Climate Change

The headline for this News-Leader post by Deirdre Shesgreen reads, "Blunt iffy on cause of global warming?" 

Why the question mark?  Roy Blunt is firmly on the record stating that human beings have nothing to do with climate change and global warming.  From a Human Events interview during his Senate campaign: 

Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) told HUMAN EVENTS Editor Jed Babbin that Republicans accept that the climate is changing, but added, “There isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth.”  Asked if Republicans would offer a substitute for the Dems’ bill [to address carbon pollution and climate change], Blunt said no. 

This positions is, of course, dumb. Blunt's positions has everything to do with protecting polluters and avoiding action to limit climate change -- it has nothing to do with science.  

Tweeting about the weather seems inocuous enough. The exception is when you use the weather on a particular day to justify your denial of climate change, even though national academies of science in many civilized nations say global warming is real. 

However, Vicky Hartlzer wasn't really mocking anyone when she asked her Twitter followers to pray for rain today. Similarly, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin asked the people of her state to pray for rain during a drought in her state. No doubt this heat wave has been brutal in Missouri -- just look at the record highs set in July. 

Maybe it is time to stop treating climate change like it is a joke as well. In fact, people of faith have called for action to be taken to reverse the trends of global warming. People of science and people of faith can be one in the same. 

Missouri's entire GOP delegation in the U.S. House voted against a very simple amendment yesterday "that would have put the chamber on record backing the widely held scientific view that global warming is occurring and humans are a major cause."  The proposed amended was very simple:

Congress accepts the scientific findings of the Environmental Protection Agency that climate changes is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare.

That was it.  Todd Akin, Jo Ann Emerson, Sam Graves, Vicky Hartzler, Blaine Luetkemeyer and Billy Long all voted against it.   Reps. Cleaver, Clay and Carnahan all supported the presumably noncontroversial statement.

h/t Political Wire

Chris Mooney, author of the bestselling book, The Republican War on Science, responds to Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer's efforts to end U.S. funding for the United Nations' climate change research: 

Time was when I, and many others tracking and critiquing the climate "skeptics," would linger on their manufacture of uncertainty, their sowing and merchandising of doubt. “Doubt is our product,” as the infamous tobacco memo put it....

But that’s not really what you see out there anymore. A decision to defund the IPCC, rather than attack or criticize it, doesn’t bespeak a strategy of doubt-mongering. It signals extreme certainty that one is right, that we don’t even need to consider (skeptically or otherwise) any more new results from climate scientists...

Blaine Luetkemeyer announced today that he is re-introducing legislation that he says would prohibit the US from "contributing to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an organization fraught with waste and engaged in dubious science."  Luetkemeyer introduced similar legislation in the lass Congress, winning the support of fellow luminaries like Michele Bachmann, Todd Akin, Steve King and Joe Barton.

This move should shock no one.  Luetkemeyer has a long history of completely misrepresenting scientific data about climate change, and believing "man-made global change is nonsense." 

Here's what the Post-Dispatch wrote in July 2009 about his embarrassing work in Washington on issues of climate change and clean energy policy. 

JUST BLAINE WRONG
REP. LUETKEMEYER FLUNKS SCIENCE - AND BASIC MATH, TOO.

Last year's global average temperature was the 10th warmest since 1850. In fact, eight of the past 10 years, and 13 of the last 14, are among the warmest on record.

So naturally, Blaine Luetkemeyer, a Republican member of Congress from Missouri's 9th district, has concluded: "We are undergoing a period of worldwide cooling."

Mr. Luetkemeyer, of St. Elizabeth in Miller County, was a farmer, insurance man, banker, state representative and state tourism director before being elected to Congress last November. His college degree is in political science, not climate science.

Nevertheless, he has now proclaimed the data behind concern over global warming to be "international junk science."

Last week, he introduced a bill that would prohibit U.S. financial contributions to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's most authoritative scientific body. The IPCC won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for compiling and publishing mountains of scientific data on global climate change.

But Mr. Luetkemeyer - who freely admits he hasn't read any of it - thinks its junk science.

