Rockefeller Has Courage of the Wrong Convictions

I'll give Senator Rockefeller credit for speaking his mind and offering an unpopular opinion on the future of the coal industry.  One suspects he is burnishing his reputation as a statesman by taking a position that is unpopular with his constituents, but popular within the Beltway, but who knows his motivation?

Lots has been written about his statement.  (Here is Ken Ward's take on what Rockefeller said.)  I would like to focus on one aspect of his speech:

 Third, the shift to a lower carbon economy is not going away and it’s a disservice to coal miners and their families to pretend that it is. Coal company operators deny that we need to do anything to address climate change despite the established scientific consensus and mounting national desire for a cleaner, healthier environment.

The primary  reason that there is a shift to a "lower carbon economy" is because certain political elites and politicians such as Sen. Rockefeller want to  believe that there is an "established scientific consensus" that climate change is primarily man-made and will result in catastrophic damage to the environment.  The science is far from settled in that regard, and the flat temperatures we've seen for the last 15 years or so are a clear contradiction of the  catastrophe meme that the  AGW crowd  has been pushing.

If Senator Rockefeller were saving the planet by taking his principled stand, he would be deserving of praise. The fact that he is condemning US citizens to higher prices for electricity, and discouraging development for the billion or so people living in energy poverty worldwide, make his crisis of conscience less compelling.  He is a man with the courage of the wrong convictions.