(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . John Kerry: Boring Politician, Or Radical Leftist And International Climate Boogeyman? [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-08-03 CHINA! Did that get your attention? You may have noticed that it’s hard these days to have a conversation on climate in Congress without repeated mentions of China. Specifically, something along the lines of, China isn’t doing anything, so why should we? Well, beyond that being false (China leads the world in clean energy production, with higher solar capacity than the rest of the world combined, even as they expand coal ), more importantly, it’s part of the larger Sinophobic scapegoating trend used to justify a lack of climate action by the United States. This came to a head recently during a July 13 hearing with special climate envoy John Kerry that was nominally described as a “ budget overview ” by the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight & Accountability. The hearing ran the gamut of the denier playbook. Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) and Mike Waltz (R-FL) pushed a classic example of the climate hypocrisy accusation, asking why everyday Americans should care about climate action when Kerry’s family once owned a private jet. Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) chose to go for a more direct ad hominem attack, accusing Kerry (and all scientists who agree that climate change is human-caused) of “grifting.” Even the committee chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) couldn’t help but get in on the action, using China’s high carbon emissions and “developing nation” status to attack China’s honesty (read: anti-Asian stereotyping) and disregard the need for engaging in bilateral climate talks to advance climate action. Suffice to say, the facade of a budgetary overview quickly dissolved into a Republican inquisition. Though legitimate concerns about human rights abuses in Chinese supply chains were raised, Republican legislators ignored the importance of rekindling diplomatic ties to fight the climate crisis to instead focus on Kerry as a kind of “radical left” climate boogeyman, with the whataboutisms running rampant to avoid acknowledging the US as the largest cumulative emitter of greenhouse gasses. McCaul and Perry complained that China is “held to a different standard,” Mills felt the need to remind people that military tanks aren’t EVs (though the Army is working on that …) and Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-TX) even bemoaned the US’s inability to “force” China to cut emissions. Even so, after the hearing Kerry went ahead with his scheduled visit to China to restart bilateral climate talks for the first time in nearly a year. The talks marked an important rekindling for two of the largest emitters and economies in the world, but conservative disinfo outlets only focused on how it was a “ failure .” These unrealistic expectations feed the Sinophobic scapegoating Republicans have come to rely on in an effort to distract from the urgent need for U.S. climate action. During the Senate Republicans' weekly press conference, House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) added to the fearmongering by describing Kerry’s visit to China as, “just another attempt to surrender American values and interests and cede our energy future to the Chinese Communist Party.” Do all these Republican attacks have anything to do with their pockets being lined by the fossil fuel industry? Almost assuredly: Mills , Waltz , Perry , McCaul , Moran and Rodgers have cumulatively received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry! So what did the hearing and Kerry’s subsequent visit really underscore for us here at the Denier Roundup? What we’ve known for a long time: personal attacks and Sinophobic scapegoating represent a growing attempt to avoid a simple and important point — the US must do more on climate. More amusingly, it's a real sign of desperation. They're so lacking in any real reasons to oppose climate action that they're trying to make John Kerry, a politician with such a reputation for being so " profoundly boring " that even he's poked fun at himself about it , sound like an international man of mystery deftly orchestrating a sinister global conspiracy. John Kerry is the vanilla ice cream of climate activists, but even that is apparently too spicy! [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/3/2184972/-John-Kerry-Boring-Politician-Or-Radical-Leftist-And-International-Climate-Boogeyman Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/