Read More »

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If Republicans and their donors hadn't spent enormous sums of time and money in recent years misinforming and confusing the public about the reality of global warming and climate change, this tweet from Rep. Jo Ann Emerson might be funny. 

But they have, and it isn't.

Emeron's tweet is part of a proud tradition here in Missouri.  Leaders in the MOGOP have done way more than their share to advance the causes of their polluting special interests.  Here's just a sampling:

• Sen. Roy Blunt believes "there isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth."
• Rep. Billy Long says "there’s always changing and nobody really knows if it [climate change and global warming] has anything to do with man or not..the science I’ve says it does not."
• Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer says “that human emissions of carbon are causing our climate to change has been proven very doubtful at the most by the sound science that’s being promoted at the present time."
• Rep. Todd Akin says he's "not convinced of the soundness of the science of climate change." 
• Senate candidate Ed Martin thinks "the climate change debate has been now discredited in the sense that the ideological interests involved and the special interests involved have been shown to be corrupt."
• Rep. Vicky Hartzler says "a lot of data I’ve seen shows that perhaps we don’t even have global warming.
• Gubernatorial candidate Peter Kinder says the "science behind global warming is discredited"

Media Matters has uncovered a Fox News memo documenting what we already knew: "In the midst of global climate change talks last December, a top Fox News official sent an email questioning the 'veracity of climate change data' and ordering the network's journalists to 'refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question.' ... Contrary to [Washington managing editor Bill] Sammon's email, the increase in global temperatures over the last half-century is an established fact. As the National Climatic Data Center explains, the warming trend 'is apparent in all of the independent methods of calculating global temperature change' and 'is also confirmed by other independent observations.'

It's not news these candidates for Congress choose to live with their heads in the sand, but we should all pause to reflect on the following silliness published today by the Missouri News Horizon:

• Ed Martin: "I think the climate change debate has been now discredited in the sense that the ideological interests involved and the special interests involved have been shown to be corrupt."
• Vicky Hartzler: "A lot of data I’ve seen shows that perhaps we don’t even have global warming. In fact I’ve read some articles that it’s actually decreasing, that we have climates getting colder. I don’t think we have enough data to say for sure that we have that."
• Billy Long: "There’s always changing and nobody really knows if it [climate change and global warming] has anything to do with man or not. The science I’ve says it does not.
• Todd Akin: "I'm not convinced of the soundness of the science of climate change."

In addition, Roy Blunt believes “There isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth, ” and Blaine Luetkemeyer says “that human emissions of carbon are causing our climate to change has been proven very doubtful at the most by the sound science that’s being promoted at the present time.”

They are, um, wrong.

Blaine Luetkemeyer is promising to "defund and reign in" the Environmental Protection Agency because it's fixing to 'eliminate private agriculture.'  To be sure, there are bipartisan concerns about some EPA proposals, but (a) Luetkemeyer has zero credibility when it comes to an alleged "unwillingness to look at sound science," and (b) his rhetoric and fears about "eliminating private agriculture" are too absurd for words.   In this week's 'Blaine Buzz':

Yesterday, one of our, my colleagues made the comment that EPA didn't stand for Environmental Protection Agency, it stood for 'eliminating private agriculture.'  And I think he's probably right. That's where they're headed.  And that's what we have to stop.

Case in point: He doesn't seem to understand the difference between clean energy bills with cap-and-trade provisions and concerns regarding that the possibility that the EPA might regulate carbon pollution under the Clear Air Act. (A market-based cap-and-trade system is a better way to reduce pollution than a clumsy Clean Air Act approach.) 

Watch Luetkemeyer say silly things here. 

The League of Conservation Voters launched a new website and web video today at FlatEarth.tv focusing on the incredible refusal of Republican candidates to come to terms with basic science about climate change and global warming.  “These candidates are full-fledged global warming deniers and in most cases, are backed by Big Oil and other corporate polluters,” said LCV President Gene Karpinski. 

Roy Blunt's April 2009 statement to Human Events, "There isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth," is featured prominently in the spoof.  Watch it:

Not caring about the world we live in is a conservative value.

