Greens’ “Climate Impact Lens” an Even Worse Catchphrase Than “All of the Above” [updated 1.18.2014]

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by William Yeatman on January 17, 2014

in Blog, Features

Yesterday a flock of green special interests sent a letter to President Obama, asking the Commander-in-Chief to stop using the stupid shibboleth “all of the above,” and instead view all energy policy through a “climate impact lens.”

As you can probably tell by my choice of modifiers, I disdain “all of the above,” even more so than environmentalists. The reason I hate this phrase is that it fails to account for the inane. If an energy source is intermittent and expensive, then it makes no sense to require people to use it…unless you buy into dumb ideas like “all of the above.” Alas, such is our plight.

As much as I dislike “all of the above,” I think “climate impact lens” is an even stupider grouping of words. As I noted earlier this week, when you start seeing things through a “climate impact lens,” Communism looks like a global warming solution. Above, for the sake of reader clarity, I’ve depicted an artist’s rendition of the world as it appears through a climate impact lens.

[update, January 18, 2014, 12:49 PMIn the above post, I absentmindedly forget to heap scorn on that other oft-used energy policy phrase: “energy independence.” In the name of “energy independence,” motorists endure a Soviet-style production quota for ethanol (a fuel whose use increases the price of both food and energy), the Congress perpetuates a counterproductive ban on energy exports, and the EPA constricts consumer choice on the auto market. In general, I advise voters to be wary of all lazy phrases, but if I had to rank the three described above, from highest to lowest in terms of harmfulness, I’d go: (1) ‘climate impact lens’ ; (2) ‘energy independence’; and (3) ‘all of the above.’

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