On Monday, The New York Times reported—in an overly supportive tone—on California Governor Jerry Brown’s extreme plans to “combat climate change.” The New York Times,
“Mr. Brown is at the forefront of governors across the country who are grappling with ways to deal with climate change through legislation and infrastructure changes, rather than waiting for coordinated efforts from the federal government. Governors from states including Maryland, New York and Washington are pushing for ways to combat what they say are dangerous threats to their state’s economic and environmental future…”
The truly comical part? Jay Inslee’s contribution to the story. Perhaps unwittingly, the report resulted in a rather humorous Insleeism.
Ladies and gentlemen, Inslee on the state of emergency caused by global warming:
“This [global warming] is not a hypothetical thing for governors on the West Coast — this is fire alarms and floods… It’s not a next-century issue. This is a next half-hour issue.”
Yes, global warming will not only cause fire alarms to go off—which we assume means it will cause the actual fire—but those fire alarms will go off in the next half-hour. Just when the beginning of the next half hour is, no one actually knows.
Beside the humor, Inslee’s quote provides valuable insight into his priorities. The reality is that the “next half hour issue” should be job creation. Given our lagging economy, Inslee should be working to bring jobs into Washington State. Unfortunately, his only concern appears to be making tough economic times even harder on Washington families and businesses with a gas tax increase.
