Ted Cruz seeks to be the anti-Galileo of our time

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Ted Cruz is a hyper-partisan ideological extremist with deep-rooted cynicism. He's also a fucking idiot.

Because if he actually believes this, if this is more than just pandering to the ignorant Republican base, he basically disqualifies himself from reality:

Speaking to the Texas Tribune on Tuesday, Cruz said that contemporary "global warming alarmists are the equivalent of the flat-Earthers."

"You know it used to be it is accepted scientific wisdom the Earth is flat, and this heretic named Galileo was branded a denier," he said.

In Cruz's opinion, when it comes to climate change, his denier position places him alongside 17th Century scientist Galileo Galilei, who was also considered to be denying the mainstream knowledge of his day. According to Cruz's logic, he is taking the minority view that human-caused climate change is not happening, just as Galileo took the minority view that the scientific method should be trusted over the Catholic Church.

That's right, Galileo was a scientist. And, contra Cruz, what Galileo was denying was not the "accepted scientific wisdom" of the day but the prevailing religion-based ignorance of the day. Galileo was a scientist challenging anti-science. Cruz is an anti-scientist challenging science. If anything, Cruz is the anti-Galileo, exactly the opposite of his ridiculous claim.

But in related news -- and I kid you not, this is true! -- when Cruz fell out of bed the other night, having wet his shorts with the liquid poop he shits through his urethra, he floated up to the ceiling and remained there suspended in a state of trance-like hyper-sleep, his anus pulsating as it pulled sulfur out of the atmosphere to feed his enraptured body, his nose emitting oxygen waste, until sea creatures pulled the sun back from its resting place across the eternal waters of bliss and he slipped back down between the sodden sheets, finally awaking to the sound of trumpets played with Miles Davis-level intensity by a band of Norwegian sheep living in his bathtub.

It's science! Fuck you.

As Republicans stick their heads even further up their asses, anthropogenic global warming continues to wreak havoc, with global catastrophe likely inevitable

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From the Times:

A large section of the mighty West Antarctica ice sheet has begun falling apart and its continued melting now appears to be unstoppable, two groups of scientists reported on Monday. If the findings hold up, they suggest that the melting could destabilize neighboring parts of the ice sheet and a rise in sea level of 10 feet or more may be unavoidable in coming centuries.

Global warming caused by the human-driven release of greenhouse gases has helped to destabilize the ice sheet, though other factors may also be involved, the scientists said.

The rise of the sea is likely to continue to be relatively slow for the rest of the 21st century, the scientists added, but in the more distant future it may accelerate markedly, potentially throwing society into crisis.

"This is really happening," Thomas P. Wagner, who runs NASA's programs on polar ice and helped oversee some of the research, said in an interview. "There's nothing to stop it now. But you are still limited by the physics of how fast the ice can flow."

Note here, once again, how scientific research produces not inflammatory polemics but cautious, nuanced conclusions and sober, reasoned projections -- this is science.

In contrast, the head-up-the-ass denialism that governs the Republican Party, and pretty much the entirety of American conservatism today, with respect anthropogenic global warming in particular but also with respect to science in general, is rooted in ideology, igorance, and bias, much of it theocratic.

But the latter, given America's corrupted two-party system and much of the country enthusiastically basking in abject ignorance and bias, is politically powerful enough to paralyze the U.S. from doing anything to respond to a mammoth crisis despite almost the entire scientific community reaching the same conclusions about global warming.

And that's not about to change anytime soon, what with Republicans pushing their heads further up their asses, not least to appeal to a base deeply rooted in various forms of reality-denialism. (Marco Rubio made the latest stupid comments, but he's the rule, not the exception.) Which only makes global catastrophe even more likely, and perhaps even inevitable. It's really just a matter of when.

Reality will never intrude on the deniers' views

By Comrade Misfit

There is yet again another study which shows that polar ice is melting at an accelerating rate.

Phil Plait seems to think that the global warming deniers will eventually come to grips with reality. I am not so optimistic. In a country were something like 46% of the population reject the theory of evolution in favor of the "majickal sky-fucker" belief and where a similar number reject geological evidence in favor of the "presto-chango, now there is Earth" belief, it doesn't matter how many scientific studies are done and how much data is presented. They will never be convinced. For they are immune to evidence.

