Sen. James Inhofe has become something of an epic figure, worthy of contemplation by historians, playwrights, or perhaps psychoanalysts. The zeitgeist, which once seemed to rise up around him like a thundercloud, has now moved on, leaving him dripping and bedraggled, resorting to ever more unhinged grand gestures to try to recapture some of the old magic. His historical moment is over, as his career may soon be, but he's not going gently into that good night.
Quite the contrary: he seems to have entered some sort of bizarre fugue state, taking to the Senate floor for over two hours today to rail against rising tide of concern over global warming. It's all there: ranting against "Hollywood," fear of world government, demagogic use of children, and meticulous stitching together of every flat-earth skeptic fairy tale Google has to offer. He might as well be the sweaty guy in the overcoat on the street corner, with his collage of newspaper clippings, the one that reveals the conspiracy They Don't Want You to Know. Only this guy's a United States Senator.
The country seems to be waking up from it Bush-era fever dream. When we have fully shaken off our slumber, I suspect we will look back on this late-period 'winger reverie with amazement, as an exemplar and a warning of how far things can go off the rails.
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Comments
View as Flat
justlou Posted 10:15 pm
26 Oct 2007
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DonnClark Posted 10:20 pm
26 Oct 2007
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GreyFlcn Posted 3:19 am
27 Oct 2007
http://greyfalcon.net/gingrich
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trock Posted 3:42 am
27 Oct 2007
Isn't what he said on the senate floor going to be said many many times. Inhofe will say it again and a lot of people will believe it. Others will too.
I watched what him on the senate floor. I think if I hadn't read as much of the science as I had and other reason's, I may have believed him or at least thought there was something to the deniers stuff. The fact that people would believe him the first time and second times they voted for him means he can do what he does again.
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Tom Athanasiou Posted 3:51 am
27 Oct 2007
Tom Athanasiou
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GonzoDon Posted 10:10 am
27 Oct 2007
Well really now. Whenever I hear a politican (inevitably a pandering right-winger, of course) conveniently ranting against 'Hollywood', I think to myself, what Hollywood, exactly? The Hollywood that produced Ronald Reagan? Fred Thompson? Sonny Bono?
Like the term 'values voting', they are using 'Hollywood' as a shorthand to conjure up distressing images of fat moguls smoking cigars and greedily cranking out celluoid sex and violence for a teenage audience. Or alluding to the Susan Sarandons and Sean Penns who try to lecture us about better social behavior.
However it's a weirdly misplaced Republican shorthand, as the laissez-faire, make-a-buck-at-any-price mentality that rules Hollywood is far more Republican in spirit than it is progressive. The Sarandons and Penns are anomalies, while the back-room accountants and lawyers who are enjoying their millionaire tax breaks thanks to Bush are more representative.
And don't even get me started about 'product placement', tie-in commercial products, and now a long series of celluloid advertisements before every film.
But unless they can cultivate fear, Republicans just put America to sleep. Hence those dag-burned enemies of America like environmentalists, UN-supporters, and. of course, that smarmy 'Hollywood'.
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Ralph Posted 12:40 pm
27 Oct 2007
The Arctic was warmer in the 1930s - True
Antarctica is cooling - True (the South Pole experienced its coldest winter on record in 2004 - NASA has been monitoring since 1957)
Global temperatures have leveled off since 1998 - True
Polar bears are fine - True
Climate models predict clouds will amplify warming, but research shows clouds provide a negative feedback and cool the planet - True
Show me the proof that humans are the major reason we've seen a one degree rise in temperatures the past century. Show me proof that constraints on human carbon dioxide emissions will lower the planet's temperature even one-hundredth of one degree.
On what evidence are you basing your beliefs? And please don't tell me it's the crap coming out of the politically controlled IPCC.
Ralph Hansen, Ph. D.
- When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? -- John Maynard Keynes
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JMG Posted 1:04 pm
27 Oct 2007
When the facts change, I call them crap coming out of a politically controlled organization. What do you do, sir? -- Ralph
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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trock Posted 7:36 pm
27 Oct 2007
But to me all I see is words on a computer screen. Some computer generated random letters. Or it was the devil who put letters on my screen. or any of a number of other hypotheses.
