Everybody complains about the weather, especially when most of the United States is buried under a winter storm. But only radio host Mark Levin is doing something about it.
Levin, the fiery but eloquent broadcast personality whose audience is estimated at 7 million by Talkers magazine, devoted a portion of his syndicated “Mark Levin Show” Wednesday to announcing his political group Americans For Carbon Dioxide.
Although Levin noted that he first floated the pro-CO2 lobby in 2011 and has been promoting it lately on his Twitter feed, Wednesday’s announcement was especially propitious as Winter Storm Thor has areas from California to Alabama experiencing ice, snow and frigid temperatures. The federal government was shut down Thursday due to heavy snowfall, and in New York City a passenger plane skidded off the icy runway at LaGuardia Airport. States in New England — which has already experienced a very punishing winter — are expected to get nearly half a foot of snow.
“My heart goes out to the people of Boston,” Levin, who is also president of the Landmark Legal Foundation, told the Washington Examiner Thursday. “It’s obvious their political leaders don’t care that they have been suffering so much this winter. They want to make energy more expensive and keep people freezing and miserable. I am hoping to start this movement in the coldest areas, the bluest areas. I want to encourage people to drive their cars more often, keep their lights on, and use more energy, which is what gives us life.”
Members of the climate change consensus accuse skeptics variously of denying science, ignoring evidence or even being stooges of large energy producers. But Levin has staked out a position even further out on the continuum than most global warming villains.
Energy producers invest in large-scale public relations campaigns to highlight their efforts to reduce carbon production. Republican leaders generally do not make the case for increasing carbon output, and it was the Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who signed into law the Golden State’s pioneering Global Warming Solutions Act. While the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is critical of some carbon-related regulations, such as the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rules on power plants, the Chamber does not appear ever to have made the case for increasing carbon output per se, and it did not respond to a request for comment.
Levin, an often biting critic of lukewarm conservatives and establishment Republicans, says he has logic on his side.
“The reason Republicans don’t make this case is because there is something truthfully wrong with them,” he told the Examiner. “This is third-grade science. You exhale carbon dioxide, plants breathe it in, and that’s why we’re the planet Earth and not the frozen planet Mars.”
Levin argues that CO2 is only a trace gas in the planet’s atmosphere — estimated at 400 parts per million — and condemns the Establishment’s often strong efforts to dissuade counterarguments and claim scientific near-unanimity on climate change.
“They never mention what a tiny fraction of the atmosphere CO2 is,” he said. “The biggest part of greenhouse gases is water vapor. But they haven’t figured out a way to regulate or tax water vapor, so you don’t hear about that. Because what this really is, is a massive government power grab. This is just another effort to gain more control for the government. That’s why they have to delete emails and they have to place temperature monitoring in all these strange places.”
Levin is sympathetic, however, to the consensus truism that changes in weather should not be confused with changes in climate, saying, “Just because it’s cold outside doesn’t mean there’s not global warming.” And he gives thought to the claim that the recent spate of severe winters could be not a refutation of global warming but the result of a “polar vortex” that has been introduced to headlines in this decade.
“I’m familiar with the dreaded polar vortex,” Levin told the Examiner. “I think I first heard of that on one of the early Star Trek series. I think they were trying to avoid it. So I think it’s a good thing to avoid the polar vortex. In fact, that’s why I want to create the carbon dioxide vortex, to bring the forces of good to fight the polar vortex.”
Levin is a rare proponent of a pro-carbon lobby, but he is not alone. A Facebook page associated with the idea has been around since 2011. And he says the miserable weather may help the idea catch on.
“I think my argument seeks to help people,” Levin said. “The other side wants to keep energy prices high and keep people cold and not help the people of New England who are experiencing this terrible winter.”
Calls to the Environmental Protection Agency were not returned by publication time. The agency is closed due to the severe winter storm.
