(Washington Times) -- Weeks after the Paris terror attacks that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds more, world leaders have converged on the French capital to discuss what they call the most urgent challenge facing the planet, a crisis that threatens to spread death and destruction across the globe: an increase in global average temperatures of two degrees by the end of the 21st century.
Current events — last month’s terror attacks in particular — are the eerie specter in the background of the Paris climate conference. It’s hard not to be transfixed at this grotesque sight of our leaders rushing to the scene of mass murder to indulge in ideological fantasy, all while hiding from the reality we face.
Speaking just a few miles from where men slaughtered innocent people and then blew themselves up to kill more, President Obama reminded us that he too has seen horrors firsthand. He’s seen them in Alaska, “where,” he said, “the sea is already swallowing villages and eroding shorelines; where permafrost thaws and the tundra burns; where glaciers are melting at a pace unprecedented in modern times.”