Inhofe - "global warming...the greatest hoax ever perpetrated..."

[jeffsurfus]

In the latest on the battle over the confirmation of Michael Leavitt as the new head of the EPA, things reached a new low yesterday!

According to the NY Times, Rep. James Inhofe, the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said at one point that the concept of global warming, a concern of the Democrats, "could be the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."

The full article can be read at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/24/politics/24LEAV.html

This is the head of the Environment and Public Works Committee!!

I just about lost my breakfast this morning over this one. The best and the brightest are representing us well inside the beltway, aren't they?

[LoneStarLiberal]

1. Inhofe Is Your Typical Flat Earther

He hates science, yet chairs a committee that is responsible for dealing with quite a bit of science. This is the same suspicious, angry white Midwesterner who has dismissed science that does not support his narrow ideas several times in the last couple of years on the topic of global warming.

I tend to think his assignment to this position was not an accident; if the interests supporting the Republican Party are staunchly opposed to any examination of global warming, why not put a knuckle-dragging, science-hating, unquestioning toadie in charge of that committee?

Screw him and all his kind. The Republicans can have them. I just want to sterilize them so their ignorance can't infect another generation.

It's not Tolerant Tuesday any longer in my neck of the woods...we've moved on to Heretical Hump Day!

[Redneck Socialist]

2. It is madness like this

that drives me into a rage. Just one further example (as if we needed any more) of why we have to get these nutjobs out of office quick, quick, quick! Why the environmental community (other than lcv and sierra club) are not more active in electoral politics I'll never know.

[madmax]

3. Last week on NOW with Bill Moyers

Interview with former head of the EPA Whitman.

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_clearingtheair.html

[Bandit]

4. Foolish me I thought the greatest Hoax was Theory of Evolution

I guess there is great and then again greatest. Who knew?

[jeffsurfus]

5. Actually, the greatest hoax is....

George W. is President!

[hatrack]

6. Inhofe - the greatest electoral hoax perpetrated on the state of Oklahoma

He's truly a throwback to 1988.

Most of the other fossil-fuel hacks & whores have moved on from the "It's a GREEN CONSPIRACY in league with the KREMLIN!" take on the topic. They're willing to concede that well, maybe, just maybe something's going on.

Under the new greenwashed approach, many energy companies will admit that human activity may be affecting the climate. However, since Captain James Cook did not have digital instruments for his oceanic studies, and since every glacier in the world hasn't had laser-sight measurement systems in place since the late 1700s, it's far too soon to draw any conclusions. Obviously, decades of additional study, performed by "sound scientists" and "sound scientific methods", are called for.

Not Inhofe, though. He's happy to dismiss 15 years of science as a "hoax". He's happy to flap his lips at great length with the results depicted in the latest "science" news release from CEI, the Frontiers of Freedom Foundation or Flush Phlegmball.

An oil industry tool, elected by fools.

[Tempest]

7. I guess that large chuck of Arctic ice cap which fractured off...

won't convince him, nothing will.

[hatrack]

9. Maybe if the entire Ross Ice Shelf disintegrated

Maybe if polar bears became extinct.

Maybe if the remaining glaciers in Glacier National Park melted.

Maybe if the North Atlantic Current shut down.

Maybe if Tulsa, OK hit 115F for 30 days straight or more next summer.

Maybe if an 800-millibar hurricane destroyed Miami.

Maybe if Fairbanks sank into melting permafrost, taking with it the Alaska Pipeline.

But then Fred Singer or Keith Idso would put out a press release, and Inhofe would brandish that document for all the world to see. He'd then bellow that it was all just a hoax, a plot, a conspiracy.

[Junkdrawer]

13. Clearly the Ice Shelf didn't get the memo. Here's the real skinny:

Look, no one with ANY credibility in the scientific world doubts Global Warming. It is simply a fact backed by tons of climate data. The debate is whether or not it is caused by humans. Now, "caused by humans" requires two hypotheses to be true:

1.) Greenhouse gasses account for the climate change. Here, climate models seem so show a good correlation with rising greenhouse gasses and rising average temperatures. Critics attack the accuracy of the models.

2.) Humans are making the greenhouse gasses. Historical records show a rise in CO2 that follows the rise in industrial activity. Critics claim this is a coincidence and that other natural processes create CO2.

Most climatologists do believe humans are causing global warming.

[hatrack]

14. Last time I looked, anthropogenic CO2 was about 7 billion tons annually

And that's not even counting the other GHG totals.

[RobertSeattle]

8. They never give up on this

First it was:
"Global Warming Doesn't Exist"
Then it was:
"Global Warming exists, but it doesn't matter"
Then it was:
"Global Warming exists, does matter, but isn't caused my man"
I expecting the new one to be:
"Global Warming exists, does matter, hey - how I can I make a buck of it?"

[NormanConquest]

10. Much like the tax cut hoax:

First it was:
"Tax cuts work."
Then it was:
"Tax cuts aren't working fast enough: we need to make them permanent."
Then it was:
"Okay, things are pretty bad right now, but they'd be worse if we didn't have the Tax cuts."
Then it was:
"It's going to work any day now...any...day..."
Followed by:
"Um...it's Clinton's fault."

[RobertSeattle]

12. Yep

First it was:
"It's your money" (When we had a surplus)
Then it was:
"Short term stilumus" (To get us out of slump in economy)
Then it was
"For long term economic growth" (permanent tax cuts)

[gristy]

11. average global temperature over past 100 years

http://globalwarming.enviroweb.org/ishappening/warmcentury

[caledesi]

15. Yeah, tell that to Europe after their "balmy" summer.