Weekend Media Roundup: Obama Aid Perplexes on Platts, Bill Moyers Misses the Boat, and Tom Steyer Loves Himself

Platts Energy Week with Bill Loveless: White House energy & climate adviser Dan Utech parroted the President’s muddled message on energy & climate this Sunday morning on Platts Energy Week with Bill Loveless. Utech spent the first part of his interview talking up Obama’s regulatory and administrative authority to fight climate change. Then, in the final part of the interview, Utech explained that it’s a “blessing we have this booming oil supply” due to fracking, and also that expanding oil production is “consistent with the President’s ‘all of the above’ energy plan.” Of course, “booming oil” and climate change mitigation are mutually exclusive propositions, so Utech’s interview, taken as a whole, is nonsensical. Alas, Utech was only mimicking his boss: President Obama pulls the same shenanigans–i.e., tries to have it both ways–when he waxes lyrical on energy & climate, as we’ve noted here and here.

Steyer Launches Ads: During the Sunday morning political talk shows, Tom Steyer rolled out his new television spot, which draws attention to the Koch Brothers’ refusal to debate him, the Tom Steyer, on climate change. The ad, which I’ve posted below, immediately brings to mind two points: (1) Steyer is a narcissist and (2) while it’s true that few voters know who the “Koch Brothers” are, even fewer voters know who “Tom Steyer” is. As such, his ad is a waste of money, if its purpose is to have a political impact on the midterm elections. More likely, the ad is an ego stroke.

Moyers Gets it Backwards: Finally, the big climate science news this week was the scandalous treatment endured by distinguished Swedish meteorologist Lennart Bengtsson for the sin of publicly questioning catastrophic planetary warming. First, Professor Bengtsson was compelled to resign from the Global Warming Policy Foundation, due to his life having been made a “living hell” by activist elements within the scientific community. His treatment evoked comparisons to McCarthyism. Then, The Times of London revealed in a front-page story, published last Friday, that a prestigious environmental journal recently rejected a paper submitted by Bengtsson and four colleagues, for political reasons. Not coincidentally, the sensational news swirling about Professor Bengtsson contrasts sharply with Saturday morning’s broadcast of Moyers & Company, whose subject was the alleged “war on climate scientists” by the fossil fuel industry and its shills. Below, I’ve reposted Moyer’s ultra-topical interview with famed environmentalist David Suzuki.