by Tim Phillips
Americans For Prosperity
December 18, 2009
Today, President Obama is at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. This morning he spoke from the same podium that Venezuelan socialist strongman Hugo Chavez used to decry the “silent and terrible ghost” of capitalism – to declare that “capitalism is the road to hell.”
The enraptured global warming radicals at the Copenhagen conference rewarded Chavez with a standing ovation for his anti-freedom diatribe, telling us everything we need to know about the modern radical environmental movement headed by Al Gore.
If you have any doubt that many global warming extremists are self-proclaimed communists and socialists – CLICK HERE for an AFP video showing these extremists marching through the streets of Copenhagen.
President Obama had an opportunity to stand up and defend the economic freedoms of our great nation, which have made America the greatest and most prosperous on earth.
Instead, he chose to pander to his adoring supporters abroad, saying: “America will fulfill the commitments that we have made: cutting our emissions in the range of 17 percent by 2020, and by more than 80 percent by 2050 in line with final legislation.”
Clearly, President Obama wants to join these radicals in signing a binding international treaty that will bring cap-and-trade-style energy taxes and energy rationing to our nation.
As you know, we were in Copenhagen last week for a briefing we beamed back live to 24 grassroots events across the United States (from Billings, Montana to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and in between). Thousands more watched from home or work on our AmericansforProsperity.org website.
Without a doubt the most frustrating moment of the Copenhagen trip was sitting in the American pavilion at the convention center as Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency head, Lisa Jackson, gleefully touted the EPA’s new finding declaring that carbon dioxide endangers human health and welfare. The room full of mostly Europeans applauded wildly.
Ms. Jackson’s introducer, the U.S. ambassador to Denmark, talked about all she had done as in the director of New Jersey’s state EPA. What irony…New Jersey has one of the worst economies in the nation – people are really hurting – in part due to Lisa Jackson’s job-killing heavy-handed regulatory policies. Now the Obama administration hopes she “does for the United States what she did for New Jersey.”
We face a long hard fight to overturn or at least mitigate the potentially devastating impact of this EPA “finding” in coming months and years. Speaking in carefully coded environmental-speak, Ms. Jackson discussed what her 18,000 EPA bureaucrats have in mind for small businesses, large corporations and even families. We must and we will hold Congress responsible if they fail to stop what the EPA is trying to do.
I talked to many individual environmental leaders and activists from Greenpeace, Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, members of the U.S. delegation, EPA bureaucrats, and activists from other smaller groups. They’re true believers. In their view only the government can step in and “fix” this problem by forcing individuals to dramatically change their lives, to pay more taxes for the privilege of using energy or creating jobs. Capitalism is THE culprit in their morality tale. Those with a different view are dismissed as ignorant simpletons or denounced as greedy robber barons who must be stopped.
There is no room for compromise in their world.
If we’re going to protect our freedoms and preserve a free market that has pulled generations from the muck and misery of grinding poverty, then we are going to have to defeat them in the public arena.
The good news – the American public agrees with us. Every poll shows support for cap-and-trade policies going downhill. The legislation is dead for this year, after most pundits thought it a done deal earlier this year.
The bad news – from what I saw firsthand in Copenhagen – our opponents have nearly unlimited financial resources, committed grassroots troops of their own, and deeply entrenched organizations that think strategically and act aggressively.
We’ve got to be innovative, aggressive, confident, strategic and on message. Most of all – we have to fight each and every day.
And, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.
If you wish to join Americans for Prosperity by speaking out against the EPA’s plans, click here.
