Senator Inhofe to Lead Anti-Science Delegation to International Climate Talks
Several members of the United States Senate have a serious credibility problem when it comes to climate change. Chief among them is Senator James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), whose career highlight was saying on the Senate floor that global warming is the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
Mr. Inhofe's most recent assault on the debate over domestic climate legislation was his insistence on repeating a misleading analysis of the costs of climate legislation, despite all evidence to the contrary. Incredibly, when I asked Senator Inhofe's staff to respond to the fact that his statements on climate legislation were clearly factually inaccurate, they responded with the single-most convoluted statement I've ever seen. Ian Malcomb of Jurassic Park had some choice words for this 1700+ word rant as well. This is what we're up against folks, and it is neither logical, credible nor reality-based. I would engage in a point-counterpoint back and forth with Mr. Inhofe's staff -- as I recently did with Senator Murkowski's staff on the same issue -- but it would clearly be fruitless. Rather than respond to Mr. Dempsey's largely irrelevant arguments, I'll simply refer you to this FactCheck.org refutation of the crux of his argument. Flail away, Mr. Dempsey, but reality is on our side.
Now, obstructing domestic legislation is one thing, but taking the anti-science freakshow on the road is something else entirely. Sadly, this is apparently what Senator Inhofe intends to do.
Mr. Inhofe -- who is widely considered the least credible member of the United States Senate -- recently announced a plan to take his anti-science antics to dizzying new heights. Senator Inhofe intends to lead a truth squad of climate change deniers to the international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen this December with the specific intention of embarrassing the United States and undermining President Obama.
Predictably, Senator Inhofe broke the news to the arch-conservative National Review:
"Now, I want to make sure that those attending the Copenhagen conference know what is really happening in the United States Senate. Some people, like Senator Barbara Boxer, will tell the conference, with Waxman-Markey having passed in the House, that they can anticipate that some kind of bill will pass EPW." Such statements, Inhofe says, deserve a bold response. "Look," he says, "there is no bill that is bad enough to not pass out of our committee. There may be enough votes to get a bill out of EPW, but there is far from enough support in the Senate. The Democrats don't have the votes. There are too many newly-elected Democrats in the Senate who don't want to go home and tell voters that they just voted for the largest tax increase in American history."
This is not the first time Senator Inhofe has embarrassed the United States at an international climate discussion. As The American Prospect reported years ago, Inhofe pulled a similar stunt in Milan in 2003 and was met with mockery:
Inhofe's Milan appearance triggered considerable controversy, as well as some fun at the senator's expense. The National Environmental Trust (NET) whipped up posters showing Inhofe's picture and his famous quotation, displaying them for the delegates present. "The reaction in the halls was -- well, they just believed it was lampoonable," notes one Democratic Senate staffer.
Although Senator Inhofe's frequent delusional outbursts are ripe for mockery, the subject matter is deadly serious.
Mr Inhofe's embarrassing and irresponsible behavior on the international level raises important questions. Eric Kleefeld at TPM DC phrases it well:
It's nice to see how seriously foreign policy is taken these days -- when a member of the political minority will send his own delegation to an international conference, in order to undermine the government and tell other countries that they can't work with the United States.
I can't help but recall Speaker Pelosi's March 2007 trip to Syria and the chorus of insults from media outlets and conservative politicians that accompanied it. I'm sure all of those who took Speaker Pelosi to task for undermining President Bush on the international stage will be setting their sites on Senator Inhofe in the days to come.
This piece was originally published at Current Green as part of the 360 Degrees of Copenhagen series. Current Green will be keeping you up to date on all the latest developments and will provide a 360 degree point of view of the conference via guest bloggers over the course of the next few months.
Follow Josh Nelson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/enviroknow
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Further,
"Thirteen of the fourteen warmest years in the [temperature anomaly time] series have now occurred in the past fourteen years (1995-2008). The only year in the last fourteen not among the warmest fourteen is 1996 (replaced in the warm list by 1990). The period 2001-2008 (0.43°C above 1961-90 mean) is 0.19°C warmer than the 1991-2000 decade (0.24°C above 1961-90 mean)."
