Last Friday, the House passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which addresses the problem of global warming by, among other things, establishing a cap-and-trade system aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Predictably, the right wing is in full cry, making all kinds of apocalyptic predictions about what this legislation will do. The Environmental Defense Action Fund has compiled The Ten Most Outrageous Claims about it. True to form, my representative Thaddeus McCotter (MI-11) made the list with his claim that the legislation would reduce us to "hunters and gatherers." I kid you not.
However, McCotter and his drill-here-drill-now Republican buddies suspects are pikers compared to the number-one global warming denier on Capitol Hill: James Inhofe of Oklahoma. Six years ago, Inhofe took to the Senate floor and delivered a two-hour-long, 10,000-plus-word screed entitled "The Science of Climate Change". It still holds the undisputed record for mistruths, scientific cherry-picking, and fallacious parades of horribles.
Here are some excerpts from that speech:
St. James, martyr.
I have insisted that federal agencies use the best, non-political science to drive decision-making. Strangely, I have been harshly criticized for taking this stance. To the environmental extremists, my insistence on sound science is outrageous.
Watch out. The Global Warming Thought Police are out to get you.
Today, even saying there is scientific disagreement over global warming is itself controversial.
Watch me stand up for the poor and downtrodden.
Kyoto will cost 511,000 jobs held by Hispanic workers and 864,000 jobs held by Black workers; poverty rates for minority families will increase dramatically; and, because Kyoto will bring about higher energy prices, many minority businesses will be lost.
Pay no mind to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Many of the misconceptions about climate change...originated from the IPCC's six-page executive summary. It was the most widely read and quoted of the three documents published by the IPCC's Working Group, but, Christy said-and this point is crucial-it had the "least input from scientists and the greatest input from non-scientists."
As it turned out, the Policymaker's Summary was politicized and radically differed from an earlier draft.
Especially their pesky climate models.
Again, to reiterate in plain English, this means the models do not account for key variables that influence the climate system.
Despite this, the alarmists continue to use these models and all the other flimsy evidence I've cited to support their theories of man-made global warming.
Eat those greenhouse gases. They're good for you!
What gets obscured in the global warming debate is the fact that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is necessary for life. Numerous studies have shown that global warming can actually be beneficial to mankind.
Most plants, especially wheat and rice, grow considerably better when there is more CO2 in the atmosphere. CO2 works like a fertilizer and higher temperatures usually further enhance the CO2 fertilizer effect.
Here they are: global warming deniers on parade!
In addition, over 4,000 scientists, 70 of whom are Nobel Prize winners, signed the so-called Heidelberg Appeal, which says that no compelling evidence exists to justify controls of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
Then there is Dr. Frederick Seitz, a past president of the National Academy of Sciences, and a professor emeritus at Rockefeller University, who compiled the Oregon Petition, which reads as follows:
"We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
The petition has 17,800 independently verified signatures, and, for those signers holding the degree of PhD, 95% have now been independently verified.
What you're seeing out there is entirely natural. Really.
During the last few hundred thousand years, the earth has seen multiple and repeated periods of glaciation. Each of these "Ice Ages" has ended because of dramatic increases in global temperatures, which had nothing to do with fossil fuel emissions.
These cycles of warming and cooling have been so frequent and are often so much more dramatic than the tiny fractional degree changes measured over the last century that one has to wonder if the alarmists are simply ignorant of geological and meteorological history or simply ignore it to advance an agenda.
No Freedom Fries for you if cap-and-trade passes.
As it turns out, Kyoto's objective has nothing to do with saving the globe. In fact it is purely political. A case in point: French President Jacques Chirac said during a speech at The Hague in November of 2000 that Kyoto represents "the first component of an authentic global governance." So, I wonder: are the French going to be dictating U.S. policy?
So, in closing...
Let me be very clear: alarmists are attempting to enact an agenda of energy suppression that is inconsistent with American values of freedom, prosperity, and environmental progress.
With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science, could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? It sure sounds like it.
Worst. Rant. Ever.