I don’t call any of this “hypocrisy,” because that term properly refers to the difference between private behavior and public words, and in the case of climate alarmism there is no attempt to hide the behavior or to make it match the words. So, for instance, the Defense Innovation Board, a group sponsored by the Pentagon and chaired by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, issued two studies this month recommending the reconstitution and strengthening of America’s defense industrial base. The reports have merit. But following all their recommendations would require the procurement of vast arrays of manufactured materials produced with natural gas, petrochemicals and coal. Meanwhile, Mr. Bloomberg oversees two nonprofit organizations, Beyond Coal and Beyond Petrochemicals, whose stated aim is to end the country’s use of natural gas, petrochemicals and coal.
Mr. Bloomberg isn’t embarrassed by the contradiction. He hasn’t tried to explain it, except indirectly in a vaguely worded Washington Post
op-ed, co-authored with David H. Berger. “The technology needed to make today’s advanced military supplies,” Messrs. Bloomberg and Berger write, “relies on computer chips more than blast furnaces and on research labs more than assembly lines.” Sure. But it does rely on blast furnaces and power stations of the sort Mr. Bloomberg’s activist groups want to shut down. Which will make any thinking person wonder if he believes the catastrophism emitted by his nonprofits.