See how easy it is to say 'prove this.' But so hard to prove what someone might think would be an easy thing to prove.
It's the accumulation of knowledge that gives someone an understanding of what's going on.
A Christian will study only Christianity and think that's true. A Moslem will study only Islam and think that's true. A Hindu will study only Hindu and think that's true. A Wicca . . . well, we get the idea.
So when you say the politically controlled IPCC report, is that because you read it? Or is the reason that you've only heard from criticisms of the report. When all a person has heard about a subject is one side, it's easy to think that's how the world is. It's the accumulation of the thinking in a person's mind that has to be done and that is the real work. Most people don't want to do the real work, they just want to do the easy `politically controlled IPCC' report and not have to do any thinking for themselves.
To give an easy example, I'm an atheist. If you were to go the best universities like Harvard divinity school, most state university philosophy and theology departments, many science departments, a large percentage are atheists. I think that anybody who has studied the question honestly of whether there is a god or that we have information from god or gods would conclude that there isn't.
Why doesn't everybody reach that conclusion? Because most people are comfort seekers, not truth seekers. Comfort seekers will only seek out information that makes them feel better and confirms their beliefs. Truth seekers will seek out things that are even uncomfortable to them. It's hundreds of times harder, both in thinking and in effort. It takes a lot of time.
Science is ultimately truth seeking and that is why it has been so successful in advancing our human lives in medical care, knowledge about the universe in every subject, economics, technology and business.
To be fair to you and me, it's the easiest thing in the world to say `what I think is truth seeking, what you think is comfort thinking.' And that is an honest criticism of this post, it is arrogant to answer someone's questions with a discussion of Philosophy. But what I would say is that to answer your questions in one message post would be impossible. What you need to do is go to the `how to talk to a climate skeptic' in this website which is pretty good.
http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics
There is also another very good website that explains things as well. This one is probably the best in the world on global warming from what I've read from the closest to the debate.
http://www.realclimate.org/
Because the subject of global warming is so much more than any message posts. But it is also work to go through all the thinking that goes into the theory of whether there is global warming or not.
And frankly, I really wouldn't care that much whether polar bears have a hard time or not. Nature is filled with animals that are eaten every day in a very brutal and vicious food cycle. If we need to we could just catch some fish and seals for them and feed them ourselves, it would be less work than changing how we use energy. It's about the humans that global warming matters.
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justlou Posted 9:39 pm
27 Oct 2007
This is just about as short sighted of a world view as the deniers represent.
We are all descended from the wild. And it is the wild that promises us the best hope that life will continue on this planet. I have no faith that man can manage every last corner of the planet. And it it would be a very dark sign if we had to resort to feeding polar bears to save them from global warming. It is critical for the survival of large mammals that their populations do not fall below minimum levels to maintain adequate genetic diversity to insure their long term survival and ability to adapt through evolution. And it is critical that very large contiguous areas of habitat are maintained to facilitate gene flow through their populations. One of the biggest potential threats of global warming is a continuation of the fragmentation of large wild areas.
Life on earth is most threatened by the domination of the large man/small nature paradigm. Your anthropocentric world view is at the heart of our global environmental crisis. Putting the biggest seed package of biodiversity through the rapidly approaching gauntlet should one of our main goals -- eternal life on earth.
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Ralph Posted 3:19 am
28 Oct 2007
trock offers Grist's AGW Bible and Gavin Schmidt's activist blog populated with posts from his NASA comrades? Gimme a break!
How about explaining what caused the rapid warming in the Arctic in the 1920s? How is it any different today? Do you have any idea what conditions are like on the Greenland ice sheet? Is it melting out there? Let's see, the HIGH temp this summer at Summit Camp was 34 degrees Fahrenheit. Nope, not much melting there.
For some objective insight and analysis, I recommend Climate Science at the University of Colorado ...
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/
Read and ye will be skeptics too.
Ralph Hansen, Ph. D.
