When Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper spoke at the Colorado Environmental Coalition’s “Rebel with a Cause” gala in May 2009, he showed he was down with the green crowd.

“What’s weird about me being up here is, you know I have a masters in geology, I took climate studies,” said Hickenlooper [at 3:00 of the video above]. “I’m one of those people that says I’m not sure how fast the climate..I’m not saying that the sky is falling. I’m saying that clearly the climate is changing, clearly mankind’s activities are causing it. And that we’d be insane not to be spending tens…tens and tens of billions of dollars every year buying insurance to begin to prevent and stop that change that’s happening. But I’m a moderate.”

If this is Hickenlooper’s definition of moderate, we’d love to know what (and who) he thinks is radical.

Apparently not Van Jones, whom he praised [at 10:55 of the same video] as “a rock star. He is. Everything you’ve ever heard about Van Jones, he’s bigger and better in life than what you’ve heard.”

Jones, given the CEC’s “Rebel with a Cause” award, wasn’t able to attend the event in person.

In September, Jones resigned his Obama Administration post as green jobs czar “amid controversy over past activism.”

“Mr. Jones was poised to play a prominent role in disbursing tens of billions of dollars of stimulus money,” wrote The Wall Street Journal. “It was the ideal perch from which he could keep funding the left-wing networks from which he sprang, this time with taxpayer money.”

Gosh, I love speeches – don’t you?

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Update: WhoSaidYouSaid is mentioned on the 630 KHOW talk show Caplis and Silverman here: http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/18227/podcast/DENVER-CO/KHOW-AM/031210HOUR1.mp3

More links to Hickenlooper’s remarks on climate change, prior to running for governor of Colorado:

Hickenlooper on “dramatic” climate change; billions for what?

Hickenlooper on climate politics: the slavery analogy

Hickenlooper: “Transit is the new black. It’s hip.”