{"id":1406,"date":"2014-02-17T11:54:59","date_gmt":"2014-02-17T16:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ecooptimism.com\/?p=1406"},"modified":"2014-02-17T11:54:59","modified_gmt":"2014-02-17T16:54:59","slug":"has-john-kerry-been-reading-my-ecooptimism-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ecooptimism.com\/?p=1406","title":{"rendered":"Has John Kerry been reading my EcoOptimism blog?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Screen capture from www.state.gov<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

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

When I think about the array of global climate \u2013 of global threats \u2013 think about this: terrorism, epidemics, poverty, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction \u2013 all challenges that know no borders \u2013 the reality is that climate change ranks right up there with every single one of them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Exactly one month earlier, I wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

We should really think of [remaining fossil fuels that we leave in the ground] \u2026 as neutralized WMDs since burning them would, in the words<\/a> of Columbia environmental science prof and former NASA scientist James Hansen, \u201cmake most of the planet uninhabitable by humans.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Coincidence? I\u2019m going to go with \u201cno\u201d 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So I guess I can\u2019t go ask Kerry for a job.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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