New York Times columnist and Keystone XL supporter Joe Nocera gets a beat down from Robert Redford.
Nocera writes:
Here’s the question on the table today: Can a person support the Keystone XL oil pipeline and still believe that global warming poses a serious threat?
To my mind, the answer is yes. The crude oil from the tar sands of Alberta, which the pipeline would transport to American refineries on the Gulf Coast, simply will not bring about global warming apocalypse. The seemingly inexorable rise in greenhouse gas emissions is the result of deeply ingrained human habits, which will not change if the pipeline is ultimately blocked. The benefits of the oil we stand to get from Canada, via Keystone, far outweigh the environmental risks.
When I tried to make that case on Tuesday, however, I was cast as a global warming “denier.” Joe Romm, who edits the Climate Progress blog, said that I had joined “the climate ignorati.” Robert Redford — yes, that Robert Redford — denounced my column in The Huffington Post. “Let’s put the rhetoric aside, and simply focus on the facts,” he wrote…
What would Robert Redford know about facts since he has to make his voice heard through the Huffington Post? Another holleywierd who is a useful idiot of the green regime. Do bad he doesn’t see a way to use his ill gotten gains for something useful in society.
Meh. This a debate between the pragmatic and evangelical branches of Green religion. Neither Nocera nor Redford seem to recognize or mention that the oil in question gets produced and used no matter what. And, oh, Big Green shut down plans to refine the stuff in Gary, IN and now harps how the stuff can’t be used in the U.S. It can, they just won’t let it.