On Fox’s Your World, host Stuart Varney decided that he knows better than the Pentagon about the importance of climate change to national security. Not that Varney has any military or climate science credentials to go with his conclusion. Apparently, he just knows.
According to FoxNews.com, Varney’s background is in economics and broadcast journalism. But that didn’t stop him from denigrating the assessment of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel – a decorated Army veteran, former U.S. Senator, member of the Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees, chairman of the Senate Climate Change Observer Group and Co-Chairman of President Obama’s Intelligence Advisory Board.
Varney sneered, “In the middle of this ISIS crisis and a major Ebola outbreak, what is the Defense Department saying that poses an immediate risk to U.S. national security? What’s the threat? Climate change.”
After introducing conservationist Howard Gould, Varney continued, “I want to discuss the timing of Secretary Hagel’s statement, and his focus on it. Look, Americans are being beheaded, ISIS is making gains threatening Baghdad, and our bombing campaign is not going well. That should concern the Defense Secretary. Instead, he’s talking about climate change as being an immediate threat. The timing’s wrong, Howard.”
Varney smeared the military’s decision to integrate climate change considerations into its operations as nothing more than politics. First, he suggested Hagel’s timing was due to “an election in three week’s time.”
Gould countered that by noting that Hagel had presented his plan at a conference. “That’s why the timing was the timing. He was at a conference."
But Varney was determined to promote his theory, despite a complete lack of actual evidence. “The President’s not doing very well on the economy, he’s not doing very well on terror, he’s not doing very well on Obamacare, and he’s not doing very well in foreign affairs.” That was all Varney needed to conclude that President Obama just wants to “shore up his base amongst the greens. …It’s politics, isn’t it?”
”I don’t know how you refer to it as politics,” Gould replied. He said that Naval Commander Locklear, in charge of the U.S. Navy, “last year came out and said this is the most important issue that we’re facing right now, climate change.”
Varney responded by pretending that resources are being diverted from other, more immediate threats: “Do you think that next week we’re going to have a climate change catastrophe? Because next week we’re going to have more Americans beheaded, we could have Baghdad fall, and we could have a mass Ebola outbreak somewhere around here. Do you think climate change is as important as that?”
”Nobody’s saying that we’re diverting attention from ISIS and Ebola and other conflicts. …It is a long term issue,” Gould said.
It’s worth noting that Varney did not disagree. “Howard Gould, we hear you,” Varney said, closing the segment.
As Media Matters pointed out, Fox never thinks it’s a good time to discuss climate change. In 2012, Media Matters reported on 15 military leaders calling climate change a national security threat.
Watch it below.