And yet, the same people who deny the reality of evolution will then condemn the Taliban for burning down schools and condemn the Saudis for their extremely misogynistic society. And they will never entertain the thought that there is not very much difference between all of them.

You simply cannot fix stupidity that is driven by religion. 

(Cross-posted at Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I.)

The climate trap

By Infidel753

About a year ago, I wrote this post speculating that the Republican party's commitment to global-warming denialism constituted a danger to its own future political prospects -- as the effects of anthropogenic global warming become more severe over the next decade, and the denialist position becomes untenable even to non-scientists, the party will suffer due to its identification with a stance which will have become obviously false, and its refusal to recognize an increasingly clear danger.

The point occurred to me again yesterday in the wake of a week in which Obama has clearly risen significantly in national polls, while Romney has clearly fallen. There's been a lot of speculation as to the reasons for this. Democratic attacks on Romney's parasite-capitalist record at Bain have taken their toll, but that's been going on since long before last week. The biggest recent event, the Supreme Court's Affordable Care Act (ACA) ruling, doesn't account for it since Americans are exactly evenly divided on the decision, 46% to 46%. Obama's plan to grant de facto amnesty to young illegal aliens was clearly popular, but it's hard to imagine that it shifted many voters from Romney's camp to Obama's -- the more likely effect will be to boost Hispanic turnout.

The most dramatic event affecting the country over the last week was actually the record-breaking heat wave, accompanied by storms which knocked out power (and thus air conditioning) to millions.  While political junkies on both sides were transfixed by the ACA ruling, my guess is that for ordinary Americans (at least in the affected areas), it was the heat wave that had their attention.

Is the climate trap beginning to be sprung? It seems plausible that a few percent of the population who had previously dismissed global warming might be reconsidering -- and feeling less sympathetic to the party that insists nothing is going fundamentally wrong with the climate. Another factor is that people suffering from a natural disaster (regardless of what they believe about the cause of that disaster) are more conscious of the need for government to help out its citizens in time of need -- and the Democrats put more emphasis on that function.

I posted a comment suggesting this idea at this Republican site (see comment 29). It's actually a moderate site by Republican standards (during the primaries most posters supported Romney over his wackier rivals), yet the response, to put it mildly, shows well how futile it is to try to discuss this topic rationally with right-wingers. Their commitment to global-warming delialism is absolute, and impervious to evidence or logic. I didn't try to argue with them, since (as explained in the prior post), it's in our interest that Republicans remain committed to that stance for as long as possible. Whether or not the climate trap has anything to do with current polling, the rightists are continuing to march truculently into its jaws.

The thread also exemplifies another looming trap -- the bizarre hysteria of the right wing's reaction to the ACA ruling, which we've seen all over the net in the last few days. Obamacare will bring totalitarianism, mass poverty, death panels, economic collapse, insurrection, the break-up of the country, you name it. The trap here is the inverse of the global-warming one -- over the next couple of years, as the law takes effect and no such horrors materialize, the Republicans' histrionics will make them look silly, and like the boy who cried wolf and shouldn't be trusted again.

On global warming, evolution, Keynesian economics, and so on, the U.S. right wing has committed itself to reality-denial and a self-contained fantasy world. But reality has been defined as "that which doesn't go away when you stop believing in it." Global warming isn't going away, and people who insist on denying reality usually end up getting run over by it.

(Cross-posted at Infidel753.)

Mitt Romney wasn't a global warming denier before he was

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(From Think Progress.)

Mitt Romney in June (similar to the Mitt Romney of the past, if more wishy-washy):

I don't speak for the scientific community, of course, but I believe the world's getting warmer. I can't prove that, but I believe based on what I read that the world is getting warmer. And number two, I believe that humans contribute to that. I don't know how much our contribution is to that, because I know that there have been periods of greater heat and warmth in the past but I believe we contribute to that. And so I think it's important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may well be significant contributors to the climate change and the global warming that you're seeing.

Mitt Romney on Thursday:

My view is that we don't know what's causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us...