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/25/new-prediction-earth-coul_n_299877.html?show_comment_id=31766196#comment_31766196
Can one imagine a more brain-dead contingent than the one Inhofe is sending. They will be walking around like zombies among the living. A new misinformative talking point is floating around among deniers that the world has not warmed in the past 10 years. Of course, once they begin to repeat something they repeat it religiously despite it not being truthful.
Quoting Exusian.....
Not even if you plot a straight line comparing 1999 to 2008, which were both La Nina years.
(That's 10 years. Including 1998 would make it 11 years, plus you would be starting with an El Nino outlier, and 2009 is not even 3/4 over yet)
And if you calculate the trend for the entire data set, it's clear warming has not stopped.
NASA GISS Global Annual Mean Surface Temperature Change data shows that 2001 was warmer than 1999-2000, that 2002 was warmer than 2001, that 2005 was warmer than 1998-2004, and that 2007 tied 1998? Heck even 2008 was warmer than 1999-2000.
Hint: temperature rose over the last 10 years, and not just in the GISS data, but in HAD CRU and UAH as well.
GISS / annual mean / 5 year mean
1998 .57 .38
1999 .33 .42
2000 .33 .45
2001 .48 .45
2002 .56 .48
2003 .55 .54
2004 .48 .55
2005 .62 .55
2006 .55 .53
2007 .57 *
2008 .44 *
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/25/new-prediction-earth-coul_n_299877.html?show_comment_id=31766196#comment_31766196
I can already hear the snickering.
It has been reported that more Americans are skeptical of Global Warming theory than are supportive of it.
If this is true, then what is wrong with American Senators who agree with a majority of the public attending the meetings in Copenhagen?
Perhaps the Senator will point out that the sea level rise at the Copenhagen tide stations is at a long term rate of about three inches per century, and that this rate has not accelerated over the past decade. Or he could point out that the maximum Antarctic sea ice extent this year is higher than the 50 year average for this ice extent measurement.
As I said before, even if we take you deniers on a ship crossing the arctic ocean right now, you will still say that global warming is a hoax. So, people no reason in trying to convince the deniers.
It you try to take a ship to the North Pole, it will be blocked by sea ice hundreds of miles from the pole.
At the minimum level in early September, the Arctic sea ice extent was 23% larger than in 2007. It is now expanding towards its winter high.
Can you name any ships that are planning to make a crossing of the Arctic Ocean this fall?
The Nordfjord and Melfjord just crossed through the eastern passage of the Artic Circle, but of course, deniers are not interested in facts just things that placate their childish world views.
Yes, I am sure the Copenhagen tidal station will dominate the agenda! Funny how Richard makes the same one or two talking points each and every day. One can set his watch by it!
These guys don't care that most Americans voted against them in the last two elections, they are still beating the same old drums. Perhaps the most we can hope for is that their political power will continue to shrink, to the point where we don't have to keep listening about their latest pranks.
Do the math. That is nearly 40,000 worldwide scientists finally speaking out, and more every single day. Al Gore has a whole whopping 26 to 52 UN "scientists" drafting the media reports for their climate change hoax. Those are the only reports you hear on the news, and many of the IPCC scientists don't agree at all with the UN reports. Some have even resigned over this.
Scientists are almost, although admittedly not quite, unanimous in their conclusions that global warming is occuring, and that humans are responsible for it. Providing links that do not support your position, while claiming that they do, accomplishes nothing.
Facts don't matter to rethugs. Don't waste your energy.
Just two questions for the non-believers.
If we do everything we can to fix our problems, what's the worse that can happen? We have a better earth to live on?
What if we do nothing? Maybe nothing will happen, but will we be better off?
As Andrew Revkin has noted, the earth's climate has not warmed over the past ten years. Suppose that the nations of the world had adopted all of the proposed CO2 fighting measures that have been proposed, ten years ago. The nations of the world would have wasted billions of dollars, and achieved little or nothing. We would all be poorer than we are.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If the earth is actually cooling a bit, what sense is it to take measures that may to some extent cool it more? Do we really want a much colder world than we have now?
earth's climate has not warmed over the past ten years
totally debunked. the warmest years on record are the last eight years
If richard would stick with the facts what would he post at all......
