Screen capture from www.state.gov

Can I now claim to have influence at the highest levels of the State Department? (If only.) In a speech Secretary Kerry gave yesterday in Jakarta, he compared climate change to weapons of mass destruction.

When I think about the array of global climate – of global threats – think about this: terrorism, epidemics, poverty, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction – all challenges that know no borders – the reality is that climate change ranks right up there with every single one of them.

Exactly one month earlier, I wrote:

We should really think of [remaining fossil fuels that we leave in the ground] … as neutralized WMDs since burning them would, in the words of Columbia environmental science prof and former NASA scientist James Hansen, “make most of the planet uninhabitable by humans.”

Coincidence? I’m going to go with “no” since I really want to (optimistically) think EcoOptimism has a profound and wide reach. On the other hand, the powers that be at State have undoubtedly not read an earlier EcoOptimism post I wrote, The Keystone XL Pipeline No-brainer.

So I guess I can’t go ask Kerry for a job.