I think the EPA, acting in concert with the president, really doesn't like oil, gas, coal, and nuclear... I really do believe that the EPA wants to get its hands on all of energy and be able to crush it to cause prices to go through the roof... [T]he EPA should not be regulating carbon dioxide.

Which is the real Mitt Romney? Does it matter anymore? Does he even know who he is anymore?

How does he have any credibility left (even within his own party)? Because he certainly doesn't have any integrity. He's basically a business-oriented center-right technocrat who's now selling out to the far right (aka the GOP base). And he's completely shameless about it, now going so far as to embrace global warming denialism, rejecting the overwhelming scientific consensus and taking unsubstantiated partisan shots at the EPA, which of course one must do to get anywhere in the GOP.

What was that Jon Huntsman was saying about Romney being "a perfectly lubricated weathervane"?

Craziest Republican of the Day: John Raese

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Surprise!

The Republican candidate for Senate from West Virginia is a global warming denier. As he put it in an interview with RealClearPolitics, quoted at Think Progress:

The oceans that surround the world produce 185 billion tons of CO2 per annum. Man per annum only produces six billion tons, so what could possibly be the concern? One volcano puts out more toxic gases-one volcano-than man makes in a whole year. And when you look at this "climate change," and when you look at the regular climate change that we all have in the world, we have warm and we have cooling spells.

I suspect that global warming denying is quite common in coal-rich West Virginia, but of course it's a pretty standard position throughout the Republican Party -- even if, in this case, Raese looks especially stupid. As Think Progress notes, showing him to be a fool and perhaps a liar:

Human activity puts about 29 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, well over 100 times as much as all the volcanoes in the world. The oceans actually vent about 332 billion tons of CO2 per year, but also absorb that much. Human emissions have disrupted the balance of the carbon cycle, leading to rising concentrations of greenhouse pollution in the atmosphere. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 40 percent, and global temperatures are on an inexorable rise, overwhelming any natural cycles.

Not that the facts are stopping him, as he is hitting his opponent, Gov. Joe Manchin, hard on energy and the environment:

Raese said that his campaign will launch a new television ad on Tuesday hitting his opponent-Democratic Governor Joe Manchin-for pushing through the state legislature last year the Alternative and Renewable Energy Portfolio Act, which compelled West Virginia's utilities to obtain 25 percent of their electricity from alternative energy sources by 2025.

"We call it cap and trade Manchin-style," Raese said. "Do the people of West Virginia trust a governor in the state of West Virginia who has already implemented cap and trade here in West Virginia? They're a little concerned about sending him to Washington right now."

Right, it's just a market-based system, spurring innovation in the private sector, designed to address the most pressing crisis of our time. Why would a Republican ever oppose that?

Obviously, Raese is playing on fear, anger, and ignorance in a state that is worried about the loss of the coal industry. Given the poor state of the electorate, it may just work.

Especially if enough voters buy his utter craziness about volcanos.

How "Climategate" is a phony, manufactured scandal

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Here's a must-read: "A Case Of Classic SwiftBoating: How The Right-Wing Noise Machine Manufactured 'Climategate'," by Lee Fang at Think Progress.

It's right on the mark. Here's a taste:

While the hacked e-mails may reveal that scientists might not have nice things to say about climate change deniers at times, they do nothing to change the scientific consensus that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use are raising temperatures and making oceans more acidic. As the right attempts to use the Climategate story to derail the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference this week, arctic sea ice is still at historically low levels, Australia is still on fire, the northern United Kingdom is still underwater, the world’s glaciers are still disappearing and today NOAA confirmed that not only is it the hottest decade in history, but 2009 was one of the hottest years in history. But how did the right-wing noise machine hijack the debate?

Read on.

Sarah Palin and "Climategate" propaganda

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

I really don't want to waste my time blogging about Sarah Palin's ridiculous op-ed in yesterday's Washington Post on "Copenhagen's political science," that is, on what she (or whoever really wrote the piece) thinks is the politicized science behind global warming.

Needless to say, she plays up the right's (that is, the denialists') talking points on those hacked University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU) e-mails.

