Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
From an interview with Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute, a man of whom Bill Clinton said “We should all heed his advice”:
You’ve talked before about the civilizational challenge that climate change poses, how confident are you that the human race is up to meeting that challenge?
We don’t know and there is no guarantee that we will. But we do know that change can come very quickly. Look how quickly the US restructured its whole economy in 1942. At beginning of 1942, the automobile companies were producing automobiles. By the middle of 1942 they were all producing tanks and planes. It didn’t take decades or years, just a few months and they totally converted. If they could do that then, certainly we can restructure the world energy economy today. What Roosevelt did was ban the sale of cars. He didn’t say they couldn’t produce cars. He just banned the sale of cars.
Would you like to see President Obama do that?
I’d like to see him ban the sale of coal and oil.
Dear heavens, the Imperial President should “ban the sale of coal and oil”? Oh, yeah, that’s the ticket. Some 40% of US electricity, lots of our industrial energy, and ~ 100% of our transportation fuel comes from coal and oil, so I’m sure that other than the small matter of impoverishment, suffering, death, and economic ruin, banning them wouldn’t cause any disruption at all … while I want to ask “is this Imperious Idiot for real?”, the sad truth is that Lester Brown is totally serious.
But even more frightening than the horrendous economic disruption and human suffering from such a suicidal course of action is that Lester Brown is advocating tyranny, and given his history, our Imperial President Obama would likely be more than happy to accommodate him.
As a candidate, Obama spoke out strongly against expanded executive power, saying in October of 2007:
These last few years we’ve seen an unacceptable abuse of power at home. We’ve paid a heavy price for having a president whose priority is expanding his own power.
and
I taught constitutional law for ten years. I take the Constitution very seriously. The biggest problems that were facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all, and that’s what I intend to reverse when I’m President of the United States of America.
After watching George Bush, Obama’s position on limiting executive power was one of the reasons I voted for him in 2008 … back before I realized that if Obama’s lips were moving, there were non-zero odds that he was lying, as in this case. Which is one of the reasons why I voted against him in 2012.
Now that he’s in power, and particularly now that he’s in his second term, he’s decided that he gets the last say on everything under the sun, and has presided over a huge increase in executive power, viz:
Whenever this Congress refuses to act in a way that hurts our economy and puts our people at risk, I’ve got an obligation as president to do what we can without them.
Despite being a “constitutional scholar”, he seems to misunderstand the separation of powers. He has no such obligation. It’s not his job to decide what “hurts the economy and puts the people at risk”, and more importantly, he has no such power. If the Congress decides not to pass a law, that’s their choice. The President’s job is to be the “Chief Executive”, and as such, the Constitution says he is to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”. Nowhere is he given the power to make or interpret the laws. That is the job of Congress on the one hand and the Courts on the other … and if Congress won’t act, well, tough. If you don’t like the Congress, vote them out of office.
However, obviously, neither President Obama nor Lester Brown see it that way. As we just saw with the new regulations involving coal plants, President Obama is more than happy to make new “environmental” laws by presidential edict. And I’m sure that both the Imperial President and the Imperious Idiot firmly believe that Obama has the power to ban the sale gas and oil.
The Founding Fathers were very concerned that the President should NOT have this kind of imperial powers, and for good reason. They’d seen the damage that strong-men had done in a variety of monarchies and tyrannies. So they devised a system of “separation of powers”—Congress makes the laws, the President enforces the laws, and the Supreme Court interprets the laws.
Sadly, we have fallen very far from that, and President Obama has done immense damage to that system by “solving” every problem, from glitches with Obamacare to interim appointments to immigration reform to destroying coal plants, by imperial proclamation. At this point, all I can do is fervently hope he doesn’t listen to Lester Brown …
Gotta say … 2016 can’t come fast enough for me.
w.
End Note: Please do not use this as a springboard for general political attacks on either side. There are lots of web pages for doing that. The issue here is the Imperious Idiot’s asinine proposal to ban the sale of coal and oil, and the Imperial President’s claim that he has the executive power to do just about anything, presumably including Lester’s proposed ban.
The Usual: If you disagree with something that I or anyone has said, please QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU DISAGREE WITH. This avoids many misunderstandings.
The Interview: The full interview is here.
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FYI, this convention is not called to rewrite the Constitution as some opponents say as a scare tactic. It is only for proposing amendments.
And if they decide to exceed their authority as the first Constitutional Convention did? Then what?
I wonder if Lester bothered to ask himself how long that ban on cars lasted, and what the public’s response would have been if it hadn’t ended.
