Despite the fact that the Senate recently voted 98-1 that climate change is real and not a hoax, Sen. Jim Inhofe, who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, was back on the floor mocking the notion of climate change this week. Inhofe voted for the earlier resolution but insists that man is not responsible for the changes. Those pushing for measures to combat climate change bring the overwhelming majority of scientists around the world to such debates as well as dozens of studies. Inhofe brought a snowball.
Inhofe tossed a snowball in the Senate chambers to mock the notion of climate change. He also showed pictures of an igloo his daughter’s family built during the snowstorm five years ago and noted that was the same tie that all “the hysteria on global warming” began. Addressing Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, Inhofe said “Do you know what this is? It’s a snowball. It’s just from outside here, so it’s very, very cold out, … very unseasonable.” He then said “Mr. President, Catch this” and threw the snowball. Wisely not trusting the coordination of his colleagues, he threw it to a page who caught the snowball with the skill of Ernie Banks.
As we have discussed, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said last month that 2014 was the warmest year on record. However, climate change does not mean that you do not get extremely cold weather. Indeed, you can have wild fluctuations in weather patterns. Many scientists have documents not just colder temperatures over all but such intensifying patterns. It certainly does not mean that you will not get snow in Washington, D.C.
Yet, Inhofe insisted “We hear the perpetual headline that 2014 has been the warmest year on record, but now the script has flipped.
Of course, even before the GOP took over the Senate, there was little action on climate change. If history is any measure, any substantive legislation has about the changes of a snowball in . . . the Senate.
There should be tests for dementia and other mental states, in our elected representatives. Inhofe refers to god as totally in control, so nothing to worry about. He blames Hollywood stars for perpetrating a hoax. He refutes the scientific findings of 90%+ of the world’s scientists. His understanding of science does not reach the third grade level. Yet he chairs the committee on environment in the Senate. Regardless of what he US has accomplished and the words written 240 years ago, regardless of one’s political opinion, something is very very very wrong here. How do guys like that slip by? Oh yeah, Republicans.
Inga (Annie),
You are right, global warming is the most important issue we face in the world.
Bruce, Correct!
Jonathan Gruber is the modern-day P.T. Barnum; it’s really fascinating to observe. 😀
Inga (Annie), Keep making those excuses for your chosen one. By the way do you have those education records for the chosen one? I’d love to know just how smart he really is.
global warming or ice age your choice I wonder if the dinosaurs worried about it as much as you folks the real threat to this civilization is islamic terrorism
“People like Inga” and 99% of scientists and billions more thinking humans around the warming globe.
Yes, Scopes was convicted but the issues raised by the movie and the conviction are what is relevant here. Our country lead by people like the snow ball throwing Senator seems content to march backward in time excluding science and scientists from scientific debate and relying instead on lobbyists.
Pogo, You will never convince the cool-aide drinkers. People like Annie for some reason need to believe in what their govt. tells them. The best thing to do is to just agree and tell them that “Yes, global warming is the most important issue we face in the world”.
I’d rather have an intelligent well educated President who misspeaks on occasion when he’s tired, than an uneducated fundamentalist science denier.
Inga (Annie) -“Can you imagine a President Walker who can’t even make a comment on evolution? The U.S. would be the laughingstock of the a world.”
I would imagine that the study of evolution is way more complex than knowing how many states are in the country.
No adjustment of data. That is your gas and coal industry propaganda speaking.
“Warmest” by “adjusting” the data.
If I adjusted my income downward for the IRS the way NASA adjusts it up for global warming, I’d go to jail.
Justice Holmes – when you have scientists who lie and pervert data and then hide it, who are we to believe? When ‘scientists’ (and I use the term in its loosest form here) manipulate data to fit their needs there is no reason for us to believe the scientists. Michael Mann would be found guilty of academic fraud if anyone could actually get at his data.
2014 as the hottest year on record is by such a slight margin as to not be within statistical significance.
So, even with this heat sinking phenomenon in its 15th year now, we STILL had the warmest year on record.
Nope, no agenda here. Just trust your leaders, take your Soma and shut up!
“”This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history,” UNFCCC Executive Secretary Figueres stated at a press conference in Brussels Tuesday.”
http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/unfccc-chief-our-aim-is-not-to-save.html
The journal Science says there is a ‘pause’ (cool period) that will last 10-20 more years, where the journal Scientific American says 2014 was the hottest year on record.
The global warming science is SETTLED!
No need for further evidence.
Time to raise some serious taxes!
Is this the same idiot that stated that it makes no sense whatsoever that melting ice at the poles causes the oceans to rise? He sat there and publicly explained that if you have a glass of water with ice cubes, the ice melts but the level in the glass stays the same. With authority he had a glass of water and ice cubes with which to refer. He lectured the world with this logic, poo pooing scientists. The only thing scarier than guys like this is the idiots that vote him into office and the even more dangerous idiots that place him in this position. Yeah, well, it was cold last night so all this global warming stuff is bunk.
Inhofe represents the US at global conferences, such as that which took place in Lima Peru. There with a straight face he blames the ‘global warming’ hoax on Barbara Streisand.
This is the face of the Republican party. Yup.
The Telegraph, 1 Aug 2014:
The heat sink:
http://www.steynonline.com/pics/large/933.jpg
The new scariest words are “Your govt. says the science is settled”.
Dave – “We emit b i l l i o n s of tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year. What, it all just disappears?”
No we don’t. CO2 is not carbon. Saying carbon is just good marketing be the greenies to make it sound worse. Read 1984, messaging is everything.