Blog: We Have Bats in Our National Belfry

How’s this article for summer reading?:

Drought Covers One-Third Of U.S. Counties, The Largest Agricultural Disaster Area Ever Declared.

Which is why I’m taking it personally. With admirable chutzpah, Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe recently mumbled a plea on the floor of the Senate, urging us to simply ignore the warnings of science and the climate disasters we have experienced as a nation. Ignore science? Why do we tell our kids to become scientists in the first place?

Not capable of remorse, Inhofe is at it again. 

Although he is Dirty Energy’s darling, James Inhofe is a tragic figure. He is our modern Faust. It’s difficult to estimate the sheer suffering and damage that James Inhofe and  “friends” have already caused by preventing mitigation of CO₂.

The name of James Inhofe must be placed, for all human history, alongside those of Joseph Stalin, Bernie Madoff, the Cigarette Lobbyists—people who through blind greed, ignorance, or love of power or glory, coupled with contempt, indifference or downright hostility to their fellow humans, either directly or indirectly murdered and impoverished thousands or even millions of men, women and children. 

Mr. Inhofe must be held partly responsible. Though he sometimes hides behind religion, the Good Book warns us not to "place a stumbling block before the blind." Enter James Inhofe with a complete collection.

It is not just that he is expressing an innocent, if misguided, “opinion.” He and his fellow travelers continue to obstruct legislation that may have any possibility of preventing even worse and catastrophic changes, a range of human disasters that are the most extreme in our history.

The World Health Organization has estimated that hundreds of thousands of people have already lost their lives because of climate change—hundreds of times more deaths than from 9/11.

Inhofe should accept responsibility for both his "opinions" and his obstruction.

BTW: The climate changes we are seeing have been predicted decades earlier by the science, though they are occurring decades earlier than feared. Ihnofe can only predict donations to his campaign from Big Oil.

Even if we were to turn off the carbon spigot tomorrow, what is already here will increase Earth’s temperature beyond the 1.5 deg F that CO₂ has “juiced” our climate. 

If we do not stop emissions, a look at Earth’s previous geologic history tells us the planet will be virtually unlivable—for our species and most others as well. For example, all permanent ice will be gone and ocean levels will rise hundreds of feet higher. When that happens, one-third of the current land mass will be under water.  

How do we know? Temperature and CO₂ levels follow each other closely, and this sea level rise is a consequence of higher CO₂ levels and melting ice sheets. We are heading toward the levels now; our emissions of CO₂ are the cause—not the sun, or the orbit of Earth, or precession, or volcanoes, or little green men, or little red Socialists, or anything else we have come up with. Science has been busy over five decades, and has checked all these possibilities. And Inhofe—I can guarantee it—won't be able to understand most paragraphs from their papers.

Temperatures have, over 100 years or so, increased (only?) by 1.5 degrees F. And look at our current extreme weather as a result! Some still call the convergence of storms, floods and 4,000 record temperature highs in one month a “coincidence.” The odds of that are far less than one chance out of 1.6 million, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. These changes were predicted, given the 40-percent increase in the CO₂ "blanket" we have created.

If we don’t stop our emissions, the planet’s temperature is expected (again from a study of Earth’s history) to increase more than 10 degrees F. 

Good luck.

Does the Senator know he is recklessly gambling with an Apocalypse (he’s not gambling with his life, but, instead, risking our lives and our children’s and theirs)?

I think he does know. That’s why he kinda bugs me. It isn’t just an accident that he consciously cherry picks his data and feeds us half-truths, in his attempts to carefully craft a dangerous complacency in the public. 

I believe he does understand that, although it might be very cold in Paducah, the climate as a whole may be trending upward. I believe he does understand that, although he may find a few actual climate scientists (often on the Dirty Energy payroll) to suck at the teats of Big Oil (Koch suckers?) the vast majority of peer-reviewed climate scientists have overwhelmingly produced serious warnings for decades.  That is their job!

He has seen the letters written by the best minds of our scientific community to our President. He knows that there isn’t a reputable scientific academy, such as the National Academy of Sciences (established by A. Lincoln in 1863), that disputes the IPCC's basic conclusions. He knows that Climategate is a trumped-up farce. He grasps at straws and calls them stout trees.

He isn’t stupid. He simply lacks a conscience. He is morally grotesque. And we are “fossil fools” if we believe him.

Here’s a dire warning: We’re Already Topping Dust Bowl Temperatures—Imagine What’ll Happen If We Fail To Stop 10°F Warming.

How to stop 10 degree warming? James Hansen, head of NASA, (remember NASA—they got us to the moon?) said we would have a serious climate problem in 1988. Spot on. What is his greatest hope, at this point?

Dr. Hansen, The Brookings Institute, and the National Academy of Sciences currently support a “carbon fee and dividend” program mentioned in an earlier Patch blog by Mark Reynolds. It is the Save Our Climate Act HR3242.

Unfortunately, I don’t think HR3242 has a prayer, because the Republican House will oppose it. The program doesn’t tax the average American. All fees are used to reduce our taxes. It’s just that Dirty Energy won't like it, and Dirty Energy can always find hit-men such as James Inhofe. 

Only replacing these politicians with folks who really care about others gives me any hope.