environment Politics: idiots James Inhofe Time Magazine
by Warren
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Month 3, Day 30: Time Quotes Inhofe. WTF?
Here’s an article at Time Magazine about yet another relatively trivial error in the IPCC report. Naturally, in an effort for “balance,” the author includes statements from James Inhofe.
The faux controversy over relatively minor errors and inept analogies in the IPCC report serves only to confuse members of the public who aren’t paying attention. The overwhelming consensus of scientists is that global warming is real and that it’s largely caused by human beings. When print and broadcast media routinely issue daily corrections over far more egregious misstatements of fact, the notion that a 3,000 page scientific report has mistakes in it should be unsurprising. Scientists are human, and they make mistakes; science itself, however, is a method of addressing error and misconception. Our media routinely treat scientific statements as somehow equivalent to statements of opinion, as witness Abend’s readiness to include statements by James Inhofe in her article. The Oklahoma Senator knows nothing of science, basing his arguments on things he wishes were true (AGW is a fraud, the Rapture is imminent, etc.) rather than on verifiable facts. For those of us who can comprehend the warnings of the scientific community, Inhofe is absurd at best and malevolent at worst. He has no business in a serious discussion of the most important existential threat humanity has ever faced.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Boston Globe idiots Senate Republicans
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Month 3, Day 25: Uh, Oh! Somebody’s Having A Meltdown
The Boston Globe had an editorial on Tuesday pointing out the difficulties that lie ahead for any Democratic policy initiative. As editorials go, it was nothing special…but it provided me with a hook for today’s letter, a rehash of yesterday’s shot off the Herald’s bow.
As the Senate moves to voting on the reconciliation fix for health care legislation, the GOP has fixed on a political strategy of total non-cooperation. What does this mean for future policy-making? Well, Lindsey Graham has been working on climate legislation with Senators Kerry and Lieberman, but it seems likely he’s going to take his ball and go home, because his pique at a Democratic success outweighs any sense of obligation to the long-term health of the planet.
That our governance is immobilized by the GOP’s grade-school tantrums is deplorable. That climate legislation may be held hostage by their passive-aggressive tactics is inexcusable.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Boston Herald idiots
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Month 3, Day 24: Straight to Fishwrap
Not much to say here. This one’s barely about climate at all…just a nod to Lindsey Graham at the end of the first graf. I sent it to the Boston Herald, because maybe they’ll print it, since it’s angry and barely coherent.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Hard on the heels of the triumphant Democratic passage of health-care legislation, Republican lawmakers are demonstrating the passive-aggressive behavior typical of seven-year-olds. Vowing “no more cooperation,” Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Senate Republicans are now refusing even such ordinary courtesies as unanimous consent resolutions to allow Senate hearings to continue in the afternoon. Lindsey Graham, who claims to “get” the importance of global climate change, has been working on climate legislation with Senators Kerry and Lieberman, but his pique at a Democratic success outweighs any sense of obligation he may feel to the long-term health of the planet. The rest of the GOP caucus, of course, knows that climate change is a hoax, since Senator Inhofe tells them so.
That our government is held hostage by these buffoons is intolerable. The Republican Party is no longer a viable political entity, but a gang of irresponsible hooligans.
Warren Senders
environment: George Will idiots media Phil Jones
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Month 2, Day 23: George Will is an Utter Disgrace
As usual, the Washington Post disgraces itself by continuing to print George Will’s vacuous denialism. Here’s the latest example.
I am not a scientist, and I’m certainly not a mathematician…but I sure as hell know more about statistics than George Will. The fact that this guy is still read and heard in our media is depressing beyond belief. So I wrote them a letter.
It is beyond incredible that a mainstream newspaper like the Washington Post should continue to publish misinformation of the sort propagated by George Will. In his column of February 21st, Will distorted the words of climatologist Phil Jones, making it seem that Jones asserted that no human-caused warming is occurring. But Jones has stated in a BBC interview that he is “100% confident that the climate has warmed,” and notes evidence that “most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity.”
Jones made a scientifically accurate statement to the effect that statistical significance was vastly more difficult to achieve in short-term measurements; this has nothing to do with whether global warming exists, as witness Jones’ own statements to the BBC. Either George Will doesn’t know what “statistical significance” means, in which case he’s incompetent — or he knows and doesn’t care, in which case he’s a mendacious hack. In neither case does he deserve to be heard on the subject of climate change.
It is a sad commentary on the state of our media that George Will’s scientific illiteracy is considered important commentary on the most significant threat human beings have ever faced. Will should stick to issuing quote-studded pronunciamenti on politico-cultural trivia, a genre in which his glib faux-erudition can remain relatively harmless.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Boston Herald denialism idiots James Inhofe
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Month 2, Day 21: Setting The Wreckers Straight
Figured I’d send this one off to the Boston Herald. They haven’t printed anything of mine yet, of course, but I figure it does them good to hear from those of us on the Side of the Light. And you can’t go wrong trashing Jim Inhofe. That guy gives lying, hypocrisy and stupidity a really bad image.
Predictably, snowfall in Washington sets Republican politicians off on another round of climate-change denial. James Inhofe and his ilk would like us to believe that global warming doesn’t exist, that humans aren’t responsible, that localized cold and snow disprove it, and that in any case, doing something about it would cost too much and disrupt Americans’ God-given right to convenient, unthinking consumption. Wrong on all counts: worldwide measurements show indisputably that our climate is heating up, and ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that human activity is causing this. A warmer global climate means weirder local weather, including things like blizzards in Washington and Texas along with record highs in Greenland and Europe.
The sociopolitical effects of climate change include massive economic disturbances, “water wars,” and millions of climate refugees. It’s obvious that the cost of addressing the crisis is trivial compared to the cost of failure. Obvious, that is, to anyone except Senator Inhofe and the rest of the G.O.P.
Warren Senders
Have you written a letter recently? Why not?
As always, feel free to use one of mine.
environment Politics: idiots New York Times osama bin laden
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Day 31: The Gray Lady Redux
There’s been quite a bit of buzz about Osama Bin Laden’s recent statements on global warming. The New York Times wrote something about it…so I took the opportunity to drop a little note in their mailbox.
It is a sad state of affairs when one of the world’s most notorious criminals speaks more accurately about global climate change than many of our own elected representatives. Now it is absolutely certain that climate-change denialists will use Bin Laden’s words to suggest that realistically confronting the largest existential threat humanity has ever faced is somehow un-American, a capitulation to Al-Qaeda. I remember how conservatives responded to Soviet criticism of the USA on civil rights issues in the fifties and sixties: by calling patriots like Martin Luther King “communists,” suggesting their actions were “controlled by Moscow.” The fact that Khrushchev was a murderous thug didn’t stop him from correctly assessing American racial hypocrisy; the fact that Bin Laden is a murderous thug doesn’t mean that his statements on global warming are invalid. It just means that American conservatives are easily swayed by irrelevant ad hominem arguments.
Warren Senders