Among other idiotic things, she calls the CRU researchers "so-called climate change experts," dismisses "the radical environmental movement" as some nefarious force behind "politicized" science, claims there is "no real consensus" among climate change researchers, suggests there are "strong doubts" among scientists regarding historical temperatures (implying there are similarly strong doubts regarding global warming generally), and refers to the supposed "agenda-driven policies" at Copenhagen.

Thankfully, Marc Ambinder has performed an invaluable service in providing an annotated rebuttal to Palin's op-ed. Read it in full. His key points (with my comments) include:

-- "By 'radical,' Palin means the overwhelming scientific consensus... The global warming consensus minus the East Anglia contributions is still a strong consensus, one that has been regularly, repeatedly and independently verified." (I would add, of course there are disagreements between and among scientists. Science isn't religion or ideology, it's an ever-evolving quest for the truth ascertained through the scientific method. When it comes to climate change, what's truly remarkable is that there is such an overwhelming consensus. Denialists take this as proof of some grand conspiracy, which is just silly. What it really means is that, whatever minor differences there may be, climate change researchers are in general agreement about the key points. It isn't a conspiracy, it's the truth.

-- "These are experts. Their science has been validated, independently. Their 'actions' here consist of insulting climate change skeptics, immature name-calling, and, at worst, devising a strategy to keep the climate change deniers out of debates and peer-reviewed journals. The 'concerns' that Palin speaks of are the result of years of accumulated science denialism that now, conveniently, has been seemingly 'validated' by the fog of a grand conspiracy, suddenly revealed." (Yes, the e-mails make them look bad, but it doesn't make them wrong, or a part of some grand conspiracy.)

-- "[T]he politicization came about as a response to an extremely well-funded political campaign by those whose bottom lines would be most harmed by carbon taxes, cap and trade schemes and the like." (That's right, the blame belongs with the denialists and their industry backers, who are doing everything they can to undermine the consensus and turn the public against the truth about climate change.)

There you go.

**********

For more on the faux scandal known as "Climategate," see my post "Hacking reality: 'Climategate,' denialist propaganda, and the truth about climate change."

See also Brad Plumer's recent post at TNR's The Vine.

I see what you do here

By Carl

OK, so I'm half-asleep, and I notice this little item on Memeorandum this morning, and nearly spit out my coffee:

As President Obama heads to Copenhagen next week for global warming talks, there's one simple step Americans back home can take to help out: Stop "going green." Just stop it. No more compact fluorescent light bulbs. No more green wedding planning. No more organic toothpicks for holiday hors d'oeuvres.

December should be national Green-Free Month.

My first reaction is, "Mike Tidwell must have had a stroke or something," because he's been pretty much at the forefront of the battle over Louisiana wetlands preservation since I can remember.

Plus, and worse, I see that Ann Althouse has linked to this piece, which means that there's a whole shitbag full of ignorance about to pop out of the right-wing blogosphere.

Uh oh, says I... another environmental expert has been gotten to, and paid off. This can't be good.

Imagine my relief, then, when I read on...

Instead of continuing our faddish and counterproductive emphasis on small, voluntary actions, we should follow the example of Americans during past moral crises and work toward large-scale change. The country's last real moral and social revolution was set in motion by the civil rights movement. And in the 1960s, civil rights activists didn't ask bigoted Southern governors and sheriffs to consider "10 Ways to Go Integrated" at their convenience. [...]

For eight years, George W. Bush promoted voluntary action as the nation's primary response to global warming -- and for eight years, aggregate greenhouse gas emissions remained unchanged. Even today, only 10 percent of our household light bulbs are compact fluorescents. Hybrids account for only 2.5 percent of U.S. auto sales. One can almost imagine the big energy companies secretly applauding each time we distract ourselves from the big picture with a hectoring list of "5 Easy Ways to Green Your Office."

As America joins the rest of the world in finally fighting global warming, we need to bring our battle plan up to scale. If you believe that astronauts have been to the moon and that the world is not flat, then you probably believe the satellite photos showing the Greenland ice sheet in full-on meltdown. Much of Manhattan and the Eastern Shore of Maryland may join the Atlantic Ocean in our lifetimes. Entire Pacific island nations will disappear. Hurricanes will bring untold destruction. Rising sea levels and crippling droughts will decimate crops and cause widespread famine. People will go hungry, and people will die.

