I'm prepared to fight for this fake snow, damn it. Media hype aside, John McCain was always a self-important blowhard. But didn't he used to care a little bit about substantial issues--and even once sponsor climate legislation in defiance of an oil-satuarated White House?

As Grist's Jon Hiskes recently pointed out, McCain has completely crumbled on the issue of climate change since his resounding defeat last year. Now that climate legislation actually has a chance to pass--albeit in a deplorably diluted state--McCain has taken to mumbling Palinesque denialist platitudes.

So what is it that gets the great man's notorious ire up these days? What makes him rage and fume, thunder and roar?

The right of a private company to generate fake snow on an Arizona mountaintop. On national park land, in a spot considered sacred by Native Americans.

The ironies are almost too intense to ponder in this holiday time. A man who once championed action to avert disastrous planetary warning now sticks his neck out in defense of burning fossil fuel to generate fake snow on public land -- in defiance of Native Americans.

I always thought McCain, with his short fuse, right-wing politics, and (puzzling) ability to charm reporters, was a disaster waiting to happen. Now he's morphed into grotesque self-caricature.

Related Links:

John McCain’s troubles are the world’s troubles

FOX News and TrollCat agree: Global warming is BUNK!

EPA demands attorneys remove video critical of cap-and-trade

FOX News evidently agrees with Global Warming Skeptic Trollcat (see above):

Thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit were hacked recently and dumped on a Russian web server. Fox News and right-wing bloggers believe the illegally obtained emails prove that "global warming is a MYTH."

Oops, that's Global Warming Skeptic TrollCat. Here's the take from FOX News.com (actual screenshot):

Here's an unscientific sampling of the reasoned analysis from prominent right-wing bloggers:

Evidently due to this email conspiracy, Arctic sea ice is at historically low levels, Australia is on fire, the northern United Kingdom is underwater, and the world's glaciers are disappearing. Oh yeah, and it's the hottest decade in history.

Related Links:

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

What to make of the new climate poll

Newtongate: the final nail in the coffin of Enlightenment thinking

Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel are EPA attorneys who have taken up advocating against cap-and-trade on behalf of rebated carbon taxes, most recently in a Washington Post op-ed. They also posted a video to YouTube making many of the same arguments at somewhat greater length. Now the EPA has instructed them to take the video down by the close of business today, at pain of disciplinary action from EPA ethics officials, and to submit any future drafts to EPA officials before posting. Here it is (likely gone soon):

The issue is in how Williams & Zabel identify themselves. In the WaPo op-ed they are identified merely as "EPA attorneys." In the video they say the following:

Our opinions are based on more than 20 years each working as attorneys at the US EPA in the San Francisco regional office. However, nothing in this video is intended to represent the views of EPA or the Obama administration.

Later, Zabel says:

In my work at EPA I have been overseeing California's cap-and-trade and offset programs for more than 20 years. My unique and extensive experience has convinced me that carbon offsets won't work.

EPA officials have informed Williams & Zabel that they may not reveal that they've worked at EPA for 20 years, or that Zabel has direct experience with offsets. They may only mention, once, that they are "EPA attorneys."

Williams & Zabel are consulting with EPA ethics officials and seeking legal counsel. EPA Press Secretary Adora Andy said on Friday evening that she was gathering information on the issue before commenting.

When Bush administration NASA officials attempted to monitor and control what scientist James Hansen said to the press, they were rightly criticized. By the same token, even though I think many of Williams & Zabel's policy arguments are deeply flawed, I can't see any justification for refusing them the right to communicate honestly about their backgrounds to the public. EPA should back off.

Related Links:

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

What to make of the new climate poll

Capturing the massive social benefits of fuel efficiency requires regulation

Al Gore's back in the public eye, promoting his new book, which naturally raises the question: which mainstream press outlet will be the first to do a vapid hit piece?

