Right-wing Cro Magnon Watch: Joe Barton says global warming 'Is A Net Benefit to Mankind'

[marmar]

from thinkprogress:



‘Smokey Joe’ Barton: Global Warming ‘Is A Net Benefit To Mankind’

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), nicknamed “Smokey Joe” for his persistent advocacy on behalf of polluters, sat for an interview with C-Span this weekend to discuss a variety of environmental issues.

Barton expressed concern that regulation of carbon dioxide pollution would restrict his “convenient” and “modern lifestyle.” “I don’t want to go back to the 1870s where my great-grandparents lived on a dry land cotton farm in Texas with no running water and no electricity and their power source was their own muscles or animal power,” Barton feared.

He then argued that the warming of the planet is actually a “net benefit” for humans:

CO2 is odorless, colorless, tasteless – it’s not a threat to human health in terms of being exposed to it. We create it as we talk back and forth. So, and if you go beyond that, on a net basis, there’s ample evidence that warming generically — however it is caused — is a net benefit to mankind.

Watch it: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/12/14/smokey-joe-warming/


Ironically, just as Barton is pushing his claim that warming is beneficial for humans, the Pentagon is concluding that “global warming is now officially considered a threat to U.S. national security.” In its upcoming 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, Pentagon planners will report that climate change could result in food and water scarcity, pandemics, population displacement, and other destabilizing events that could create conflict.

“The American people expect the military to plan for the worst,” says retired Vice Adm. Lee Gunn, a 35-year Navy veteran now serving as president of the American Security Project. “It’s that sort of mindset, I think, that has convinced, in my view, the vast majority of military leaders that climate change is a real threat and that the military plays an important role in confronting it.”

Barton took issue with Sarah Palin’s call for Obama to boycott Copenhagen. “I like Sarah Palin as a person…I would disagree with her though. I think the President’s got every right to go to Copenhagen,” he said.


http://thinkprogress.org/2009/12/14/smokey-joe-warming/

[niyad]

1. WHY are idiots like this given air time as though they had ANY credibility?

what passes for "news" these days is beyond pathetic.

[Turbineguy]

7. I once asked my Son

why he liked Bevis and Butthead. "Because they're so stupid."

[EFerrari]

8. So bad they're good. That's how I feel about that "And that's just the way it is" guy

-- Ted Poe, (Idiot/TX)

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. I guess that he wants live on earth to become extinct?

[niyad]

3. do you think we could put him somewhere all that hot air would do some good?

[HughMoran]

4. Me like hot - cold hurt balls

[marmar]

5. ROFL

:rofl:

[SpiralHawk]

6. "Genetically mutant high-fructose corn syrup is good, too." - Smoky Joe

"We chickenhawk republicons have been sucking that mutant corn syrup crapola up since our Unitary 3-in-1 Gawd invented Planet Earth about 2,000 years ago or so, what with Cain and Abel and Rush 'DraftDodger' Limbaugh and shit. Now look what goodyness has done for our brAinS and biGbeLLieS and our borrow-and-spend fisCAL radicalness, and our ability to avoid military service while raking in corporate War Profits & Polluter payola and stuff. Smirk."

- Smoky Joe (R)

[liberal N proud]

9. ---

-

[Viking12]

11. CO and CO2 are not the same thing

[liberal N proud]

12. Where was my mind

I know that duH!

[Kingofalldems]

10. Global warming is a hoax, but if it isn't a hoax

it's good for us. Oh, now I get it.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

13. Cro-magnon is a much more advanced life form than this tool.

They at least had functioning brains. Paramecium is more like it.

[gratuitous]

15. He seems to have some higher motor functions

I'm going to say he's a chordate, but definitely cold-blooded, which is why Mr. Barton would prefer a warmer climate. There's something reptilian about him, but his eyes seem to be porcine. Probably some evolutionary dead end that would require someone with rudimentary knowledge (which I lack) to classify this particular parasitic life form.

[Birthmark]

14. Mr. Barton read this:

http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts

Perhaps you don't know what "benefit" means.

[FarLeftFist]

16. Global warming effects

Kiribati, a small island nation in the Pacific, knows all too well the dangers of global climate change. In 1999, two of Kiribati’s uninhabited islands, Tebua Tarawa and Abuanea, disappeared beneath rising seas, and the nation’s 33 remaining islands and atolls are at most 6.5 feet above sea level—meaning that Kiribati is likely to be among the first nations to be completely submerged. Its president, Anote Tong, has already implored New Zealand and Australia to accept his constituents as refugees (New Zealand takes in around 75 I-Kiribati a year), saying that climate change and rising sea levels “are no longer a matter of speculation” but “a reality for our people.”



Like Kiribati, Tuvalu could achieve the dubious distinction of being the first country to disappear completely. Fifteen feet above sea level at its highest point, Tuvalu—the smallest country in the world at 10 square miles—is already victim to seawater floods, which poison the barely arable soil and make growing crops even more difficult. Not to mention the increasingly stormy weather rapidly eroding its shores. Despite its size, Tuvalu has been holding larger countries’ feet to the fire in Copenhagen, issuing a strong plea for all world leaders to sign a legally binding agreement.



Island nations aren’t the only countries worried about the effects of rising sea levels. Ho Chi Minh City has been called one of the 10 cities most vulnerable to climate change, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. If the sea level rises the three feet it’s expected to by 2100, one-fifth of Vietnam could be underwater and 22 million people displaced. Already, flooding from the Saigon River is affecting many of Ho Chi Minh City’s nine million residents.



Iceland, Jokulsarlon. Icebergs that originated in the vast expanse of the Vatnajokull decay and melt in a tidal lagoon.



The 300-foot-tall calving face of Alaska's Columbia Glacier as of June 2006. Since 1984, the glacier has retreated 10 miles (17km), a process caused by interaction between global warming and glacier dynamics. The mountainside in the middle distance has a trimline revealing that the glacier was 1,300 feet (400m) thicker at its maximum in 1984. (Greenish snow-covered vegetation is above the trimline and uniform grey rock is below the trimline.)



Aerial view of crevasses and seracs on the surface of Columbia Glacier, near Valdez, Alaska.



Aerial view of meltwater on the surface of Columbia Glacier in Alaska. The water is colored by varying concentrations of sediment.



Aerial view of melting, eroding ice blocks at Number One Lake on the eastern branch of Columbia Glacier in Alaska.