And oh yeah, Roosevelt did some other wartime things. Something about internment camps…
Willis and I have this in common. We both voted for Obama in ’08 and for the exact same reasons (I am still not a fan at all of Bush the son primarily due to the fact he has no military acumen whatsoever).
If my memory serves me, we both quickly became disenchanted with Obama, and absolutely did not vote for him again, instead warning others not to do so as well. And like Willis, I also am holding my breath. 2016 cannot come soon enough. The guilt of the first vote for him will haunt me till I die and caused me to relinquish my life long party affiliation and voting habits forever, even if a democrat comes along that truly meets all my requirements. Democratic politicians are dead to me because of Obama. I refuse to even acknowledge them in even the tiniest detail.
While I still consider myself a social liberal and champion the cause of personal freedom and equal rights for all, I must plug my nose and vote the conservative ticket solely for the hope that we will still have a country to live in to fight for individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, no matter who you love or your decisions regarding your own body.
Mr. Brown: “I’d like to see him ban the sale of coal and oil.”
Mr. Eschenbach: “At this point, all I can do is fervently hope he doesn’t listen to Lester Brown …”
___________
Hmmm … seems to me that the fastest way for Mr. Obama to depart the White House would be for him to listen to Mr. Brown and then do exactly what Mr. Brown says.
The result would be a massively adverse public reaction, literally everywhere across America … and Mr. Obama’s subsequent removal from office, in accord with the appropriate provisions of the U.S. Constitution.
Would Obama have won the last election if he told people about how was going to placate the greens by banning new coal plants
Well he announced his intention in Jan of 2008: And he got elected.
Lester Brown fancies himself a thinker and waits for the day someone will come knocking on his door to ask him questions about the human race. Good questions; ones that contain the word “civilizational.”
It worked.
I don’t think I’ve ever before seen someone use the “al” morpheme to make the word “civilizational.” It’s all so pompous and holier than thou. When environmentalists get theological it leaves me cold.
It’s quite likley that the next Pres will rescind Obama’s coal order. If a republican gets elected, I suspect the EPA leadership will be purged as well.
Even California democrats are getting nervous about cap and trade which will apply to transportation fuels Jan 1 2015 which will add an immediate 10 to 15 cents per gallon and could be as much as 2.00 a gallon over the next several years. They’re getting a bill together to postpone or elliminate it.
Here in California I see some recovery, but I see many more whose lifestyles are in steady decline, and many who are almost out of options.
I don’t know that these politicians recognize how bad it has become for people who are skilled hard workers but can’t find work.
I find heartless aholes like Brown, oblivious to the pain they cause and to the disasters they want to inflict.
You knocked this one out of the park, Willis – well done. I very much like addressing the pure politics of the problem of governmental climate science abuse.
Pamela Gray: ” I must plug my nose and vote the conservative ticket …”
________
There’s another way that allows one to sleep at night … at least on this side of my keyboard.
I hate “Party Think”. Any candidate who hints, or otherwise demonstrates via prior political office, that he/she will do whatever the “party thinks” will automatically lose my vote. The idea of “Party Think” extends to ideological matters as well, so voting is also influenced by a candidate’s affiliations, such as climate alarmist greenhouses.
Instead, find candidates who will most closely resemble the necessary independence of mind to do what’s right in accord with their personal beliefs. It ain’t easy, and is most readily done in local and state elections, tougher at the national level but a candidate’s legislative history does tell a story over time.
For example, in 2008 I swallowed very hard to vote for McCain. But there was no way I was going to vote for Obama because after reading both of his books and reviewing his voting record as a Senator (Illinois and U.S.), it was obvious he simply did not have the background for the office of President, nor did he have a voting record other than party line, when he even bothered to vote other than “present”.
Willis: A rare commodity. Someone who does not “sell their soul” to political party X, or Y. (Even though your leaning may be X or Y…) Please NOTE: Neville Chamberlain was the Prime Minister of the CONSERVATIVE party in England, in 1938. He made a dreadful mistake in his assesment of “character” of a man. Comparatively little known is that there were so “many” adhering to the concept of “peace..at almost any cost”…that an old curmudgen named Winston Churchill was not going to make it to be elected P.M. . As the V.P. has a tie breaker vote in the US Senate, so does the P.M. have such a vote in the Parliment in England. Chamberlain had that vote. He used it. The result was a Churchill in the right place at the right time. To quote: “Never, in the course of human history, have so few (us “skeptics”, “non-believers” or heretics …) fought so hard against so many..” As our forebearers in the USA, celebrated yesterday, you “pay homage to no man”. This takes real courage, as it is the nature of man to demand servitude of other men in so many circumstances.
richard verney says:
July 5, 2014 at 1:11 am
Unfortunately, it is due to poor education, and the fact that there is a left wing/liberal bias in education that kids are not taught the importance of the industrial revolution.
