President Barack Obama spoke to reporters on Wednesday afternoon on the Paris climate change agreement and, almost on cue, NBC’s Ron Allen connected global warming to Hurricane Matthew set to bear down on the Bahamas, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida.
Speaking on MSNBC Live to host Kate Snow, Allen first gushed about how the President “believes so deeply in protecting the environment” that the deal marks “one of the most significant aspects of his legacy” before bringing in Hurricane Matthew as a intriguing “practical matter.” It was "what the president was talking about as the threat that the planet faces and this is what this whole climate agreement signed by 190 nations and now ratified by 60 or so is designed to stop."
In making the following comments, Allen failed to realize that there hasn’t been a major Atlantic Hurricane to crack the top ten in intensity in nine years and if it comes ashore, Matthew would be the first major hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. since Hurricane Wilma in 2005:
[I]t’s very interesting that this is happening a day when there’s a hurricane bearing down on the United States and in the Caribbean because these severe storms, beach erosions, intense weather episodes that we’ve had are perhaps the most practical example of what the president was talking about as the threat that the planet faces[.]
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Allen further made his comments seem even more out-of-touch with the reality of the issue concerning broad and long-term trends in our climate when he ruled that hurricanes like Matthew “is what this whole climate agreement signed by 190 nations and now ratified by 60 or so is designed to stop.”
After explaining that the only true mechanism to enforce the deal will be “peer pressure,” Allen reiterated what “a huge milestone” the deal has been to the President before concluding with another nod somehow linking the deal to Matthew:
That’s how important this is to the President of the United States and again, a huge milestone but a lot of variables, a lot of hurdles yet before it actually happens and before, in fact, the commitments carried out. But for now, a huge agreement, a huge milestone, again, on an important day when a hurricane is bearing down in United States.
The NBC News correspondent also didn’t let the segment go to waste without lamenting how Donald Trump would most likely ignore the deal to highlight the stakes of the election:
Yes, a lot is at stakes at this election, this is one other huge thing that's at stake and that's why the President is been pushing so strongly for Hillary Clinton to follow him into office because she supports this, she believes in this and clearly Donald Trump and the Republicans do not.
The relevant portions of the transcript from MSNBC Live with Kate Snow on October 5 can be found below.
MSNBC Live with Kate Snow
October 5, 2016
3:36 p.m. Eastern
RON ALLEN: You’re right and this, as you heard the President, is one of the reasons that he ran for office. He believes so deeply in protecting the environment, protecting the climate and this is something he has been pushing for arguably for the past seven and a half years and when you talk to the president and you hear him talk, he thinks that this is one of the most significant aspects of his legacy that he has done something that unites the world around the goal of saving the planet. Now, as a practical matter, it’s very interesting that this is happening a day when there’s a hurricane bearing down on the United States and in the Caribbean because these severe storms, beach erosions, intense weather episodes that we’ve had are perhaps the most practical example of what the president was talking about as the threat that the planet faces and this is what this whole climate agreement signed by 190 nations and now ratified by 60 or so is designed to stop.
(....)
KATE SNOW: I was just refreshing my memory, looking up Donald Trump's position on the Paris climate agreement and he has said, “cancel the Paris climate agreement” and he wants to stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to UN global warming programs. Now that this has been ratified by this number of countries and is set to go into effect, could Donald Trump undo this agreement if he were elected president?
ALLEN: Essentially, he — as president, would basically ignore it and not carry out the mandates that it sets forth. Again, what’s required is for the United States, for example to get the EPA to enforce certain new regulations on coal power plants and auto emissions and so forth and a new president who doesn’t believe in this would just not do that. Yes, a lot is at stakes at this election, this is one other huge thing that's at stake and that's why the President is been pushing so strongly for Hillary Clinton to follow him into office because she supports this, she believes in this and clearly Donald Trump and the Republicans do not.