Today we have our answer: The New York Times, which has run a truly absurd and embarrassing piece from John Broder. It casts about desperately seeking something sinister about the fact that Gore invests in clean energy technologies. Listen to this piece of dark insinuation:

Few people have been as vocal about the urgency of global warming and the need to reinvent the way the world produces and consumes energy. And few have put as much money behind their advocacy as Mr. Gore and are as well positioned to profit from this green transformation, if and when it comes.

Gore is "positioned to profit," you understand. No wonder he's dedicated most of his adult life to schlepping around the world giving a slide show to tens of thousands of people! It was all to marginally increase the return on his future investments! Diabolical.

Who is saying this absurd crap? "Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming skeptics, say Mr. Gore is poised to become the world’s first 'carbon billionaire' ..." Critics like loony Rep. Marsha Blackburn and denialist propaganda hack Marc Morano. These are the people driving the NYT news operation now.

But look down toward the bottom. No, farther ... farther ... farther ... yeah, waaay down in the second-to-last paragraph:

“I believe that the transition to a green economy is good for our economy and good for all of us, and I have invested in it,” Mr. Gore said, adding that he had put “every penny” he has made from his investments into the Alliance for Climate Protection.

So all the money from Gore's investments is invested in a nonprofit to fight climate change. He's not "positioned to profit." He's not "poised" to become a "billionaire." The entire premise of the story is false. I'm sure the tiny percentage of readers who make it down this far in the story will be delighted to discover they've completely wasted their time.

To summarize: Professional Gore haters, who make their living peddling lies, cast an absurd charge against Gore. The charge goes in the headline. It goes in the first paragraphs of the story. Then in paragraph 32 it's revealed that the charge is baseless. And John Broder wasn't embarrassed to have this appear under his byline.

Oh, and to state the obvious: even if it were true, nobody but a professional Gore hater could possibly find anything wrong with someone investing in the very solutions they say are necessary to save the world. The non-Gore-demented might even find that a perfectly predictable way for a capitalist to respond.

As this Daily Kos diary points out, this seems of a piece with the New York Times' stated desire to be more "tuned-in" to Fox and right-wing talk radio. Apparently in our new media age, a baseless charge from 'wingers is in and of itself justification for an extended story on the nation's most precious news real estate. Welcome to the future.

Related Links:

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

FOX News and TrollCat agree: Global warming is BUNK!

Climate talks timeline: From 350 to Kyoto to Copenhagen and beyond

Darren covered this over at ClimateWire, but I'm not sure a straight news story can really capture the toxicity and absurdity of what the Inhofe is planning to do on the climate bill next week.

Some background: when the Waxman-Markey chairman's mark was released, the EPA undertook an exhaustive five-week analysis of its economic impacts. (It found that the costs to household would be modest and the bill would actually lower electricity bills.) When the action moved over to the Senate and the Kerry-Boxer chairman's mark was released, the EPA determined that the bill was 90 percent identical to the Waxman-Markey bill, and thus that another full, five-week modeling run was unnecessarily duplicative. Instead, it took two weeks to analyze the differences between the bills and whether they would substantially affect the economic impacts. (They wouldn't.)

That's seven weeks of analysis total. But not enough for Inhofe (who will, of course, vote against any bill regardless). He's demanding that the EPA do another full, five-week modeling run, and unless he gets what he wants, he's threatening to lead Republicans in a boycott of the markup next week.

Now, remember: the bills are 90 percent identical, and the 10 percent differences don't alter the overall costs. So we already know exactly what a modeling run would show. We know! Everyone knows! Inhofe knows. It's a pure, unadulterated waste of time and government resources.

Here's Boxer's response, from E&E:

EPW Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is expected to notice the Tuesday markup later today despite the boycott threat. Boxer yesterday told reporters she is "going to use every tool at our disposal to get this done."

She added, "My chief of staff and chief counsel tell me that we can go next week, according to the rules, according to what we've got available. And that's our intention. That's our plan. And that's our hope."

Boxer did not go into specifics on how she would move the bill, but there appear to be several options. For starters, Boxer and Senate Democratic leaders could use Senate Rule 14, which allows the majority to discharge legislation out of a committee and bring it directly to the floor.