Spot on, great comments!
If you want to learn more about the Administration’s agenda, be sure to watch the new movie, America, just released, now playing in theaters that describes the choice facing America. Dinesh Desouza is not a friend of the President, but an Immigrant that sees how great America can be relative to his home country:
Trailer: http://www.americathemovie.com/
Comments:
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/07/02/dinesh-dsouza-america-imagines-world-without-usa/
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2014/07/02/america-review
Holy smokes, you voted for Obama? This severely impairs the ability to have a positive view of your wisdom.
To carry Brown’s analogy about WWII, when the car companies were ordered to build tanks and airplanes, they could do so because the technology existed. But if they had been ordered to build death rays and flying saucers, no amount of orders from a president could have made it happen. Even Hitler ordered his scientists to develop weapons that did not and could not work, such as his mega-panzer and giant cannons. That is what solar and wind power are: infeasible, impossible.
In leading the people of the developed world back toward the stone age, the more erudite of modern luddites prefer applications of the equivocation fallacy to lying as it is the more difficult of the two fallacies to spot.
Eisenhower warned us of the Military-Industrial Complex. What he didn’t warn us about was the Financial-Beaurocratic-Progressive Complex.
Marc says:
July 5, 2014 at 8:45 am
Holy smokes, you voted for Obama? This severely impairs the ability to have a positive view of your wisdom.
____________________
You do have a point, but consider the molds into which we are all poured. Willis is kind of an old(er) quasi- hippy, having been inescapably immersed within the culture of the 60’s, like so many of us. Some of us were drafted, back then and skinned alive, peeled like onions, all those flowers – in- hair gone for good and in some ways, more able to discern the truths of politics, disgusted with any ramblings from the Left, ever since.
He eventually figured it out. Cut him some slack.
What do you think will be the result, down the road, of the cultural “training” of today’s youth?
Fortunately the Constitutional ammendments will act to protect the people. The 1st stating we have the right to speak up about this very thing. The 2nd indicating we can possess firearms and form a militia (as a means to protect ALL OTHER rights). The 10th indicates that the only powers that the federal government can have are those delegated to it by the Constitution. The 22nd limits the president to no more than 2 terms in office.
So long as these stay in force, the currently seated president has until Jan 20 2017 to complete his “Changes” or set in motion legislation to ensure their enactment and continuance.
However, there is legislation being brought before the States by such groups as WOLF-PAC and Citizens for Self-Governance calling for an Article V convention (Constitutional Convention) to make alterations and additions to the existing 27 ammendments. Yes that is correct, all 27 would be up for grabs including the 3 listed above. An article V convention could be utilized to keep the currently seated executive in power.
The call for convention passed in Georgia in March 2014. 1 state down and 33 to go.
‘Whenever this Congress refuses to act in a way that hurts our economy and puts our people at risk, I’ve got an obligation as president to do what we can without them.’
Unfortunately Congress did act. It passed the unelected regulatory bureaucracy in the 1930’s signed into law during the Roosevelt administration. That was placed under the control and administration of the President. At the time the Supreme Court was not in sanguine about that kind of unelected power and ruled to limit it as in the National Recovery Act. Congress again acted to enlarge the Labor Department under Johnson, create EPA under Nixon, the Dept. of Energy under Carter and Homeland Security under Bush. It is all done under the theory that a society’s progress is driven by creating the right legal framework to direct citizens behavior. The scores of thousands of pages of regulation created by this unelected regulatory apparatus and hundreds of thousands of enforcement operatives are all under the direct control of the President. We the People no longer control it. Obviously Congress can no longer control it and can barely influence its direction. At this point it is the President’s discretion is the Law.
As Denis Christianson points out, long ago the Congress created planted the seeds of tyrannical rule by ceding law making to unelected agencies such as the EPA. Supposedly these agencies acted on public input in making law. In reality, they were prone to acting upon the wishes of their boss, the President of the U.S. If they defied their boss, they were apt to be out of their jobs.