- When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? -- John Maynard Keynes
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Ralph Posted 3:50 am
28 Oct 2007
Several Science Errors (Or, At Best Cherrypicking) In the 2007 IPCC Statement For Policymakers
And yes, I have read the Summary for Policymakers and many parts of AR4. Have you?
Ralph Hansen, Ph. D.
- When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? -- John Maynard Keynes
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trock Posted 4:06 am
28 Oct 2007
no, I haven't read the one you referred to. I'll get to it sometime.
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:34 am
28 Oct 2007
And you base this belief on one data point, of one year?
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:47 am
28 Oct 2007
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/200 ...
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josullivan58 Posted 5:26 am
28 Oct 2007
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David Roberts Posted 6:04 am
28 Oct 2007
grist.org
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GreyFlcn Posted 7:24 am
28 Oct 2007
Oddly, there are two Roger Pielke's
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GreyFlcn Posted 7:31 am
28 Oct 2007
A rapid increase in solar radiation.
http://greyfalcon.net/solar.png
How is it any different today?
Solar radiation levels have been almost flat for the past 40 years, and yet the temperature keeps going up and up.
http://greyfalcon.net/solar.png
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GreyFlcn Posted 8:03 am
28 Oct 2007
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solar greg Posted 11:14 am
29 Oct 2007
No doubt that somebody will take advantage of the Global warming issue. The same people that create and take advantage of kaos in society for personal gain.
I think it is irresponsible to just say it is all a lie. It seems as if the answer would be to do nothing to clean up our act.
Anybody that doesn't care less about wildlife, to me, is part of the problem.
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Oilfieldguy Posted 12:02 pm
29 Oct 2007
Inhofe is a world-wide punchline. He needs to be "Living On Tulsa Time" indefinately.
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Ralph Posted 1:48 pm
29 Oct 2007
I don't deny that the planet has warmed in the past century, and I'm absolutely certain that humans have had an influence. No denial here. What I deny is the pomposity of the IPCC to suggest its so-called experts are 90% certain that humans are the major cause of global warming. No one can honestly speak with that degree of certainty because the change in temperatures we've seen is within the margin of error of the global climate models. Let's drop the arrogance and have some honesty. We just aren't that sure what has caused recent climate changes.
I question the motives of the IPCC and political "leaders" around the world for their obsessive focus on human carbon dioxide emissions when there are other equally relevant human influences that can have a measureable impact on climate. What are we doing about deforestation these days? How about the enormous amounts of methane and nitrous oxide emanating from agricultural operations around the world? Could this CO2 obsession in some way be related to a desire to bring about changes in energy policy? Absolutely! Is the UN interested in policies that would create a transfer of wealth from America to the developing world? You bet!
I hear the posters here complaining about man's influence on the planet. Well, what do you think we should do about it? Reducing carbon dioxide emissions will NOT make a measurable difference in the planet's temperature. Even the alarmists acknowledge that Kyoto, if its reductions could have been achieved, would have reduced the earth's temperature a tiny fraction of a degree.
But now politicians insist we have to reduce emissions 80-90%. Do you understand that 86% of US energy comes from fossil fuels? Do you deny that reality? If tomorrow the United States shut down its economy, all its power plants, stopped all froms of gasoline and diesel vehicles and Americans stopped heating their homes, we would have reduced human CO2 emissions less than 25%. China and India would more than make up the gap in the next 10 years, and we would see no difference in the climate.
Effective carbon capture technology for stationary sources (power plants and large factories) is at least a dozen years away from commercial deployment, and will inevitably be hugely expensive. So let's not pretend that we have affordable technology to deal with the problem, or are Gristers prepared to embrace nuclear energy, which is one of the more obvious ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
The skeptics of the world are not the ones in denial. It is the eco-freaks who seem to believe there is a simple solution. Let's just stop emitting carbon dioxide. All mankind has to do is reverse our evolutionary course and live in caves. We can join the other 3 billion people of the world who live in abject poverty because electricity and other modern forms of energy technology are already beyond their means.
Or do you believe future technological developments will allows humans to develop new energy alternatives that will free us from our dependence on fossil fuels? If you do, then you need to understand that new technology depends on R&D. Research and development is expensive, and the best way to be able to afford it is to have a thriving economy that will produce the tax dollars necessary to pay for it.
