Democrats will gladly spend his $100 million, then go back to their real environmental business, which is green cronyism.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/holman-jenkins-a-climate-activist-bags-himself-1404861051


A Climate Activist Bags Himself
Tom Steyer ruined the planet before he offered to save it.

The hedge-fund king has sought to propel himself to the top circle of Democratic money men and possible future officeholders on the strength of his concern about global warming. He wants to spend $100 million this year influencing the midterm elections. All the media lately wants to talk about, though, is his thoroughly postmodern hypocrisy.

The New York Times is the latest to investigate his former hedge fund's investments to increase the output of Indonesian and Australian coal mines to feed China during a period when China surpassed the U.S. as the world's biggest carbon-dioxide emitter.

He wouldn't be the first to consider himself "passionate" on the subject of global warming without being quite so passionate as to delve into its complexities and ambiguities. But you might at least expect a shrewd latecomer to notice a few things—such as how signally the standard doom-mongering and oil-bashing has failed to move the needle. But then the very clichéd-ness of Mr. Steyer's adopted patter has been his lever to the overnight visibility and pseudo-influence that he apparently aspires to.

And we do mean pseudo-influence. He vilifies the Koch brothers ("evil persons"), and lobbies universities and foundations to dump their fossil energy holdings, though the only effect is to transfer those holdings to investors like Mr. Steyer's former hedge fund that are immune to pressure and unwilling to forgo the profits from meeting the world's wholly non-illusory demand for energy.

Advised by Clintonites John Podesta and Chris Lehane, he would spend millions to drive up the negatives of those candidates (invariably Republican) he would "destroy" (his word). But even if he succeeds in shifting the outcome of one or two close races, it will be because voters are angry at big oil over gas prices, not global warning.

In case he hasn't noticed, the world is embarked on a multi-decade fossil-energy investment boom. A sliver of a sliver is $2.5 trillion the International Energy Agency says North America will invest in oil infrastructure alone in the next 20 years—of which the Keystone pipeline would be 0.2%.

Our political system is adept at making use of people like Mr. Steyer. Democrats will gladly spend his $100 million, then go back to their real environmental business, which is green cronyism. Happily Mr. Steyer's fate won't be that of the Hemingway character—who finally got to prove his merit while accidentally being shot in the head by his wife. But like Al Gore before him, Mr. Steyer will be able to say of his impact on the climate debate: I softened up the public to be milked for green handouts that did nothing for climate change.

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