What swell bunch of people there are in the climate change movement. One leading advocate for the global warming theory feels just terrible, terrible I say, about hundreds of thousands of workers losing their jobs because of President Obama's new carbon regs.

But the war must go on. Hence, these workers are, sadly, "collateral damage."

Daily Signal:

One of the leading leftwing environmentalists last week described the hundreds of thousands of Americans who may lose their jobs due to the Obama administration’s new anti-carbon regulations as “collateral damage” in the fight against global warming.

The offensive comments were issued by William S. Becker, the head of the Climate Action Project, a well-funded environmental group.

In his piece in the Huffington Post praising the new Environmental Protection Agency regulations to stop climate change, he lamented that “there is nothing explicit in the [Obama] plan to mitigate or adapt to the economic disruption the clean energy transition will cause for coal and oil-country families.”

He said that the pain and suffering to the estimated 200,000 families put out of work is an “evolutionary step in technology and the economy” and a move toward “economic progress.”

Mr. Becker wants more government programs to help the “disrupted” families, as though yet another government job training program will solve the problem that these workers’ lives have been turned upside down. Perhaps this is what the left means by “environmental justice.”

The “let them eat cake” attitude may strike readers as unbelievably offensive and cavalier. Imagine the outcry if a Republican referred to middle class job losers as acceptable “collateral damage.” The story would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country and if Mr. Becker were the head of an industry group he would almost surely be facing intense pressure to resign.

But Mr. Becker is at least giving an honest assessment of the negative  impact of the radical anti-carbon lobby’s crusade on middle class families.

Is there any statement ever made by a climate change advocate that better illustrates that this is not about saving the planet but about destroying industrialized civilization? Perhaps they are sincere about the sky falling and radical, desperate measures are needed to save the planet. Sorry, I'm not buying it. The destruction of the coal industry is based on the notion that climate change is such a huge threat, that we can't slowly ease ourselves into an era of "clean coal," waiting for the technology to catch up to our ambitions. Coal must be destroyed now or we will all die.

If they believe that - and I'm not saying they do - they need to be put away in a nice quiet place where they can receive the best of care and hopefully, fully recover the use of the logic centers of their brains. Otherwise, this kind of hysteria is being taken seriously by those in government who see a perfect opporunity to take control of the energy sector of the economy and run it with the same efficiency and competence as the VA.