Depressing stuff from ThinkProgress: "A comprehensive Wonk Room survey of the Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate finds that nearly all dispute the scientific consensus that the United States must act to fight global warming pollution...Remarkably, of the dozens of Republicans vying for the 37 Senate seats in the 2010 election, only one — Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware — supports climate action. Even former climate advocates Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) now toe the science-doubting party line."

As you probably know by now, Roy Blunt believes "There isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth."

A letter to the editor printed today in the Washington Post from Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, includes some a still-incredible quote from Roy Blunt, first highlighted here on Fired Up! last April:

Stephen Stromberg's Sept. 3 PostPartisan commentary, "A downside to Murkowski's exit," hit the nail on the head about a disturbing trend that has emerged this year among almost a dozen Republican Senate candidates. These candidates are full-fledged global-warming deniers. If they win, the number of card-carrying members of the Flat Earth Society will rise exponentially in the world's greatest deliberative body.

[For example]...Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt said, "There isn't any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the Earth."

If candidates like these replace climate champions in November, we will feel more than just the loss of a few elected officials. We will lose out on a clean energy future that creates jobs, increases our national security and protects the planet for future generations.

As summarized by the Post-Dispatch's Bill Lambrecht:

[League of Conservation Voters Action Fund's Tony Massaro] said his group's survey turned up a bit of a surprise: A plurality of voters endorsing climate change legislation in Congress.

Here's how the question was asked, followed by the results:

Here are some laws passed in at least one House of Congress in the past two years. Please tell me whether you approve or disapprove of each one:

The plan to encourage clean energy production known as cap-and-trade.

Approve: 45 percent. Disapprove 40 percent.

With voters mostly concerned most about the economy, Massaro said, a primary mission is persuading Missourians of the economic benefits of green technology  -- and in so doing influencing how they vote.

 I worked on Capitol Hill for a long time, and I do not consider myself naive about the inner workings of Washington. But even I was surprised by two revelations this week exposing the amount of money the oil industry is spending to buy political influence.

 Today, a bunch of coal executives are congregating for the West Virginia Coal Association annual meeting at the luxurious Read More »

An editorial cartoon worth sharing from Joel Pett of the Lexington Herald Leader: 

h/t Center for American Progress

Just when you thought the U.S. Senate couldn't do any less for clean energy and the environment than it's (not) done so far, we now face the real possibility of what would amount to a "stop-work order" on the 40-year-old, wildly successful (e.g., studies finding benefits outweighing costs at a 40:1 ratio), Clean Air Act.

The climate bill blame game has begun. When I first started writing this post about the so-called death of the climate bill, I literally pointed the finger at just about everyone, including myself. The anger poured out, and I was frank in my assessment as well as unforgiving in the motives behind this latest setback.

After I was done with my self-loathing tantrum, the kids ran in the door from camp and I was swept up in the lovely reality of my family's banter. It is summer, so the pace in our home is a bit more relaxed in the evening. We aren't quite as quick to rush through dinner, toss the kids in a bath, and then march them off to bed. Ice cream and extra cuddles are relished, and I am reminded each year at this time why I do this job.

Later, after progeny were tucked in, I went back to my draft blog post to spruce it up. I reread my rage, disappointment, and irrational ramblings and was embarrassed. And I asked myself "What good is all this blame going to do?"

On June 26, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 219-212 in favor of HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). Only eight Republicans - we'll call them the "Enlightened Eight" - voted "aye." These Republicans were Mary Bono-Mack (CA-45), Mike Castle (DE-AL), John McHugh (NY-23), Frank LoBiondo (NJ-2), Leonard Lance (NJ-7), Mark Kirk (IL-10), Dave Reichert (WA-8), and Christopher Smith (NJ-4).

Republicans voting for cap and trade in the year of the Tea Party? You'd think that they'd be dumped in the harbor by now. Instead, they're all doing fine. In fact, to date, not a single one of these Republicans has been successfully primaried by the "tea party" (or otherwise). Instead, we have two - Castle and Kirk - running for U.S. Senate, one (McHugh) who was appointed Secretary of the Army by President Obama, and five others - Bono-Mack, LoBiondo, Lance, Reichert, Smith - running for reelection.