Democrats could also break with a long-standing EPW Committee precedent that requires two minority members to be in attendance for a markup to even begin. According to the committee rules, Boxer appears to have an exception available that would pave the way for votes on both amendments and the overall bill so long as a majority of the committee's members are present.

Going this route, according to one former Senate Democratic aide, could spell trouble for the overall legislation as Boxer and her allies continue their search for 60 votes among moderate Democrats and Republicans. "That product is totally toxic," the former staffer warned. "It's basically worthless."

This last 'graph is key: the danger here is not so much that Inhofe can block markup, but he can make the entire process so toxic that any hope of Republican support is lost -- and the bill won't pass without some Republican support.

So it's classic Inhofe: a petty procedural ratf*ck designed to poison the waters and prevent and reasonable engagement with the issues at hand.

Oh, and don't be misled -- like Politico was -- by efforts to make more moderate Rs like Voinovich and Alexander the public face of this effort. Voinovich submitted the request to the EPA weeks ago, but this has all the marks of Inhofe, the Wormtongue who whispers poison into his colleagues' ears.

See also Steve Benen, Enviroknow, Kate Sheppard, and Brad Plumer.

Related Links:

China, India, US Commit to Seal Copenhagen Deal

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

At today's hearing on the Kerry-Boxer bill, Sen. Inhofe (R-Okla.) was spouting the usual lies about the high cost of the policy. Kerry responded:

That's good, but he could have said so much more. Even with those shortcomings of economic models, the costs turn out to be "modest," in CBO chief Doug Elmendorf's words.

For more on why economic models overestimate the cost and underestimate the benefits of green policy see: "Why we overestimate the costs of climate change legislation."

Related Links:

China, India, US Commit to Seal Copenhagen Deal

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

Related Links:

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

What to make of the new climate poll

Newtongate: the final nail in the coffin of Enlightenment thinking

Van Jones had to resign. It became inevitable when Gibbs offered no support.

Much of the blame for this incident lies squarely on the White House. The information used against Jones was freely available on the web. All it took was a search. I thought by hiring Jones they intended to take a chance on a real left progressive, but now it appears they were simply caught flat-footed. Either Valerie Jarrett -- Jones' champion in the upper echelons of the administration -- didn't know much about him or didn't widely share what she knew. They certainly seemed disinclined to mount a vigorous defense with Glenn Beck gnoshing on his favorite new chew toy and the health care reform battle about to heat up again. No distractions.

For the record, Jones isn't a truther. Five years ago, at the end of a busy paternity leave, he was asked to support the calls of 9/11 families for further investigation of the attacks (reflecting the concerns of millions of Americans). He agreed and his name ended up on a petition that contained language he didn't support. Three others who signed the petition have also come forward to say they were deceived about its final contents. But the truth of it hardly matters at this point. Jones has always spoken freely, not in the clipped, narrow confines permitted of those who aspire to public office. He talks real talk, in colorful, provocative language. There's plenty in his copious past writing and speaking that can be demagogued. This isn't a civic discussion among people who care who Van Jones really is or what he really believes, after all. It's a head hunt.

On substantive grounds, the resignation is not that significant. Part of the absurdity of all this is that Jones was basically a low-level functionary. By yesterday the dimwit conservative hack Dick Morris had him "in charge of running the cap-and-trade legislation" -- ignorant on too many levels to catalog -- but I doubt if Jones has ever so much as been in a meeting with Obama. By all accounts he was frustrated by the difficulty of getting even the smallest things done from the bottom of a massive bureaucracy. Even if he'd had the hidden intentions Beck and his pant-wetting audience attribute to every black liberal, he couldn't have done anything about it.

But policy, reality, that's not what bottom-feeders like Beck care about. The right governed the country for eight years and ran it into a ditch. Conservatives have no plausible health care solution, no climate solution. They have nothing to offer in response to the nation's pressing problems. What they have is affect. They have the amygdala, the fight-or-flight reflex. They have deep threads of racism, fear, and resentment.

