Do I Really Care About Oklahoma?

Back in 2004, when Bush seemed to win the Presidential election for the first time, I made a vow. It was that in future years, if I happened to see an elderly homeless person holding out his hat, I would lean down and ask him who he voted for in 2004. If he said "Bush", I planned to step over him and walk on. In this same vein, I plan not to lift a finger to help the State of Oklahoma if Senator Inhofe continues to reject global warming in the sorts of rude terms that he used with Al Gore last week. Same goes for the home districts in Texas of Ralph Hall and Joe Barton. The voters in Oklahoma and those particular districts in Texas are responsible for these clowns, and it is about time that they told them to put a lid on it.

What will happen in Oklahoma and Texas as global warning progresses? Well, it is already happening--drought. If you go here you will see that most of Texas is suffering from dryness or drought, and part of Texas is suffering from exceptional drought. At least half of Oklahoma is suffering from drought, and one section is suffering from severe drought. The report referenced here shows that as of July 2006, severe and extreme drought covered almost all of Oklahoma and Texas. The drought continues. In December, the NOA Satellite and Information Center made the following observations: "Mandatory or voluntary water restrictions were placed in effect in parts of Florida, Texas, Oklahoma as lake and reservoir levels dropped and other municipal water supplies were reduced. River transportation was severely curtailed because of low levels of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and their tributaries. Agricultural impacts of drought include farmers being driven out of business and hay shortages in Wyoming, and low crop yields in Colorado, South Dakota, Missouri and Alabama. Wildlife population declines were noted in Arizona, Oklahoma and South Dakota...Burning bans were declared in Florida and Texas as dry weather increased the potential for wildfires. The extended drought in Oklahoma, coupled with hot temperatures, led to a high number of cases of West Nile virus." West Nile Virus attacks both horses and people. It is a disease that you don't want to get, and there is no human vaccine.

Of course, it is always possible that Senator Inhofe doesn't remember the Texas and Oklahoma wildfires that raged across those states in December 2005 and into April of 2006. Record high temperatures, high winds, and drought equaled thousands of fires and millions of acres burned.

Folks in Texas and Oklahoma have reason to fear global warming. They are stuck in already dry regions that are difficult to farm--in Oklahoma farming and ranching depend on irrigation. One of the main sources of agricultural water in Oklahoma is the Ogallala aquifer, which, over its general area is being drained at a hundred times its rate of replenishment. In northern Texas, it has been entirely exhausted.

The point of all of this is that Senator Inhofe is an old man and will soon be dead. His legacy to the people of his state will have been one of not only stubborn refusal to face up to the truth of global warming, but actual resistance to those who know more and better than he does. And he has made it his business in the recent hearings to add insult to injury, by sneering at Al Gore and at everyone else who is trying to mitigate the effects of global warming on his state.

In a democracy, the citizens are responsible. In the end, they can only plead that they were ignorant or misled or lied to or tricked for a few years. After that, it is their responsibility to get a clue and get rid of the officials who have been misleading them, or lying to them, or tricking them, and also the ones who are as dumb as a bag of hammers, as Senator Inhofe repeatedly reveals himself to be. All wounds, in a democracy, are ultimately self-inflicted. That means that if you won't pay for schools and then you don't know anything, it's your own fault. That means if you have a volunteer army and you let the Administration break it into rubble, it's your fault. That means if you have scientists who agree that you are destroying the atmosphere and you elect officials who don't do anything about it, even out of prudence, it's your fault. That means if you suck dry your only source of water and there isn't any rain, you did it yourself.

Here in California, we have our own water problems, but the electorate and the governor, Republican though he is, have made and are making an effort to do something about it. All over the country, polls show that Americans of all kinds are ready to be told what to do about global warming, and that they understand that in the fight against global warming, six long years (the number of years that Bush and Inhofe have been dragging their heels and ridiculing the whole idea) is a long time. Twenty-eight years--the number of years since Jimmy Carter was derided for suggesting higher fuel efficiency in American cars, somehow thereby proving himself less of a man than Ronald Reagan, who seems to be an American hero because he didn't know beans about ecology and cared less--is even longer.

I wonder whether Senator Inhofe turns out the lights when he leaves a room, or turns off his TV, or has a high efficiency appliance of any kind, or a low-flow toilet. If he did, it would be almost too brutal, wouldn't it--promoting global warming for everyone else, but promoting conservation for himself.

Also, at my website, therealjanesmiley, I am launching a new project--"An Atlas of the Novel". Please join me there.