*WHEW* That's the Mike Tidwell I've read and learned to respect!

And he's right. The problem is big, way too big, to be solved by people making individual choices.

They help, to be sure, but unless you're like me and have made an absolute commitment to minimizing your carbon footprint, the sum total will only be large drops in the bucket.

And keep in mind, I'm as left as they come without a hammer-and-sickle shoulder patch! And there's still plenty of "carbon fat" that I need to whittle away at in my life.

The evidence with respect to climate change is undeniable, despite the last-gasp efforts of the right wing to take what amounts to a first reading of a play as evidence of a conspiracy on the part of climatologists to deny the truth.

Tidwell's point about civil rights is even dated and almost obsolete. Hell, we've had government intervention in making a mass exodus to a new technology this. fucking. year. already! No one on the right breathed word one about conspiracies and interventions there, threatening to have the FCC chairmen jailed.

If we can do this because the frickin' broadcast airwaves were effectively polluted and overheated, then we cannot deny, cannot ignore, and cannot delay, government intervention on our own lives. Period. End of discussion.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Taking the heat

By Carl

Kudos to the University of East Anglia for snuffing out a phony crisis quickly:

The reverberations continue from what the University of East Anglia says was the illegal dissemination of thousands of files from its Climatic Research Unit (CRU). Over the weekend university officials put out an update saying 95 percent of the raw land-surface temperature data in question have been available to scientists and skeptics for several years, although Roger A. Pielke Jr. of the University of Colorado, Boulder, said he was told differently as recently as August. (Realclimate.org posted the locations of various data sets.) He credited the university and climate center for moving now to be clearer about the data archives and to provide more access. “When the data is available in its original form those skeptical of climate science can then do the temperature math themselves out in the open where everyone can see their work,” Dr. Pielke wrote on Sunday. “If the global numbers come out as CRU has presented over the years, then it will strike a blow to skepticism about global temperature trend records produced by CRU and restore a good deal of credibility to this area of climate science.”

Global climate change is real, undeniable, indisputable (except in niggling details), and the single biggest threat to United States security as well as the security of the world.

Far greater than terrorism. Far greater than thermonuclear weapons in the hands of Iran. Far greater than the economic threat posed by China.

And yet, the goo-sucking morons among us cling to this thin reed of a tempest-in-a-teacup as the smoking gun to overturn the enormous data supporting climate change, as if somehow a crowbar could move a mountain. Fortunately, those voices have withered in the hot wind of real information and sunshine transparency.

To recap this middling-to-nothing contretemps, a hacker busted into the email of UEA and stole thousands of files and e-mails which were basically works in progress, carefully sifting through the data to cherry pick only those bits that either distorted or disputed conventional wisdom with regards to climate change.

None of the stolen data was ever in any way, shape or form cleared by the standard peer review process, a dynamic the yo-yos on the right might consider employing in their own attempts to debunk what they perceive as a threat to their lazy greedy livelihoods.

"Peer review." The scientific method, where before a paper is published in an acknolwedged academic publication, it has to be examined, defended, and then approved by a panel of the peers of the author. Dissenting opinions are noted (usually in an addended article), and rebutted if possible.

None of this rigorous thinking or advocacy exists on the right, which has ceded thinking to those of us in the reality-based dimension.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Hacking reality: "Climategate," denialist propaganda, and the truth about climate change

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I've been meaning to post for a while now on the whole "climategate" thing, the supposed scandal uncovered in those hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climactic Research Unit. Global warming skeptics/denialists on the right are obviously making a big deal of those e-mails. What they seem to think is that they reveal some sort of grand conspiracy to cover up the truth, to fix the evidence around what amounts to a massive hoax, a scandal that undermines the entirety of climate change science. But to me, all they reveal is that there isn't any conspiracy at all, that it's all much ado about very little. Here's TNR's Brad Plumer:

From what I've gathered, the stolen e-mails reveal that climatologists are: a) engaged in a lot of boring and dry data-crunching, b) extremely hostile toward global-warming skeptics like Cato's Pat Michaels, and c) not always nice people.