In other words, they don't care what Van Jones does, they care what he is. Beck peddles a message that's been around since America was born: They're taking your country away. They -- the non-white races, the immigrants, the urbanites, the communists, the elites -- are stealing the country from nice, simple white Christians. They're taking what rightfully belongs to us, to Real Americans.

This basic, gut-level fear of loss, fear of tribal obsolescence and irrelevance, is all the 25%-and-shrinking right has left. It has been overwhelmed by its most paranoid, bigoted elements. Not activists, not online petitioners, but U.S. senators and Republican thought leaders say the president wasn't born in the U.S.; that he wants to kill old people; that he is not fit to speak to school children. They are banging drums and chanting just outside the campfire circle of rational civic discourse. Their din makes it impossible to think, to plan, to govern. They can not lead, but in their twisted fear they can prevent the rest of us from going anywhere either.

Our civic immune system has grown weak. There are no filters, no longer shared standards of evidence, truth, or decency. The poison courses unhindered through the body. Nothing, no matter how factually insane or morally repugnant, can be repelled.

Like I said, Beck's more greasy huckster than true believer. He went after Jones to get revenge on Color of Change, a group Jones co-founded, for targeting his advertisers (which are dropping like flies). Rupert Murdoch will only put up with the stench as long as money's coming in.

But make no mistake, it's racial resentment that blew this story up. The worst outcome of all this is that it will validate Beck and his long history of paranoid conspiracy theories and repugnant allegations. It will be like chum in the water, almost as invigorating to the crazies as bagging Dan Rather. Much, much more ugliness will ensue, and it will become that much harder to focus on the multiple crises converging on the country.

The White House will find someone else to tend green job-training programs; Jones will go back to his much more effective role as an activist. He will do much good in the world in his life, far, far more than a pissant charlatan like Glenn Beck. But I'm not as sanguine about the direction the country is headed.

Related Links:

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

Obama administration officials grateful for early spring

FOX News and TrollCat agree: Global warming is BUNK!

Cross-posted from Wonk Room.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce — the 97-year-old organization that bills itself as the “voice of business” — wants to put climate science on trial. As the Environmental Protection Agency nears a final ruling that manmade global warming endangers the public health and welfare, “the chamber will tell the EPA in a filing today that a trial-style public hearing” on the science of climate change is needed to “make a fully informed, transparent decision with scientific integrity based on the actual record of the science.” William Kovacs, the chamber’s senior vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs, told the Los Angeles Times this hearing would be “the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century“:

It would be evolution versus creationism. It would be the science of climate change on trial.

In 1925, Tennessee schoolteacher John Scopes was indicted for teaching evolution against state law. His trial, intended as a test of the law, became a national phenomenon when as the World Christian Fundamentals Association and the American Civil Liberties Union brought the famed lawyers William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow into battle. Scopes was found guilty. Even though the state supreme court overturned the verdict of the “bizarre case” on a technicality, the public fallout was intense. The anti-evolution movement lost steam (before being reborn as “intelligent design“) and science textbooks with biblical quotations were phased out.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is taking a similarly bizarre approach here, calling for a show trial of climate science. Perhaps Kovacs and other officials at the U.S. Chamber believe that the rest of the business world shares their extremist views. After all, U.S. corporations continue to fund their multi-million-dollar lobbying against health care and energy reform.

It’s also possible this is an attempt to disrupt the effort to fight global warming with a culture war, tying the science of climate change to fundamentalists’ unease with evolution. Conservative activists have already made the connection. “It’s still a theory,” a town hall protester confronted Rep. Mike Castle (D-DE) after he supported climate legislation in June. “So is Darwin’s theory of evolution! And yet we have the audacity to say global warming is accurate, it’s more than a theory?”

There aren’t many natural parallels between the physics of greenhouse gases emitted by burning fossil fuels and the biology of natural selection, but the American conservative movement depends on the cozy relationship between oil and the Christian right. It seems like a high-risk strategy to convince Americans that God means for us to pollute His creation on behalf of oil and coal tycoons. But when reality is not on your side, there’s not much else left.

