Gerald Ford FoundationDick and Liz Cheney.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter Elizabeth (Liz) Cheney has announced she will run for U.S. Senate in Wyoming. This could mean a brutal primary with the current sitting Sen. Mike Enzi. Enzi is no climate warrior, even though the state faces a doubling or tripling of wildfires if we don’t slash carbon pollution soon.
So how would Cheney address “the global threat of our time,” climate change? Well, her social media strategy on climate echoes Sarah Palin’s — take a picture of snow and make fun of it.
This spring, she implied that such a photo was evidence that global warming was not happening, despite the fact that the first half of 2013 was the seventh-hottest on record, according to NOAA.
Good morning from Wilson, Wyoming. Global warming? Not so much. pic.twitter.com/PMckkJfysE
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) May 1, 2013
She also went on Sean Hannity’s show in June to respond to President Obama’s climate plan, saying that “the science is just simply bogus, you know, we know that temperatures have been stable for the last 15 years.”
Cheney is parroting talking points from others that claim global warming stopped 15 years ago. What the science actually says is that the planet does indeed continue to warm, especially when you take into account the fact that the Earth is mostly water, and this is where around 90 percent of recent warming has been going — causing the oceans to warm dramatically.
More relevant on a policy front, she also tweeted that the president’s climate action plan is “using phony science to kill real jobs.” She elaborated that action to rein in carbon pollution was “a war on coal, a war on jobs, a war on American families.”
Obama's "climate change" policy=using phony science to kill real jobs. This is a war on coal, a war on jobs, a war on American families.
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) June 25, 2013
She accuses the president of the United States of waging a “war on American families” because he plans to cut the dirty carbon pollution that harms public health and locks the children of American families into an extreme climate future. In particular, Wyoming faces serious threats from wildfires, extreme heat, and drought.
So a Sen. Cheney would oppose any action to cut carbon pollution because she does not see climate change as a serious threat — how fiercely would she oppose carbon regulations and investments in renewable energy? She tweeted that “patriotism” was “doing everything possible to resist/block” President Obama’s “radical” agenda.
Her positions echo those her father used to such disastrous effect when he was vice president. Dick Cheney was the main influence in the early Bush White House that stopped Bush’s campaign pledges to regulate carbon emissions from utilities cold. This had a serious impact on America’s climate and energy future, and seriously threatens the national security of the United States to this day. His office blocked testimony on the health threats of global warming, he made sure the EPA removed sections on climate change from multiple reports in 2002 and 2003, and a Cheney appointee stovepiped disreputable climate change studies denying global warming. Liz Cheney, of course, thinks her dad was the “best VP ever.”
