Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe once again has demonstrated that his kind of rightwing ideologue really doesn't believe in learning from experience -- because that would mean acknowledging reality. Inhofe, of course, is the ranking Republican on the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee (although that may change soon). His latest proclamation on global warming is that we shouldn't worry; it can't be anything other than natural because "God's still up there." (Do listen to this link -- it's funny.) The theology behind Inhofe's position is a little murky -- it would be more consistent if Inhofe argued that global warming was happening because God wanted it to -- after all, in Genesis, God promised that the next time he destroyed the earth it would not be with a flood but with fire. (Some of Inhofe's supporters do take this view -- global warming is the end of the world, and it's about time too.)
Ironically, Inhofe's view is losing ground among the same evangelicals to whom he is trying to appeal. J. Matthew Sleeth, an evangelical preacher and the author of Serve God, Save the Planet spoke to the Sierra Club's Board of Directors last weekend, and he was a heartening (and very funny) contrast to the kind of know-nothing-ism preached by Inhofe. Sleeth urged Club leaders to realize that the way to engage Americans of all faiths in thinking about global warming is not to talk about parts per million of CO2. (After all, he points out, no one (including most scientists) can tell you how many parts per million of nitrogen there are in the atmosphere -- it's not how our minds work.) Instead, he told the story of appearing at a church in New Hampshire, where the congregation was initially not persuaded that global warming was real, until he asked them all how often they had used their snowmobiles that winter! And then it dawned on them there had been no snow to travel over.
And as the lame ducks get ready to fly wherever it is that discredited political ideas go for the winter, even they seemed to get the message. The outgoing Governor of Colorado, Bill Owens, in one of his final acts, announced that Colorado would request protection for 4.1 million acres of roadless areas, almost all of the state's remaining wild forests. Since the courts have restored the Clinton Wild Forest rule, Owens's act may turn out not to have been necessary. But it's a sure sign that politicians are finally hearing the public repudiation of the Bush Administration's environmental assaults more clearly.
Another straw in the wind: In its first post-election act, the lame-duck U.S. Senate voted to protect another wild area, New Mexico's Valle Vidal, when Republican Senator Pete Domenici finally endorsed protection "after months of intense political pressure from all over New Mexico. Hunters, anglers, Republicans, Democrats and environmentalists lobbied Domenici relentlessly to protect the national forest property, famous for its high mountain valleys, rambling forests and elk herds, from oil and gas development." It appeared that Domenici, who won't chair the Senate Energy Committee next year, didn't want his successor, New Mexico's other Senator, Jeff Bingaman, to get all the credit for protecting Valle Vidal. But Domenici also admitted that he held off on speaking up for the Valle because it might have gotten in the way of his efforts to open up the nation's coastline to oil and gas drilling -- his argument for sacrificing California, Florida, and the Carolinas would have been undercut if he wasn't willing to devastate New Mexico as well.
But now that the voters have spoken -- well, a certain amount of common sense does seem to be returning.