If you don't like my solution, what's yours?
Ralph Hansen, Ph. D.
- When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? -- John Maynard Keynes
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Steve Erickson Posted 2:02 pm
29 Oct 2007
Normally, I could care less whether you have a fud, but you are so adamant about having it. This suggests to me one of two possibilities:
Your Doctarate and research are in a field relevant to this subject, e.g., climatology, etc.
You are terribly insecure and desperately want to inpress people.
So what is your fud in and what research have you done? Have your peers in that field shown you respect by giving you any honors or appointments? Any published peer reviewed research?
Steve E.
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David Roberts Posted 3:49 pm
29 Oct 2007
If you really want to learn something about the people who are pushing for a clean energy economy, you're going to have to get past the comic book dirty hippie that hides under your bed. You're going to have to engage the real people here, who have a range of perspectives and a range of prescriptions. If you don't want to do that, then I can't imagine why you're hanging around here -- just to yell? You get satisfaction from that?
grist.org
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Ralph Posted 3:12 pm
30 Oct 2007
There is a lot of ranting and complaining on this site aimed at those who question the alarmist view of global warming. Yet no one has attempted to respond to my basic question:
Show me the proof that humans are the major reason we've seen a one degree rise in temperatures the past century. Show me proof that constraints on human carbon dioxide emissions will lower the planet's temperature even one-hundredth of one degree. On what evidence are you basing your beliefs?
Those who've posted here demand action from the government. Have you stopped to think that you're urging our elected officials to try to control the weather? If that's what you expect, you'll be disappointed because it's just not possible. But if you're asking the government to establish constraints on the use fossil fuels to provide incentives to move America toward "clean" energy, you must understand that we can't trash our economy in order to achieve that ambition. There's a real world out there and it requires abundant, reliable, affordable energy to function.
David, you said:
I believe it is possible for us to radically reduce our use of fossil fuels and our GHG emissions with no net reduction in our quality of life (though not, of course, without huge changes). I believe that doing so is perfectly consistent with a healthy, growing economy.
Okay, you have my attention. I'm curious. Please elaborate. How do we "radically reduce our use of fossil fuels?" What huge changes? And at what price?
Ralph Hansen, Ph. D.
- When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? -- John Maynard Keynes
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Ralph Posted 3:32 pm
30 Oct 2007
Ralph Hansen, Ph. D.
- When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? -- John Maynard Keynes
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Ralph Posted 3:39 pm
30 Oct 2007
Forums: Des Moines Register
Regards,
Ralph Hansen, Ph. D.
- When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? -- John Maynard Keynes
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trock Posted 11:21 pm
30 Oct 2007
Since you are curious.
A good economy also has to have property. Somewhere there has to be land and buildings for this good economy to take place.
A good economy also has to have labor. Somebody is going to be doing the labor and all the other things in business, whether it's management, technology, ownership, or education in the economy.
But we tax property, income and sales to pay for our government services.
Well then, lets eliminate all taxes on property and all taxes on income and only then have a tax on fossil fuels. Does that mean that our economy now stops because we have a tax on fossil fuels? Not any more than it would stop if we have taxes on property or income, of which we have both and the economy still runs.
The land and buildings will be here 50 years, 100 years, 500 years and land even a million years from now, but the fossil fuel will be long gone. Doesn't it make sense to tax that, to keep that around longer for future generations to also use, than to tax property which will be around for future generations to use whether it's taxed or not.
Reduce the property taxes on every business for every employee by 1000 dollars and make that up with a fossil fuel tax. Reduce every homes property tax by 2000 dollars and make that up with a fossil fuel tax.
Or what if we taxed fossil fuel in a consumption fossil fuel sales tax instead to the general sales taxes as we do now. We would decrease the amount of fossil fuel we use and if it were revenue neutral would bring in just as much to the government and cost just as much.
Which costs more,a thousand dollars in property, income, sales or fossil fuels tax?
