WASHINGTON — Former world chess champion and Russian pro-democracy activist leader Garry Kasparov had few words of praise for the Obama administration’s foreign policy at a Friday event held at a D.C. book store, saying the administration is doing “nothing” to counter Russia’s influence across the globe.
When asked by The Daily Caller about his thoughts on the administration’s national security prioritization on climate change, Kasparov said, “I’m reading controversial reports…the layer of ice in the Antarctic growing. I don’t know. I’m not here to give you the all the final judgment, but I’m appalled to hear that when Obama is asked about Syria, he talks about leadership in promoting climate change.”
He added, “Yes, it’s probably a very important issue, but you have hundreds of thousands of people in imminent danger—tens of thousands of people being killed. And there are so many immediate pressing problems. You probably have to understand about your priorities and I don’t think that right now this emphasizing climate change is your number one priority and is in the American national interest.”
Kasparov also noted that there is not “enough evidence [of negative effects from climate change] to justify tens of thousands of jobs” for the Obama administration to reject of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Additionally, Kasparov criticized the administration for placing climate change above lives that are “in imminent danger.”
“I’m reading controversial reports…the layer of ice in the Antarctic growing. I don’t know. I’m not here to give you the all the final judgment, but I’m appalled to hear that when Obama is asked about Syria, he talks about leadership in promoting climate change,” he said.
“Yes, it’s probably a very important issue, but you have hundreds of thousands of people in imminent danger—tens of thousands of people being killed. And there are so many immediate pressing problems. You probably have to understand your priorities, and I don’t think that its right now–this emphasizing climate change as your number one priority and in the American national interest.”
President Obama along with the rest of his administration claim climate change hurts the country’s national security. Despite the administration’s push to make climate change the number one concern on Americans’ minds, a new poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that most Americans are unconcerned about the matter. When Pew Research Center asked American what they considered to be the top global threat, the terrorist organization ISIS was named.