Year 3, Month 11, Day 17: You Can Leave Your Hat On

BREAKING: John Boehner is still an asshole:

SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER has made some encouraging statements since last week’s election, pointing toward productive policy-making. This was not one of them:

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that we’ve had climate change over the last 100 years,” he told USA Today. “What has initiated it, though, has sparked a debate that’s gone on now for the last 10 years.”

The Ohio Republican continued: “I don’t think we’re any closer to the answer than we were 10 years ago.”

President Obama recently sounded some positive notes on climate change, perhaps the most neglected big issue of the 2012 campaign. His comments rekindled hopes of environmentalists that his second term will see more aggressive policymaking to combat global warming than did his first. Mr. Boehner’s words, which appear to mischaracterize the scientific debate on global warming, indicate that blinkered Republican opposition to doing much of anything about the problem may persist.

The Great Orange One is an utter waste of space. I can’t believe these Republicans, can you? Sent November 13:

The election is over; the nerds won. Statisticians and data-crunchers combined with a prodigious grass-roots effort brought victories to Democrats all over the US, and provided a spectacular view of conservative pundits and politicians stumbling all over themselves trying to explain how they could have gotten things so wrong.

But there’s another election in two years. In the realm of climate change, by contrast, we’ve only got one planet, and climatology’s statisticians and data-crunchers are unanimously warning us that we’re perilously close to ruining it forever. John Boehner’s years in Washington have taught him the wrong lessons; what’s needed right now is responsible action, not politically expedient procrastination. Once the full ramifications of the climate crisis are upon us, there’ll be no satisfaction for environmentalists in watching conservatives trying to rationalize their failure to take the its seriously. Speaker Boehner needs to lead, follow, or get out of the way.

Warren Senders