"Thirteen of the fourteen warmest years in the [temperature anomaly time] series have now occurred in the past fourteen years (1995-2008). The only year in the last fourteen not among the warmest fourteen is 1996 (replaced in the warm list by 1990). The period 2001-2008 (0.43°C above 1961-90 mean) is 0.19°C warmer than the 1991-2000 decade (0.24°C above 1961-90 mean)."
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-nelson/senator-inhofe-to-lead-an_b_299686.html
Inhoff is wrong on almost everything, but that doesn't make the efforts in Copenhagen the way to address impacts on the environment. That humans are capable of terrible impacts on the global environment is plainly obvious. That it is with CO2 is not. Soot and the other emissions degrade ecosystems is true, but CO2 isn't a pollutant in any conventional sense regardless of political fiat. Correlation is not causation. Any model that fails to take into account the other realms of our physical world makes those models anything but certain. Should we be doing something? Sure. Spend $20 million on a center for climate change studies or actually go clean up the island of floating plastic in the pacific? Billions for new clunkers or expanded research in fusion or supporting developement of space based solar energy systems? Zillions on conferences in exotic locales or enhanced enforcement of ocean fishing regulations? Can we have both? We obviously don't have infinite $. When we don't do the possible in favor of the ideal we weaken the foundation on which we live.
And as for warming; what temp do we want? What happens if we overshoot abit? Ready for the resulting famine as the northern grain belts experience a few years of killing frost. We are still in the ice age despite assertions by the model makers. A little warming is far better for civilization than a return of the cold dark ages of not that long ago.
Oh, you are spoiling the party with your challenges to faith. Faith is held closely, even closer when the adherent thinks it purely based on reason.
If you really want to make them upset, tell them Mr. Krugman once worked for Enron advising on..., on...
"energy markets trading!"
What this very article is about at its core!
Global warming , is not a scientific theory as such,
it is a cult, or to put it more tactfully, a religion. It is a belief system that first
takes a big picture stance that is non-negotiable, and then requires a plethora of supporters,
adherents and believers to "push" the message, ridiculing and
sidelining those who dissent. Rhetoric rather than facts are common in the promulgation of the cult.
More Than 700 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims : Scientists Continue to Debunk Consensus in 2008 & 2009
THERE IS NO CONSENSUS!
Members of the cult meet regularly at sessions of the American Geophysical Union, the American Meterological Society, the American Association of Science, etc.....
And each of them studies their own little fragment and thinks they have a clue. Fragmentation is the bane of science. None of them has looked at the planet as a whole. Consequently, none can possibly have a clue. If a lion comes at you, you look at the whole animal and not just at its teeth or claws.
Similarly if climate change is coming at you you look at the whole planet and not just at the cyclone cycle or the el-nino effect.
Science is not about consensus, but about facts. Science is not democatric, but scientific - or so one should hope.
Climate change is real, but global warming is a hoax.
There are planty places where it is colder than before, just as there are places warmer.
CO2 is but one of the fragments and is pushed as main actor in the drama. It is a fact that after Krakatoa exploded in the late 1800's that forests in Indonesia and Australia grew bigger and taller from the excess CO2 and that no rise in temperature was measured.
So long as science is as fragmented as it is today - including about "global warming" - i cannot but take it with a pinch of salt.
It is completely ridiculous to extrapolate the entire scenario from CO2 and methane levels and the supposed effect on temperature. If the scientists could at least admit that such is the case, we could begin to take them serious.
The science isn't based on consensus. The word consensus is just being tossed about on blogs because the theory has no credible scientific challenge. The only challenge is from politicians and other shills for the fossil fuel corporations. I don't know what is up with denial bloggers, people who equate lists of science trivia with actual peer reviewed research. People who equate themselves with scientists who have a PhD in physics, math, chemistry, and the like. If they are not shills themselves what is it about?
Name 10 Climate Scientists who are skeptical of AGW.
1. Freeman Dyson, who works in the offices of the Institute at Princeton where Einstein worked in his later years.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