Update: At the Swamp, Jim Tankersley explains how the "trial" would work:

Update: At Climate Progress, Joe Romm notes that the science of climate change has already been fought over in court, and asks the board members of the Chamber of Commerce "to declare whether they are evolved members of humanity or dedicated to our self-destruction."

These members claim to “support economy-wide reductions in CO2 emissions and/or federal cap-and-trade legislation”: Alcoa, Caterpillar, Deere & Co., Dow Chemical, Duke Energy, Eastman Kodak, Entergy, Fox Entertainment, IBM, Lockheed, Nike, PepsiCo., PNM Resources, Rolls Royce, Siemens, Toyota, and Xerox.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

Update below

The coal-industry group Families Organized to Represent the Coal Economy, which doesn’t actually allow families to join, has a wonderfully crappy coloring book for children. Let’s have a look!

Plot, character development, and drawings that kids would actually want to color don’t seem to be priorities for "Eyes for Frosty." At least it picks a relevant topic in snowmen—they won’t be around for long if the coal industry succeeds in stomping all over climate change legislation. And kids will be stuck with the consequences of our fossil-fuel pollution, so it sort of makes sense to at least leave them with a coloring book.

All Images: Families Organized to Represent the Coal Economy

It should be clear already: the artist’s heart just isn’t in this.

Meet Power Rock and his sidekick Spurt.

[Skipping boring stuff about prehistoric sediment]

But where did the mountaintops go?

Spurt finally gets some screen time.

Power Rock’s eyes get more evil-looking in each frame.

Wait, they can fly? Come back Power Rock! Come back Spurt!

Now go check out some real climate art.

Update: Alert reader SOLARKISMET informs us the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity runs an annual Coal Calendar Art & Essay Contest for middle schoolers. It's sad, but these student artists show more talent than the "Eyes for Frosty" creator. Why, Illinois, why?

Related Links:

What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

Copenhagen, U.S.A. December 7

ConocoPhillips is now actively campaigning against the House climate and energy bill -- even though it's a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, an influential enviro-business coalition that played a key role in shaping the legislation.

The company changed its tune shortly after the House passed the bill. On the ConocoPhillips website, visitors are urged to "Act now for energy. Make your voice heard!" An action page tells people to contact their senators and express opposition to the bill, arguing, "Federal climate change legislation is needed; however, Waxman-Markey fell short."

The shift is notable since ConocoPhillips is a marquee member of USCAP, which brought together green groups like the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council and major companies like Duke Energy, BP, and General Electric around a climate-bill blueprint. Red Cavaney, senior vice president for government and public affairs for ConocoPhillips, even testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee in support of climate action in April.

But ConocoPhillips is also a member of the American Petroleum Institute, which has been orchestrating astroturfing against the climate bill. While Shell, another company that belongs to both USCAP and API, has announced that it will not support the astroturf efforts, ConocoPhillips has remained silent on the matter.

On its action page, ConocoPhillips repeats familiar criticisms of climate legislation:

ConocoPhillips claims that the bill does not do enough to protect domestic oil refiners, despite the fact that it gives them 2 percent of pollution-permit value under a cap-and-trade system. And, predictably, the company argues that the bill should do more to keep the price of oil low for consumers. It also wants the bill to do more to encourage the development of natural gas in the United States, "which is nature's cleanest fossil fuel." ConocoPhillips just happens to be one of the country's largest producers of natural gas.

"Don't attempt to pick winners or losers among energy technologies," the company argues. "Legislative proposals have a tendency to pick 'winning' energy technologies too early, before they are fully proven at scale. We should allow technological innovation and the market an opportunity to perfect and select the best energy sources."

Looks like membership in USCAP doesn't mean much anymore.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

What's missing from this Wall Street Journal article about expensive taxpayer-funded congressional travel to exotic locations?  The fact that seven of the 10 representatives who spent about half a million bucks to go see climate-change-addled penguins actually voted against the House bill that seeks address the concern.