I think that's exactly right. As is this:

One major question is whether any of the stolen e-mails show that climate scientists are somehow fudging data. And the answer, as best I can tell, is "certainly not."

Some of the e-mails may be "unseemly" -- or, rather, what is contained in some of them is -- and they do at the very least create the impression of impropriety on the part of some climate change scientists, but that's it. What they show is that these scientists are all-too-human, that there is politics within the scientific community, and that the scientific community isn't a monolith of unitary thought. There is disagreement, there is bitterness, and there is pettiness, but there is no overriding "fraud" -- and there is no scandal. (Make sure to read Brad's post in full for context.)

Skeptics/denialists are making so much of this, and predictably so, and they will no doubt continue to select decontextualized points to back up their indefensible case. It is essential, as always, to push back. Here's an excellent post on "climategate," quoted in full, by Alan Colmes:

Climate scientists who just released "The Copenhagen Diagnosis" say ice sheets are melting at an increased rate, and future sea-level rise will be higher than previously forecast. But scientific evidence means nothing to those with an anti-global warming agenda, who point to illegally hacked mails to try to prove that global warming is a hoax. Sadly for them, the anti-global-warming hysteria isn't all it's cracked up to be.

The ugly part of this has more to do with scientists jockeying for position and arguing over how to best put forth their theories in a contentious political climate. The uglier part is those who are distorting this for the purpose of advancing anti-environmental theories. RealClimate puts it in perspective.

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to 'get rid of the MWP', no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no 'marching orders' from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People working constructively to improve joint publications; scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and engaging in 'robust' discussions; Scientists expressing frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense. None of this should be shocking.

Out-of-context cherry-picking is the furthest thing from science.

But, then, so is global warming denialism, and so is the right's manufactured "climategate" scandal. In the real world, where science trumps propaganda, or at least where science reveals the truth and propaganda seeks to obscure it with lies, the struggle to address the most pressing crisis of our time, a crisis that could very well lead to massive global destabilization and genocide, continues. And it is the scientific community, occasional unseemliness and all, that leads the way.

It's all about the money with them

By Carl

Nevermind that the long term costs of global warming are staggering. Nevermind that even the short term costs of global warming are staggeringly high.

No, it's all about the pennies we might save by doing nothing:

WASHINGTON — Republicans boycotted the start of committee debate Tuesday on a bill to curb greenhouse gases, protesting that the bill's costs have not been fully examined. The action put a spotlight on the difficulties Democratic leaders face in moving climate legislation this year.

Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio attended the session for 15 minutes to explain the GOP's argument for staying away. He insisted the tactic "is not a ruse" to block the bill, but concern that its widespread impact on the country has not been made clear.

But Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, the panel's chairman, argued the EPA already has provided "a full blown economic analysis" and that Majority Leader Harry Reid has promised further studies when the bill is merged with other legislation. She insisted "we're not rushing we are taking our time."

HOW MUCH HANDHOLDING DO THESE NIMRODS REQUIRE?

Reid, Pelosi, and Boxer ought to just run roughshod over the Republicans in Congress, just the way the Republicans ran roughshod over the Democrats under the Bush administration.

Eff 'em, if they can't take a joke. Elections have consequences, deficits don't matter (Cheney), and Go Fuck Yourself (Cheney redux).

Progress cannot come from cons, neo or otherwise. They aren't "pro," they're "con" for a reason.

Probably because the future is now, for them. Today matters more than tomorrow, except when it's a Democrat buying the drinks.

Then somehow yesterday matters more than today, but not as much as tomorrow, which matters less than today anyway.

Re-read that again. It made sense when I put on my Republican hat.

There's this weird dynamic in the Republican party that it seems one can never get a cogent answer on any issue they disagree with. It's one thing to be the loyal opposition, to oppose things on principle, to say that this is wrong because it specifically opposes a parameter that is generally believed to be good for the nation.

It's another thing to throw a five year old's tantrum and say "No! No! No!"

When I was in college, serving on the student council, I made arguably the stupidest speech of my entire life. I said, in effect, "this is wrong because I think it's wrong," with respect to a proposal offered up by the minority party.