I’ve witnessed this process on several occasions. One of them played out when I responded to the EPA’s request for public input on its proposed “Endangerment” funding. In my input, I pointed out that claims being made by the climate models were not falsifiable, thus being unscientific under the Daubert standard. After finding for Endangerment, the EPA published a document in which it supposedly responded to each comment it had received. Upon reading this document, I found that it did not respond to my comment. When I wrote to the EPA’s administrator, Ms. Jackson, to inform her of the false claim that had been made by her agency in reaching its finding she did not respond to me. The wishes of the political left had been enacted into law through a lie that was known to the EPA’s administrator.
It has often been claimed by environmental activists that it is President Obama’s opponents in Congress who are responsible for blocking effective action on climate change.
This is the most absurd and disingenuous claim, because the Executive Branch of the United States Government already has all the authority it would require to enforce a substantial decarbonization of the US economy, and without needing another word of new legislation from the Congress to get the job done.
For those who are truly serious about decarbonizing the American economy, having the Executive Branch actively manage the transition to a mostly renewable energy future is not only the fastest way to achieve their goal, it is also the only way that has the slightest chance of ever working in practice.
A competent team of government lawyers and experienced environmental regulation specialists could design a highly effective regulatory framework for decarbonizing the US economy, a framework which could be made bulletproof in its ability to sustain any challenges made to it in the courts.
A decarbonization regulatory framework unilaterally implemented and managed by the Executive Branch could also include a perfectly legal system of carbon pollution fines which was the functional equivalent of a legislated carbon tax.
The courts have declared that the EPA has the authority to regulate CO2 as a dangerous pollutant, and they have independently determined in other types of court cases that the Federal Government can legally collect fines which are the functional equivalent of a tax.
All the Executive Branch needs to do to put such a policy in place is to ensure that the existing regulatory rule making processes are followed to the letter – easily done if the right people are designing the decarbonization regulatory framework and its associated regulatory implementation plan.
So if the Obama Administration is so concerned about climate change, why haven’t they used the powers they already have in their hands as the Executive Branch to unilaterally implement a policy which could substantially decarbonize the US economy over the next two decades?
Why hasn’t the president done it?
The reason he hasn’t done it is because the political blowback could be tremendous. Given that technology deployment can only move so fast, the adoption of such a decarbonization policy would force very substantial and very painful conservation efforts over the two decades that it would take to largely decarbonize the US economy.
The core of Obama’s current political strategy is to convince people that with perfectly designed energy policies, we can reduce America’s carbon footprint without having to make substantial changes in our personal lifestyles. With the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s line was, “If you like your current health plan, you can keep it.” With his existing climate change plan, Obama is saying, “If you like your current lifestyle, you can keep it.”
Yeah. Right. Sure we can.
In any case, other than the weight of public opinion as expressed at the polls, there is presently nothing to prevent the President and the Executive Branch from legally and unilaterally enforcing a substantial decarbonization of the American economy, if they chose to do so.
Jimmy Carter feels a little chipper every morning, even at his ever advancing age, knowing that his spot as the worst President in US history only has a short while to go before Obama takes over the #1 spot. He just prays every night that Obama stays healthy and survives until the end of his 2nd term so that his disastrous legacy will not be mitigated by a sudden untimely demise and relegate him back to #1
PERRY’S LAW — If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.
Incoherent executive policy on most every front, whether deliberate or simply the result of incompetence, plays directly to the stated strategy of that vile U. Chicago professor with whom Obama was reputed to associate. That strategy went approximately as follows:
“Bring the U.S. capitalist system to utter ruin. Then rebuild the country out of the ashes in the socialist ideal.”
pauljoneshogan says:
July 5, 2014 at 1:41 am
Still up, as far as I know, last post was on 5 July, Pierre commented on my comment yesterday … it’s still here.
w.
Our current technology allows us to use coal and Natural gas extremely cleanly. Yet rather than use commonsense and use our resources wisely our idiot in chief chooses to place many of the poor and old at risk of freezing to death yearly, without power, cooling or hot water the rest of the year as well. Yet because it does not affect him he thinks bigger cuts and higher prices everyone else can afford.
A King in England once thought as Obama Does today and it caused the writing of the Declaration of Independence. A document that changed the world and took power form the worlds monarchy’s. Now it is the bankers who have taken power by taking control of money and they have placed new puppets like Obama.
Until we removed the fed and control over our money back to the people the culling of the earth will continue by the left. Elitists like Obama and most of DC in general dont care if you or I die, were just one less consumer of planetary resources.
The second Amendment was placed to allow the people the ability to defend themselves from this type of tyranny. And just like banning cars the banning of ammunition makes our guns useless. “The right of the people to keep and bear arms “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED””
They know and they plan how to keep the people from growing so mad they rebel all the while taking from us the ability to rebel.
Tyranny is already here IMHO!