Despite jetting to New Zealand and the South Pole to observe the impacts of climate change (in some cases, with spouses in tow), the following representatives voted against the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill:

Bob Inglis (R-S.C.)
Frank Lucas (R-Okla.)
Charlie Melancon (D-La.)
Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas)
Mike Ross (D-Ark.)
Adrian Smith (R-Neb.)
John Tanner (D-Tenn.)

Related Links:

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

Obama administration may (finally) offer greenhouse-gas targets

John McCain’s troubles are the world’s troubles

Among the forged anti-climate letters that found their way to Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.) earlier this summer was a message purporting to be from the American Association of University Women (AAUW). One can only assume that the coal-funded astroturfer who faked the letter worried that the etters he forged from minority groups wouldn't get Perriello's attention. It's a given fact among conservatives, after all, that liberal Democrats always pay more attention to elites from the ivory tower than regular folk, and Perriello's district does contain Mr. Jefferson's University of Virginia.

No surprise that the AAUW wasn't too pleased. On Thursday evening, AAUW issued a statement condemning the letters as "blatant fraud" and "outright deceit."  The group noted that it has never taken a position one way or another on climate and energy policy.

AAUW focuses on "pay equity, family-friendly workplaces and education," said Executive Director Linda D. Hallman. Moreover, as the group told the Washington Post, it doesn't even have a branch in Charlottesville (UVA's home), from which the letter was supposedly sent.

Perhaps Bonner & Associates/Hawthorn/the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity should hire employees more adroit with "the Google."

Here's the full statement issued by AAUW:

Related Links:

What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

What to make of the new climate poll

Nina Pierpont is a long-time, self-published advocate of the view that living within a kilometer or two of industrial scale wind farms can cause migraines, sleep deprivation, and other serious symptoms and long term damage. Now she's gained mainstream attention by claiming that her new (self-published) book Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Natural Experiment is peer-reviewed.

Note, however, that the imprint publishing this work, K-Selected Books, has a four-person editorial board consisting of Pierpont, her husband Calvin Luther Martin, and two other members. Pierpont's husband is also the book's editor. Her book only can be ordered only from her website. The "publisher" website is a page on Pierpont's site. This is obviously a self-published book.

Valid peer-review is, by nature, independent. While authors are encouraged (and sometimes required) to suggest possible peer reviewers, the final selection of reviewers in valid refereeing is never made by people closely related to the author, or hired by the author. Pierpont being on the editorial board of a company that she claims oversaw a peer review process is itself a scandal. I would be curious to know who the actual editor was who made the final selection of referees. Was it someone other than her husband?

Here is the sad thing: People make non-peer-reviewed arguments every day. Non-fiction that is not peer reviewed has been known to end up on the best-seller list and influence public debate. In falsely claiming valid peer review, Pierpont has undermined the credibility of her arguments far more than non-peer reviewed publication would have. Valid arguments do not need to be shored up by carefully planned deceit.

Pierpont's work has been widely disputed in peer-reviewed publications. This dishonesty does not encourage me to believe her over her opponents.

Shame on Pierpont for using such deceit to prop up her case. Shame on the Independent for not even bothering to read the Pierpont website carefully enough to detect this poorly concealed deception.

Related Links:

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

FOX News and TrollCat agree: Global warming is BUNK!

The Wind Kids: How high school students helped bring a wind farm to Milford, Utah

There once was a firm known as Bonner
Whose tactics were lacking in honor.
“Can’t get white letters read?
We’ll forge brown ones instead!”
Oh Bonner, you should be a goner.

Whose words these are I think I know.AFLCIO2008 via flickr

Related Links:

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

FOX News and TrollCat agree: Global warming is BUNK!

EPA demands attorneys remove video critical of cap-and-trade

Glenn Beck has uncovered a plot! (Yes, another one.)

