do know the overwhelming majority of scientists who work on climate change, including some who once disputed the data, have put the debate to rest.”

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"But Democrats say that public polling shows broad acceptance of the need to combat climate change and that some recent surveys show large majorities support the idea of emission limits on power plants.

“Democrats will welcome the opportunity to use this to talk about the Republicans’ dependence on oil company interests and other special interests that oppose carbon regulation for the sake of their own profits,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster who conducted a survey in Virginia this week for an environmental group.

he president’s political advisers said that candidates who opposed regulations on pollution or denied that climate change was real were likely to be seen by those voters as ideologically rigid and unwilling to accept scientists’ conclusions. That will hurt Republican efforts to expand their support among young people and women, White House officials said.

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The effort to brand Republicans as anti-science or supporters of companies that produce the most pollution has become easier, officials said, because the party has moved away from acceptance of climate change and climate regulations. Some Republicans have sought recently to soften the way they talk about the issue, saying they believe in climate change but do not attribute it to human action.

Still, as recently as five years ago, leading Republican politicians embraced so-called cap-and-trade regulations; now, the party’s leadership vigorously opposes them.

Mr. Garin, the pollster, said the hardening opposition among many Republicans to the science of climate change threatens to undermine their efforts to win back the White House in 2016.

“The Republicans have created a negative branding around the perception that it is a backward-looking party,” he said. “That perception gets deepened by their rejection of climate science.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/u...e=Search&mabReward=relbias:r,["RI:8","RI:13"]

 

I understand that you really love your inflatable Obama boyfriend, BUT Obama isn't a credible source for much of anything except lies, hyper-partisan rhetoric and failure.

 

I must be getting old ... in the past, people who were professional and looked up to gave commencement speeches directed at the graduates encouraging them to go out into the world and be successful. Utterly pathetic that the President of the US would go out and rant about something. Then again, given all his lies, low approval rating, etc. I guess he figures he has no choice other than to stir up yet more controversy when speaking on a topic he has no knowledge of.

 

He did the same thing at a high school graduation last week.

A high school!

 

LOL! Seriously. I saw the title of this thread before I saw it was by FC and thought it was another slam on Obama for being the usual divider and liar. FC thinks this is a positive.