U.S. President Barack Obama was in a fairly jokey mood when addressing the graduating class at U.C. Irvine in California over the weekend. As if finally realising the fact that he’s in his second term and has literally nothing to lose, he ridiculed members of Congress who do not accept the current science on climate change, saying that in the ’60s, the same people would likely have told President Kennedy that the moon was “made of cheese.”:
He criticised U.S. lawmakers for taking a cowardly approach to climate change, saying that they know full well what the implications are, but they are too fearful to act because they worry they will be “run out of town” by members of a radical fringe who think that climate science is a liberal plot.
”Today’s Congress is full of folks who stubbornly and automatically reject the scientific evidence,” he said to the assembled crowd. “They will tell you climate change is a hoax or a fad.” He said that science it at odds with many in the political establishment. “The overwhelming majority of scientists who work on climate change, including some who once disputed the data, have put the debate to rest,” he said.
He told the students at his words were intended to “light a fire” under the younger generation, who are being “short-changed” by their lawmakers, and urged them into action. Presumably, he then dropped the microphone and fell backwards into the crowd, who carried him aloft on their hands.
Picture via Getty Images Pool
