Flat Earthers

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

Reading only the headline of Mark Slavit’s latest "news" story -- “Luetkemeyer wants to stop climate control funding” -- you would be forgiven for thinking the KRCG Columbia Bureau Chief would go on to detail the Congressman’s opposition to refrigeration techniques or even China’s controversial attempt to prevent rain during the 2008 Olympics.  [In fact, “Climate control” strikes me as just the kind of vaguely sinister-sounding but utterly meaningless term the right would seize upon, so keep an eye out for “Stop the Government Takeover of the Climate” signs]

Alas, Slavit was in fact training his uncritical eye on Blaine Luetkemeyer's latest bout of climate change denialism with an incomplete, inaccurate, biased and -- unfortunately for KRCG readers -- fairly typical story.  Slavit provides no counterpoint or context to Luetkemeyer’s partisan attacks on Nobel-Prize winning scientists.  Nor does he attempt to verify whether the $13 million Luetkemeyer’s amendment purports to save even exists.

Slavit also dutifully relays that “Luetkemeyer believes global warming activists have a political agenda instead of a scientific agenda.”   Well then.  The Congressman certainly would be the expert, given that he’s been trying to corner the market on politicizing research and science for years now.

This is from the Beacon’s considerably more thorough piece:

After word spread over the weekend about Luetkemeyer's successful amendment, a number of leading scientists decried what they viewed as the politicization of research. A Science magazine blog quoted Jane Lubchenco, an environmental scientist who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as saying: "Science should not be partisan. It is highly unfortunate that in many cases it is."

Emphasis added.

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...

The League of Conservation Voters released its annual environmental voting scorecard today.  Eighty-one House members received "zero" ratings for their votes against clean energy and commonsense pollution safeguards -- and four of those zeros came from Missouri.  

Here's how the LCV summarizes their methodology:

“While the lack of progress in 2010 is highly disappointing, we applaud those members of Congress who fought to protect public health and the environment and reduce our nation’s dangerous dependence on oil,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, LCV Senior Vice President of Government Affairs. “Conversely, the 2010 Scorecard clearly exposes those members who put corporate polluters and other special interests ahead of the health and well-being of all Americans by opposing efforts to transition our nation to a clean energy economy, enforce commonsense pollution safeguards, and protect the environment.”

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.

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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."

No matter what happens, I'll hold onto the conspiracy theories and believe global warming is a big hoax.

Meanwhile...

Two reports released this week have "reaffirmed the integrity of the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the scientists involved in the so-called 'Climategate' affair."

But I haven't seen a peep out of Blaine Luetkemeyer, Ed Martin, Peter Kinder, silly Star columnist E. Thomas McClanahan, Ed Emery, Doug Funderburk, Vicky Hartzler or any other climate change deniers apologizing their uniformed hysteria, or even explaining how they're still smarter than people who actually study climate science.

Another day, another tweet that reveals Peter Kinder's way-outside-the-mainstream thinking:

In other news, a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences "underscores the widespread consensus among climate scientists that human activity is driving climate change."

Impressive stuff from Kit Bond at a Tuesday press conference about the EPA's conclusion that greenhouse gases endanger human health:

It doesn’t help [Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski's] case that the press conference she called on the measure Tuesday featured some of the Senate's all-stars of climate denial. There was Inhofe, who reaffirmed his belief that global warming is the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." There was Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, who noted that, "Without carbon, my trees would die. Carbon occurs naturally." And there was Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming, whose contribution was, "People are breathing out CO2 all the time. Would that be a violation of the Clean Air Act under this law?"

What a dumb comment.

Bond has fought hard to muddy the waters and mislead the public about climate change and clean energy legislation.  Last summer, he told KY3 that "there is not a crisis in global warming."  He's also been called out by the Star for "wildly overestimat[ing]" the costs Missouri farmers would see under the House-passed clean energy bill. 

Grist: "It was the hottest April on record in the NASA dataset. More significantly, following fast on the heels of the hottest March and hottest Jan-Feb-March on record, it's also the hottest Jan-Feb-March-April on record...Most significantly, NASA's March prediction has come true: "It is nearly certain that a new record 12-month global temperature will be set in 2010.'"

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer infamously tried to cut funding last year for the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) because he thought those hippie scientists were "incompetent" and "engaged in dubious scientific quests."  In February, Luetkemeyer declared that global warming and climate change is "a hoax. It's nonsense. It's a bunch of green folks who think they know how to live better than you do."

Sadly, Luetkemeyer isn't the only Missouri politician with his head in the sand:

• Roy Blunt says "There isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth."
• Peter Kinder says climate change is a "massive fraud."
• Kit Bond says there isn't a global warming crisis.
• Todd Akin doesn't believe in global warming, and even if it's real, he's excited about the idea of oceans rising so high he surf in Washington, DC.
• Birther Reps. Tim Jones and Casey Guernsey teamed up to attack a local scientist for wanting to discuss what Jones called "the voodoo science you and your ilk have attempted to hoist upon the international community."
• Fourth Congressional District candidate Vicky Hartlzer calls global warming "a hoax."
• More than fifty House Republicans co-sponsored a resolution in January declaring that the IPCC was engaged in "fraud," and referred to "climate change" only in scare quotes.

Tuesday, the Missouri House debated a resolution from Rep. Doug Funderburk (R-St. Peters) expressing disapproval with the proposed federal clean energy bill. Predictably, the debate devolved into a conversation about the reality of global warming and climate change. The most frustrating exchange was one between Funderburk and Birther Rep. Ed Emery (R-Lamar).  It's a long and mind-numbing dialogue, but preserved for posterity here.

Mike Carey, president of the American Council for Affordable and Reliable Energy, was on KMOX's Hancock & Kelleyshow last week to talk about new billboards his organization is financing in the St. Louis area.  The American Council for Affordable and Reliable Energy is a Washington, D.C.-based group financed by coal companies created to protect companies' ability to pollute at their current unsustainable levels.

In the interview, Carey was unable to provide the name of a single funder or supporter unconnected to the coal industry, and struggled to explain why his organization was not running similar ads in any other areas of the country. And just in case you thought the ads weren't political in nature, Carey admitted on air that his organization has only tried to purchase ads in one other Congressional district in the country: Arkansas's Second.  But when Democratic Congressman Vic Snyder announced that his retirement in January, Carey and ACARE lost interest.

Carey was last seen in St. Louis at the November 2009 "Tea Party" as a keynote speaker, along with the recently-arrested James O’Keefe.  The St. Louis Tea Party wrote at the time that Carey created his organization last year "when he saw that misinformation and lies were beginning to shape the political landscape on coal and global warming." Before serving as president of the ACARE, Carey was president of the Ohio Coal Association.

Frustrated with the proceedings of a mid-February hearing of the House Energy and Environment Committee, a citizen who testified briefly sent a frustrated email to the full membership of the committee.  He was frustrated with the way Chair Walt Bivens allocated time for different points of view. 

In response, Representatives Casey Guernsey (R-Bethany) and Tim Jones (R-Eureka) -- a pair of Republicans who collaborated last year in propagating birther conspiracy theories -- unleashed angry responses. The offending citizen letter and emails from Guernsey and Jones can be read below the break.  I've redacted the name of the individual who sent the letter -- his testimony is part of public committee documents, so I'll leave it to others if they want to criticize him by name.