Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum's dismissive stance towards environmental concerns crucial to the future quality of life leaves him unfit to lead.
Speak of "whistling past the graveyard." As glaciers recede, heat waves intensify and the fate of succeeding generations grows more at risk, an oblivious Santorum blithely maintains that human-induced global warming is a fictitious concoction of the international scientific community. His delusional thinking conjures up the following "reasons" for scientists around the world engaging in a conspiracy: to assure a steady funding stream, rein in the fossil fuel industry and aid the left wing in consolidating power in a central government and in eventually replacing national sovereignty with a new world order.
Climate change should not be a partisan issue. It is a survival issue. Santorum gets it backwards when he accuses president Obama of practicing "political science" rather than sound science in formulating environmental policy.
Given this viewpoint, it is safe to assume a President Santorum would not act in timely fashion to curb industrial greenhouse gas emissions and move the country towards stabilizing rising temperatures.
But that's not all. Santorum's demonization of environmental activism is additional evidence of how ill prepared he is to lead the nation in the challenging days ahead. He dredges up a discredited conservative attack line, namely that liberal Democrats tend to worship nature directly rather than God in the traditional biblical sense.
"Earth is here to serve man," Santorum declares, "not the other way around" as Obama and the "radical environmentalists" do.
The Republican candidate has it half right. His fatal flaw is failing to recognize that humanity's relationship with nature needs to be a reciprocal arrangement to perpetuate environmentally sustainable economic growth. By acting in harmony with the environment's natural ebb and flow, human beings can harness the force of nature to further their objectives while assuring uninterrupted regeneration of natural resources.
Santorum's insinuation that Obama and his administration are animalists is ridiculous. Here is where the Democrats are on the side of the angels. All major religions regard the natural world as a manifestation of God's work and as such, consider it humanity's sacred obligation to preserve the earth's natural riches for posterity.
Santorum's exploitative view of nature ultimately translates into an open-ended invitation to plunder the earth's natural resources in unsustainable fashion. Under the logic of his thought, even Yellowstone and our other great national parks would be subject to drilling if fossil fuel deposits were discovered.
Hopefully, voters at some point in 2012 will convey to Santorum that he ought to seek out another line of work.
Follow Edward Flattau on Twitter: www.twitter.com/greenmorality
Mallory McDuff, Ph.D.: Making Headlines: Finding Consensus on Climate Change Through Religion
David Briggs: Who Are the 'Nones'? Simple Labels Do Not Apply
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 |
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| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
1. The Earth is warming due to increases in CO2 in the atmosphere due to buring of fossil fuels, as is proven by direct observation of changes in nature, and other evidence,
or:
2. The entire world's scientific community has been co-opted by a secretive cabal of Communists, intent on taking away America's freedoms, and establishing a world communist Government,
Okham's razor would tell you that the 1st proposition is more credible, because the 2nd would require impossible complexity.
And where in our constitution is it written that the Christian Bible has any place in the process of making decisions concerning the well being of the American people?
The Republican party is, more and more, becoming the party of ignorance and superstition.
Dwight Eisenhower would be disgusted with the modern Republican party. They have regressed to some point in time between the middle ages ( Rick the Inquisitor) and the stone age ( Sarah the Barbarian) and they and their supporters need to be taken out of the engine room of government before they create a complete disaster.
My guess is that you think Chihuahuas and daschunds must have "evolved" on islands with limited resources as well.
In fact, all the varieties of domestic dog, and the Shetland ponies, are breeds of animals. That is they have been created by selective breeding.
Next you'll be telling me that the Earth is not round - hang on - you already have.
“Using satellite measurements from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), the researchers measured ice loss in all of Earth's land ice between 2003 and 2010, with particular emphasis on glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica.
The total global ice mass lost from Greenland, Antarctica and Earth's glaciers and icecaps during the study period was about 4.3 trillion tons (1,000 cubic miles), adding about 0.5 inches (12 millimeters) to global sea level. That's enough ice to cover the United States 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) deep. “
BTW, we are supposed to be starting our slow descent into the next ice age according to the natural Milankovitch cycle, but instead we are rapidly warming. Why is that Ricky?
Notice how F____Luchan cherry picks one item out of a study to show that someone in the past made a miscalculation, and therefore, perhaps all calculations by every scientist everywhere are now suddenly suspect? Here is a better summary of the NASA study:
“Using satellite measurements from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), the researchers measured ice loss in all of Earth's land ice between 2003 and 2010, with particular emphasis on glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica.
The total global ice mass lost from Greenland, Antarctica and Earth's glaciers and icecaps during the study period was about 4.3 trillion tons (1,000 cubic miles), adding about 0.5 inches (12 millimeters) to global sea level. That's enough ice to cover the United States 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) deep.“
So F____Luchan had to, if he actually read the study, know that the rest of the NASA study supported the science of global warming,but he withheld that information from us and just gave us the bit that showed that someone else made a miscalculation. BTW, we should now be entering the next ice age, but we are warming instead. Google Milankovitch.
Sounds just like another day at the top of the world. After all, we are coming OUT of an ice age you know.
What's that you say? You didn't now that we were coming out of an ice age?
You should consider not listening to the chomme at the front of the classroom.
For those who might be confused by fhrank/Frank/fran/frannie's repeated lying, here is an actual plot of the temperature since the last ice age:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
As anyone can plainly see, we finished "coming out of an age" about 7,500 years ago. Temperatures since then have been gradually declining, as they should be.
Until recently, anyway.
Maybe he is part of the religiuos element that believe Dinosaurs didn't exist, and the earth is really only a little over 100 years old. Whatever he is, he is not what America needs as we move forward. We need to get our country moving in a direction that will insure long term viability economically, while managing our resources with sustainability in mind.
Since sexual activity is for procreation only, and the Santorum's probably won't have more kids, he can become a priest, and make a run at the pope's job.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5eN5TxYn0W8
http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2012/02/rick-santorum-hes-eighteen-of-us.html
While he may think that he's "one of us" his four year, $3.6 million salary would say otherwise.
If you were really fair-minded, you'd see Obama's income in '05 and '06 before his run for prez. He made ~$1 mil per year - and didn't give much to charity. Santorum's 4-YEAR $3.6mil - actually averages a "little" less than Obama $1mil per year.