Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich took to Twitter to call for Secretary of State John Kerry to resign for calling global warming the “world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.”
Gingrich, a failed Republican presidential candidate, tweeted out his disgust with Kerry’s comments (Note: He spells Kerry’s name wrong in the tweets):
Does kerrey really believe global warming more dangerous than north Korean and iranian nukes? More than Russian and Chinese nukes? Really? ?
— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) February 18, 2014
On his trip to Indonesia, Kerry said that global warming is “the world’s largest weapon of mass destruction” and particularly harms low-lying countries that are at risk from rising sea levels.
“This city, this country, this region, is really on the front lines of climate change,” Kerry said in a speech in Jakarta, one of several in a series of speeches planned throughout this year.
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that your entire way of life here is at risk,” Kerry added. “In a sense, climate change can now be considered the world’s largest weapon of mass destruction, perhaps even, the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.”
Kerry has been playing up the national security angle of global warming since at least 2009, during his Senate years, when congressional Democrats were trying to pass a cap-and-trade bill. Kerry told The New York Times that he touted the national security concerns of global warming as a way to lure Republicans to support the bill.
But Gingrich, a longtime Republican, is not buying it.
Every American who cares about national security must.demand Kerrey’s resignation.A delusional secretary of state is dangerous to our safety
— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) February 18, 2014
Gingrich ended his Twitter rant by apologizing to former Nebraska Governor and Senator Bob Kerrey for the misspelling of Sec. Kerry’s name.
I apologize to bob kerrey for spelling john kerry’s name as though he were bob’s relative. Callista caught my error. Please edit to kerry
— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) February 18, 2014
In a 2008 ad with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for Al Gore’s We Can Solve it campaign, Gingrich introduced himself as “lifelong Republican” who “used to be speaker,” saying “our country must take action to address climate change.” (Gingrich on global warming ad with Pelosi: ‘The dumbest single thing I’ve done in years’)
Kerry’s remarks come after the Obama administration submitted their proposal to the United Nations for an international climate agreement for the next round of negotiations in 2015. The administration’s proposal would have countries impose domestic policies to cut emissions.
“We simply don’t have time to let a few loud interest groups hijack the climate conversation,” Kerry said, adding that “big companies” that “don’t want to change and spend a lot of money” to stop global warming are behind the pushback.
Most importantly, Kerry stressed that other nations do not “get a free pass” in the fight against global warming, despite industrialized nations being most responsible for emissions.
“They don’t have a right to go out and repeat the mistakes of the past,” Kerry argued. “At the end of the day, emissions coming from anywhere in the world, threaten the future of everyone in the world.”
One of the biggest sticking points for other industrialized countries signing onto a climate agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol was that large developing countries were not required to cut carbon dioxide emissions — virtually undoing the efforts of rich countries that cut emissions. The Obama administration’s climate proposal would bind some developing countries, like China and India to the same carbon emissions reduction targets as industrialized nations.
Obama’s proposed international climate deal would also not require any congressional approval to implement, since it’s already being done in the U.S. through executive orders.
“So this is just the latest example of President Obama’s contempt for obeying the Constitution and our laws,” Myron Ebell, director of the Center of Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “In the past, rulers who act as if the law does not apply to them were called tyrants.”
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