Turns out Van Jones, President Obama's green jobs czar, is going to coordinate a vast radical/communist/black nationalist takeover of our sweet, virginal land of liberty. Most diabolical of all, he's going to do it by organizing efforts to train and employ low-income people in private sector jobs. Don't you understand? They're going to take over from the inside! You know: them.

Admit it, it's brilliant. Here Beck exposes the cabal of Big Labor, Big Green, Big Business, and Big Commie, orchestrated by the many-tentacled Apollo Alliance:

Can you talk me out of the crazy tree?! No. No, I'm afraid not. You've found them. Right in the last place they thought you'd look.

Jones was undercover for a while, collecting degrees from University of Tennessee at Martin and Yale Law. But then he became an advocate. A (shudder) community organizer. We all know what that means, right Sarah?

Recently he tried to throw tireless commie-hunters like Beck off his trail by writing a book -- 2008's The Green Collar Economy -- that argued for saving the US free-market economy from stagflation by investing in green innovation, infrastructure, and industries, creating millions of jobs in the private sector. But don't be fooled. It was all in the name of bringing down The Man!

Here he is, talking about destroying capitalism by greening the economy:

Scary, right? You gonna trust this guy ahead of Glenn Beck? I didn't think so.

Of course, the shadowy Apollo Alliance ... are they Soros-funded? Probably! ... wants the government to support the evolution of a clean energy economy. Yeah, you heard right: They want the government to provide incentives to businesses to invest in green technologies and services. Needless to say, this kind of Stalinistic, top-down central planning leads only to disasters like the internet, the Interstate Highway System, the polio vaccine, and velcro. And, my god, flouridation. Don't forget flouridation.

The sinister plan was going perfectly well until the radios in Glenn Beck's teeth told him how much danger we're in. And thank Reagan they did!

Never be afraid to shout at the clouds, Glenn. They're looking at you funny.

--

Related on Huffington Post: Eva Paterson looks at "Glenn Beck's Attack on Van Jones -- Fantasies and Falsehoods" (Aug. 28, 2009)

Related Links:

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

FOX News and TrollCat agree: Global warming is BUNK!

Why won’t Lisa Jackson/Nancy Sutley visit a mountaintop removal site?

While I was away on vacation (it was wonderful, thanks for asking), the Washington Post editorial page featured opinion pieces from Sarah Palin and George Will, two of conservatism's leading, um, thinkers, revealing a great deal about the WaPo editorial page and the quality of conservative thinking.

Rebuttal has been ably carried out by many others, including Joe Romm (whose bald pate is belied by his youthful energy!). He demolishes Palin here and Will here.

Rather, a somewhat meta point. The debate over climate/energy legislation, at least as carried out between conservatives and everyone else, has taken on a surreal tinge. One might expect the media to respond, or notice, or react in some way, but outlets like the WaPo just keep carrying on as if the debate is perfectly normal.

The surreality comes from a simple fact: institutionally, as a movement and as a party, conservatives do not believe anthropogenic climate change exists. They don't think the problem the legislation is designed to solve is actually a problem.

You might think this would make for short debates. Conservatives could collectively sign on to a one-line op-ed:

"We do not believe in anthropogenic climate change, thus we do not support legislation to address it."

Period. Done. Right? But that doesn't happen. Instead you get peculiarities like Palin, droning on for 700 words about how the legislation is flawed because it doesn't promote domestic fossil fuel without once mentioning carbon emissions or climate change. You get Will analyzing the challenges of international climate negotiations and then mentioning, almost casually, at the end of his piece, "by the way, climate change isn't real."

But if climate change isn't real, of course we shouldn't be going through the wrenching process of trying to get off fossil fuels in a few short decades. Of course we shouldn't be beating our heads against a wall trying to get China and India to agree to constrain their growth. It's pointless even discussing those things.

If I simply refused to acknowledge the federal deficit, would Fred Hiatt have me on the WaPo editorial page analyzing the merits of deficit reduction proposals? Of course not. I don't believe the $%*# thing exists! Of course I don't support policies to reduce it.

