OPINION:
Another scorching July week and another dire media warning that my car, your lawn mower and Aunt Jenna’s stove are heating up the Earth. Something drastic needs to be done.
It’s been hotter than usual and for longer, especially on the West Coast. The Los Angeles Times calls it “unprecedented.”
This is not to minimize the human cost of extended heat waves, but this is not a unique time. In the 1930s, many states set high-temperature records that still stand.
As an aside, when I was a kid growing up in New Jersey decades ago, I did what some other children in my neighborhood tried to do: Fry an egg on the sidewalk.
It was when temperatures were near 90 degrees, and my friends and I figured that a frying pan would be at least as hot as we felt. All we got was sticky goo.
One kid decided that the hood of his father’s car would work better. As I recall, his backside was the only thing that reached frying temperature after his dad found out.
Anyway, I thought about those days as report after report claimed that we were experiencing something unique during our recent heat waves.
The stories often blame humans and call for curbing carbon dioxide and methane emissions by eliminating fossil fuels. This is part of the red-green axis, about which there is more below.
For some perspective, not one state in June reported a record high temperature.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, only three states have set record highs in the 21st century: Washington state (120 degrees Fahrenheit in 2021), Colorado (115 in 2019) and South Carolina (113 in 2012).
In 2021, Utah tied a 1985 record high of 117, and Oregon matched an 1898 high of 119.
Most states have record highs going back to the 1930s or even to 1915 when Alaska hit 100 degrees at Fort Yukon. Given the sparsity of fume-spewing vehicles at the time, liberal activists may well have blamed moose flatulence.
The point is that summers are hot — sometimes very hot. The Earth has had hot summers for eons with cyclical warming and cooling periods.
But it’s been only in the last few decades that the weather has been politicized by a red-green axis that seeks to use this “crisis” to seize power. They sing from the same songbook as officials who used COVID-19 to suspend civil liberties.
For example, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared an emergency and activated the National Guard in late June as temperatures reached the upper 80s and low 90s — typical summer weather in the Empire State.
In the red-green axis, the red stands for Marxism, which seeks an end to capitalism and private property as well as the establishment of a centralized socialist state. The green stands for the environmental lobby, which presses for more government power in order to “save the planet.”
In 2019, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff at the time, a New York Democrat, let the cat out of the bag.
“The interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all,” said Sikat Chakrabarti. He added, “We really think of it as a ’how do you change the entire economy’ thing.”
Indeed, the Green New Deal, which didn’t pass, was designed to swiftly transition the U.S. economy away from fossil fuels while promoting left-wing causes such as “social, economic, racial, regional and gender-based justice and equality and cooperative and public ownership.”
That pretty much describes the Biden administration’s $1.2 trillion Inflation Reduction Act, enacted in 2022. It has helped advance ruinous inflation while serving as a gigantic pork barrel for the green lobby.
The color green also represents the growing Islamic militant movement, whose primary goal is to wipe out Israel and Jews wherever it finds them and to establish a world-dominating caliphate. It also wants to get rid of America, the “Great Satan” that backs Israel.
All of these radical movements — Marxists, climate extremists, and Islamic militants — work hand in hand with LGBTQ activists.
At present, their vehicle is the Democratic Party, which is working to weaken election integrity laws, flood the nation with millions of illegal aliens, turn boys into girls, and fundamentally change America, as promised by then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008.
The leftist collusion was outed this past fall in college campus protests supporting Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group funded by Iran that attacked Israel on Oct. 7 and committed unspeakable atrocities.
The red-green axis, aided by corrupt media, has tremendous clout in America’s schools, which used to teach students to revere the red, white and blue.
Reacting to Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip to hunt down Hamas operatives, protesters called for the destruction of Israel and attacked Jews. Among the sea of Palestinian flags were rainbow pride banners and signs calling for social justice and climate activism.
In an X post last October, ingenue climate change activist Greta Thunberg wrote, “Today we strike in solidarity with Palestine and Gaza.” She holds a sign that says, “Stand with Gaza.” Behind her is a woman with a sign that says, “Climate Justice NOW!”
In November, Americans need to defeat the red-green axis that is strangling our country so we can go back to seeing red and green as the colors of Christmas, not tyranny.
• Robert Knight is a columnist for The Washington Times. His website is roberthknight.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.