John Kerry, climate crazies are coming for your burgers and Fourth of July

Prabha Thakur

Watching the Biden White House impose climate policy on America I wonder if we will celebrate national holidays the same way in just a few short years.

In coming weeks Americans will celebrate Flag Day and the Fourth of July. We will gather with neighbors to grill hot dogs in the backyard, drape our kids’ bikes with red, white and blue bunting, kick back from the workweek and… tip a hat to the founders of our great nation.

Start with the obvious: John Kerry and climate zealots everywhere are adamantly opposed to the kind of food we eat, and how it is produced. He and his Democrat colleagues are equally incensed that we might cook over gas grills; I can’t even imagine their horror at charcoal fires. Surely, carbon-emitting charcoal is on the kill list

Next is the cost of feeding the neighborhood. It used to be the traditional hamburger barbeque was reasonably inexpensive. But in the past year the price of such fare skyrocketed 9%, on top of a 10% increase in 2022, and while some costs, like those for meat or tomatoes, may fluctuate, there’s little chance that food companies are going to drop the prices of ketchup (up 28% in one year) or hamburger buns (up 7%) anytime soon.

Much more important than all of the above: the actual purpose of Flag Day and the Fourth of July is to honor the birth of our nation. With the left actively rewriting U.S. history and savaging our country’s accomplishments and exceptionalism, these holidays could well be rebranded in the future as National Apology Day or maybe American Reparations Day.

As Joe Biden might say, this is no joke.

The climate zealots running the White House and our country want to change how we live, what we eat, how we heat our homes, what kinds of cars we drive and how we cook. Joe Biden appointed John Kerry our official Climate Czar and loosed him upon our country, armed with a $14 billion budget and staff of 45.

One of Kerry’s most urgent missions is to overhaul our extremely successful agricultural industry. At a recent meeting of AIM for Climate, co-hosted by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and the UAE Minister of Climate Change and Environment, Kerry thundered that farmers worldwide create fully one-third of global greenhouse gases, an amount that must come down if the world is to reach net zero emissions.

“Food systems themselves contribute a significant amount of emissions just in the way in which we do the things we’ve been doing…” intoned Kerry, having evidently co-opted Vice President Kamala Harris’ speechwriter.

He further warned: “We’re facing record malnutrition at a time when agriculture, more than any other sector, is suffering from the impacts of the climate crisis. And I refuse to call it climate change anymore. It’s not change. It’s a crisis.”

Left out of Kerry’s near-hysterical speech was any indication of how changes sponsored by AIM for Climate might deliver both lower emissions and more nutrition. But a strategy paper published by the Department of Agriculture gives some clues. For example, it proposes “conversion of inedible biomass and waste into new materials, food, and fuels”, which sounds tasty.

The paper also advocates research and education on “diet-related chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and certain cancers.” Does anyone doubt this agency will soon suggest that for health reasons Americans must stop eating red meat? c

Lest you think this concern is overblown, I recommend to you what is transpiring in the Netherlands. That country’s government, attempting to meet unrealistic emissions targets set by the EU, has recently allocated billions of dollars to buy out as many as 3,000 livestock farmers, accusing the industry of producing unacceptable levels of nitrogen.

The land sales are compulsory – in other words, confiscatory. The program may reduce Holland’s herds by one-third, significantly cutting the nation’s exports of food to other countries. Despite a huge political backlash, authorities are proceeding, even as critics allege that replacing Holland’s production with food imports from more polluting countries will render the effort meaningless.

Kerry and his Democrat colleagues are too caught up with cow flatulence to focus on banning charcoal or gas grills; give them time. After all, climate activists report that charcoal fires “typically generate three times as much greenhouse emissions than gas for the same cooking job.”

Also, we learn that a typical grilled meal “emits as much carbon dioxide as driving a car for roughly 26 miles,” according to a New York Times reporter who worried about the “smoke coming from my friend’s charcoal grill.”