Last month, Secretary of State John Kerry made it clear the Obama Administration has an interesting set of priorities when he told a crowd at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii climate change – not ISIS, or Hamas, or the caliphate, or Russia – is “the biggest challenge of all that we face right now.”
Kerry seemingly doubled down on the global warming theme last week, when he said the United States has a biblical “duty” to confront climate change at home and abroad in “Muslim-majority” nations.
When you consider all that is going on the world today and the attention being paid to the Islamic State as it brutally executes Americans and seeks to expand its sphere of influence, Kerry’s remarks seem particularly ill timed. The comments came during a ceremony to appoint Texas lawyer Shaarik Zafar to be special representative to Muslim communities.
“Our faiths are inextricably linked on any number of things that we must confront and deal with in policy concepts today,” Kerry said. “Our faiths are inextricably linked on the environment. For many of us, respect for God’s creation also translates into a duty to protect and sustain his first creation, Earth, the planet.”
“Confronting climate change is, in the long run, one of the greatest challenges that we face, and you can see this duty or responsibility laid out in Scriptures clearly, beginning in Genesis,” he continued. “And Muslim-majority countries are among the most vulnerable. Our response to this challenge ought to be rooted in a sense of stewardship of Earth, and for me and for many of us here today, that responsibility comes from God.”
While Kerry’s remarks certainly solidify fears the Administration really doesn’t recognize how bad the optics are to be speaking about climate change when the world is on fire, Glenn had trouble reconciling the comments.
“He's talking to the Muslim world now. Out of all the things that could be going on… what is it we should be worrying about right now,” Glenn concluded. “We have ISIS happening. We have beheadings going on… We have children holding up severed heads. What does he say we have a responsibility to protect the Muslim world against?”
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