By greenlighting Potemkin arguments about this or that climate policy from the likes of Palin and Will, the WaPo is giving conservatives a pass. Rejection of settled science is treated as a footnote. But without a shared set of facts, there are no rules, no constraints. Republicans can cavalierly demagogue anything Democrats offer, because hell, it's all just funny talk, a game of make believe.

There will never be a policy proposal sensible enough to gain support from people who do not acknowledge the problem the proposal is meant to address. You'd think that fact would merit notice!

So here's my modest proposal for Fred Hiatt and his ilk: Any conservative who writes about climate/energy legislation should be required to begin by stating clearly whether he or she believes the scientific consensus on warming. That fundamental fact colors everything else, so put it up front.

If they do not accept the science, then fine, let them tell us their preferred carbon-insensitive energy policy. Their fellow non-believers can debate the merits.

If they do accept the science, they can't simply reject the moderate (and inadequate) Democratic proposals for addressing the problem contained in ACES. They have to tell us how they would solve the problem. That's the benchmark.

That simple proposal won't make the climate debate sensible -- let's be realistic about our ambitions -- but it would move beyond the pretense that people like Palin and Will are involved in a good-faith debate.

Related Links:

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

What to make of the new climate poll

Newtongate: the final nail in the coffin of Enlightenment thinking

George VoinovichSen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) is holding up the confirmation of a deputy administrator at the U.S. EPA until the agency coughs up numbers on the House climate bill that are to his liking.

Voinovich sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson [PDF] on Monday saying that he has placed a procedural hold on the appointment of Robert Perciasepe, who has been nominated to serve as second-in-command at the EPA.

Voinovich made it clear in his letter that it's not about Perciasepe, who previously served as the assistant administrator in the EPA water and air offices during the Clinton administration and is now chief operating officer at the National Audubon Society. Rather, it's about Voinovich's desire for a new EPA analysis of the cap-and-trade bill that the House passed last month. Voinovich serves on the Environment and Public Works Committee, which is responsible for the confirmation of EPA appointees.

From his letter:

The EPA has already produced two analyses of the bill, both of which indicated that its costs for American households would be low. But Voinovich believes the EPA's estimate "contains significant flaws that mask the economic consequences of the bill," and that these "flaws center around the agency's assumptions regarding the availability of certain low-carbon technologies and the widespread availability of international offsets." Voinovich is asking for a "refined analysis" from the agency ASAP.

But if he wants predictions that the bill would devastate the American economy, will the EPA ever be able to satisfy him?

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

Missouri Sen. Kit Bond (R) is circulating this incomprehensible graphic that he says illustrates the "bureaucratic nightmare" of the Waxman-Markey climate bill that the House passed last month.

Bond devoted the majority of his opening statement at Tuesday's Senate hearing on climate policy griping that the bill is just too long for people to understand. "The American people and my Missouri constituents deserve to know why it takes 1,427 pages to address energy issues," he said.  He noted that the combined drafts of the bill would stack up to more than 15 inches.

Holy shoot! You mean lawmaking is complicated? Can't we just stick with that drilling chant?

Related Links:

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

What to make of the new climate poll

Obama administration may (finally) offer greenhouse-gas targets

Jeb Bush, the former governor of a hurricane-plagued, sea-level-rise-threatened state sports a NOAA cap. That's the same NOAA whose scientists have documented the threat of global warming.NOAA.govAs bad as George W. Bush's environmental record was, W. at least got around to acknowledging that climate change is real and human-caused before leaving office. Yet his little brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, remains a global warming skeptic.

That's what he told Esquire recently in a piece that centers on Bush's presidential prospects. Now that three of the top contenders for the Republican nomination – Sarah Palin, Mark Sanford, and John Ensign – are self-destructing, Jeb Bush is looking like he might be the party's last best hope in 2012.

Here's the bit of interest to Grist readers, in which he repeats some familiar skeptic talking points:

Related Links:

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

What to make of the new climate poll

Newtongate: the final nail in the coffin of Enlightenment thinking