Mocker-in-chief

Barack Obama becomes mocker-in-chief on climate change skeptics

By EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE and ANDREW RESTUCCIA

The sarcastic bear is loose, and he’s loving every minute of it.

President Barack Obama is letting his inner Don Rickles run free, mocking climate deniers as the crowd who used to think the moon was made out of cheese or spineless dopes who can’t or won’t listen to science even though the science is all overwhelmingly pointing in one direction. Their heads are in the sand. They are members of the Flat Earth Society.

For the White House it’s about getting the liberal base excited for the midterms. It’s a confidence that climate change has shifted in voters’ minds. It’s a broader play against congressional Republicans as obstructionists.

And for Obama, it’s a good time. Wednesday night, Obama ripped into his opponents in front of a League of Conservation Voters crowd so friendly that some were pumping their arms in the air as he spoke.

“It’s pretty rare that you encounter people who say that the problem of carbon pollution is not a problem,” Obama said. “In most communities and workplaces, they may not know how big a problem it is, they may not know exactly how it works, they may doubt they can do something about it. Generally they don’t just say, ‘No I don’t believe anything scientists say.’ Except, where?” he said, waiting for the more than accommodating crowd to call back, “Congress!”

Obama smiled — not his big toothy self-satisfied grin, but his stick-it-in-the-ribs smirk.

“In Congress,” he said. “Folks will tell you climate change is hoax or a fad or a plot. A liberal plot.”

Then, Obama said, there are the people who duck the question. “They say, hey, I’m not a scientist, which really translates into, I accept that man-made climate change is real, but if I say so out loud, I will be run out of town by a bunch of fringe elements that thinks climate science is a liberal plot so I’m going to just pretend like, I don’t know, I can’t read,” Obama said.

“I mean, I’m not a scientist either, but I’ve got this guy, John Holdren, he’s a scientist,” Obama added to laughter. “I’ve got a bunch of scientists at NASA and I’ve got a bunch of scientists at EPA.”

“I’m not a doctor either, but if a bunch of doctors tell me that tobacco can cause lung cancer, then I’ll say, okay. Right? I mean, it’s not that hard,” Obama said, managing not to mention that he kept smoking himself at least through his first term.

If Obama’s talking about regulations, he’s losing. If he’s talking about carbon caps for power plants or energy emissions for air conditioners, no one cares. But if he’s talking about crazy Republicans who don’t make any sense — and by the way, are putting children at risk, he charges — well, that’s an argument he can wrap his arms around.

“Humor is a very, very good thing — especially in a place where voters just don’t understand why folks in Washington don’t get what they get,” said White House political director David Simas, ahead of Obama’s speech.

There isn’t much to lose for the White House here. The Republicans aren’t coming back to work on a new cap-and-trade bill and they’re not going to praise his new EPA rules on power plant emissions no matter what.

But this isn’t just about climate change. As confident as Democrats are that they can gin up suburban moms and inner-city voters by really leaning into the argument about children with asthma that Obama chose as the framing for how he talked about the emissions rules earlier this month, they believe they’ve got an opening to an argument that gets at the heart of the attack they’re trying to make on Republicans for November.

“To stand in the way of action on this puts you on the side of polluters — I think that’s a very simple dynamic,” Simas added. “People are in a problem solving mode—‘Washington, do something!’ And not only are they saying no, but denying that the problem exists at all — that comes off as detached, out of touch and sticking to their talking points.”

DNC communications director Mo Elleithee said via email, “I cannot wait to go into these swing states, look at the climate change deniers and say, ‘You know that denying science is crazy, right? But denying science to the point that you’re willing to make it harder for kids with asthma to breathe is REALLY crazy!’”

A poll conducted by the League of Conservation Voters last year found that 73 percent of people under the age of 35 were less likely to vote for a candidate that opposes action on climate change. Of those who had a negative reaction to climate change skeptics, 37 percent described them as “ignorant,” 29 percent called them “out-of-touch” and 7 percent said they are “crazy.”

“You talk to Malia, you talk to Sasha, you talk to your kids or your grandkids. This is something they get. They don’t need a lot of persuading,” Obama said Wednesday.

Public and internal numbers all look the same: people are overwhelmingly in favor of politicians addressing climate change, according to recent Washington Post and Wall Street Journal polls, and looking forward, with 38 percent of voters in a Public Policy Polling question about the 2016 race saying they’d be willing to support a presidential candidate who doesn’t believe humans are causing global warming. Among independents, that number is at just 29 percent.

But while environmental issues have traditionally polled well, they don’t always have a major effect at the ballot box compared with other national issues such as the economy, health care or defense.

A Gallup poll in March found that only 35 percent of people said they worried “a great deal” about climate change. That poll broke down on dramatic partisan lines: 16 percent of Republicans said they worried a great deal about climate change and 63 percent said “only a little or not at all.” Among Democrats, 56 percent said they worried “a great deal”; 18 percent a little or not at all.

The partisan numbers help explain why Obama is keeping focused on science deniers, rather than policy solutions.

And Obama’s not alone in the peanut gallery. Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer — who joined a White House meeting Wednesday on climate change — has made the anti-science message a major focus of his $100 million effort to make climate change an issue in the midterms. Steyer’s strategy is aimed at undercutting Republicans’ credibility entirely by tagging them as climate deniers, rather than wading into the dry details of policy.

Steyer’s top adviser, Democratic strategist Chris Lehane, has said Steyer is going to hammer home the anti-science message rather than “talking about polar bears and butterflies.” And he says he is trying to “tobacco-ize” the climate issue by making the case that Republicans are rejecting the scientific consensus on global warming because they are beholden to special interests like the oil industry.

“It plays squarely into the Republican troglodyte narrative — anti-women, anti-immigrant and anti-science,” Lehane said in an email.

Not mentioned during Wednesday’s speech: the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline. Steyer and others in the environmental community are spending millions to kill the project, but Obama’s position remains a mystery, and his State Department has conveniently put off a decision about its future until after the midterms.
But for a president who stayed away from talking much about climate change during his first term and during his 2012 re-election campaign, he’s clearly boiling over.

“He’s stayed the course and I think everybody who has worked on this is just frustrated by the people who won’t look at the facts,” said Carol Browner, who served as Obama’s energy and climate adviser until March 2011. “I think he is, like everyone who has worked on this issue, there’s a level of frustration.”