We shouldn't eliminate property, income and sales taxes but we can reduce them at the same time we increase fossil fuel taxes and not damage our economy. And we don't have to start with fossil fuels used by business, we could just start with consumption fossil fuel taxes. How would someone pay a fossil fuel tax to heat their home? With the reduced property taxes they didn't have to pay.
We won't be drilling our way to fossil fuel prosperity. The earth does have some very real limits to the amount of fossil fuel it has as well as the United States has fossil fuel limits. The United States reached it's oil peak in 1970. The rest of the world has peaked in oil production in June, 2005 at about 84 million barrels/day and it remains to be seen whether that's the world date or that in the future there will be more oil produced than that. If that is the world date, world peak oil is just 35 years behind the United States date.
A good oil peak site.
http://www.theoildrum.com/
The fossil fuels will run out. The faster we drill and extract the fossil fuels from the ground the sooner they will run out. `Strength through exhaustion' is a mad creed.
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Ralph Posted 9:44 am
31 Oct 2007
I don't see offsetting tax reductions anywhere in any of the climate proposals, except for a few that provide aid to low and middle income families to help them cope with the expected huge increases in energy prices. There is nothing but higher costs for Corporate America (the guys creating jobs and wealth), and fights are already breaking out in Congress over how to spend the newfound largesse. And I can hardly wait to see the kind of bureaucracy that develops with the Climate Change Credit Corporation and the Carbon Market Efficiency Board.
Like you, I continue to hold out hope for common sense in Washington. But it just ain't happening.
Ralph Hansen, Ph. D.
- When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? -- John Maynard Keynes
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josullivan58 Posted 10:14 am
31 Oct 2007
"Great idea. Seriously, I agree. Let's supplant existing property and income taxes with consumption taxes on fossil fuels. It's a perfectly logical solution that if structured properly will preserve our economy and foster economic growth."
Why is he pushing for a tax that addresses a problem he says does not exist? I bet he is in the tax advising business and just wants to line his own pockets.
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Ralph Posted 9:06 am
02 Nov 2007
Have I mentioned the Copenhagen Consensus? It was a cost-benefit analysis of health issues by leading economists, including three Nobel Prize winners. They calculated that spending on health issues such as nutrition for children, prevention of HIV/AIDS and water purification has benefits 50 to 200 times those of attempting to marginally limit "global warming." In fact, on a lengthy list of world problems, they ranked climate change dead last because there would be very little benefit for the billions in spending.
Ralph Hansen, Ph. D.
- When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? -- John Maynard Keynes
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josullivan58 Posted 10:29 am
02 Nov 2007
Ralph's previous comment: "Great idea. Seriously, I agree. Let's supplant existing property and income taxes with consumption taxes on fossil fuels."
That sounds like pushing taxes.
The Copenhagen Consensus is misleadingly titled. Its a handful of libertarian-leaning economists who were cherry-picked for their political views. It presented a false dichotomy that measures to reduce global warming would take money from efforts to address other problems. It also was based on global warming being very moderate and gradual, a view that is a scientific outlier.
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Ralph Posted 3:57 pm
03 Nov 2007
Global warming is a serious political problem. It is NOT a serious environmental problem. Carbon dioxide emissions are a small fraction of humanity's contribution to climate change. And I believe the human footprint is tiny in comparison to natural climatic changes. Global warming alarmists like to scare people into believing freaky weather is occurring with increasing regularity. But the fact is nothing has happened that hasn't happened before, and all recent weather events fall within the realm of natural variability.
By all means, we should use energy more efficiently and we should reduce emissions where it makes economic sense. But remember, our economy runs on hydrocarbons. Constraints on carbon emissions are constraints on prosperity.
Here's my view on taxes. If politicians insist on doing "something" (even though it will have zero environmental benefit), I would prefer that they adopt revenue neutral taxes that do not harm America's competitive position in the global marketplace.
The fact is China burns more than twice as much coal as the United States, and its rate of consumption is growing 8% a year. I'm sure Chinese leaders are watching with great glee as our so-called leaders in Washington contemplate climate legislation that amounts to economic suicide for America.
Ralph Hansen, Ph. D.
- When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? -- John Maynard Keynes
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