Now, I'm a wise man, brilliant at times, but even as the words left my mouth, I realized how stupid it was for me to say that and not have a very specific objection. It made me look stupid, but worse, it made opposition to the proposal look stupid.

You can see where I'm going with this: to knee-jerk reactively say that even discussing solutions to global warming is wrong simply because they might cost us a few bucks makes any legitimate concerns about the solutions involved seem petty.

Say they'll be ineffective (be specific) and you might have my ear. Say they'll be inefficient, and you'll have my ear.

Tell me they'll cost too much, and I'll tune you out nearly as fast as I tune out climate change deniers.

Republicans have become Johnny One-Notes, and they're taking up the kazoo.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Veterans push back against Big Oil

Guest post by Frankie Sturm

Frankie Sturm is communications director at the Truman National Security Project and a free-lance journalist.

Ed. note: As part of our ongoing relationship with the Truman National Security Project, I'm pleased to announce that we'll be cross-posting some pieces from Operation FREE, a new initiative that seeks to raise awareness about the links between climate change, energy, and national security -- an extemely worthwhile endeavour, to be sure. Operation Free's coalition includes the Truman Project, the National Security Network, VoteVets.org, and VetPAC. I encourage you to check out Operation FREE, including its blog. The first post, below, is from my friend Frankie Sturm.

**********

No one is surprised that the American Petroleum Institute (API) is pulling out all the stops to prevent meaningful climate and energy legislation. By fronting a so-called "grassroots" organization called Energy Citizen, API is trying create the impression that the public is opposed to taking action to curb climate change and lessen our dependence on oil. But by busing in API employees, handing our hamburgers and hot dogs at rallies, and denying entrance to Energy Citizen events to actual citizens, few are buying API's Potemkin publicity. And there's one group in particular that isn't having any of it: veterans.

On August 20, veterans pushed back against Big Oil in a conference call with reporters. Drew Sloan, veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and former employee of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, referred to climate change as "death by a thousand cuts." Iraq veteran Scott Holcomb reminded those on the call how military personnel know that "tomorrow isn't promised," arguing that tomorrow is too late to begin taking action against climate change. All the veterans on the call expressed dismay that oil companies would be standing in the way of legislation to curb climate change and reduce our dependence on oil. They pointed out that a changing climate will destabilize volatile regions of the world, put U.S. military installations at risk, and force the U.S. to respond to natural disasters and humanitarian catastrophes.

The Financial Times and Grist magazine covered the veterans' push against big oil, while Jim Morin of Operation Free and Lee Gunn of the American Security Project -- both veterans -- took to the pages of The New York Times to explain the links between climate change and national security.

[Ed. note: You can read Mr. Morin's and Admiral Gunn's letters to the editor here. Morin: "Put quite simply, if we refuse to fight climate change, we're choosing to put more American military men and women in harm's way." Gunn: "The writing is on the wall. The question is not whether we act or not, but whether we do so now or later, and deal with much more dire -- and expensive -- consequences." -- MJWS]

Craziest Republican of the Day: Joe Barton (for his idiotic "Carbongate" crack)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yes, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), for suggesting that Obama has a "Carbongate" to rival Nixon's Watergate. And why? Because, if you haven't been following the story -- and it's the right that has been making much ado about nothing -- the EPA refused to release a global warming denialism study by one of its economists, one Al Carlin. Here's TPM's Pete Martin:

[Carlin's] cause has become a favorite of right-wingers, who suddenly believe science to be sacred, and are charging that the Obama administration is "suppressing" a report whose conclusions it dislikes. The anti-regulatory Competitive Enterprise Institute first publicized Carlin's report last week. Since then, Carlin has discussed his "findings" with Glenn Beck on Fox News, and on Monday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) called for a criminal investigation into the issue.

Now, Rep. Joe Barton is taking the outrage to a new level. [Yesterday] morning on America's Newsroom, the industry-friendly Texas Republican accused the EPA of suppressing the report, and declared that "just as Nixon had Watergate, Obama now has Carbongate to deal with."

(Note that Barton called Carlin "a scientist at the EPA." In fact, Carlin has worked for the agency since months after its founding in 1971, but he does not hold an advanced degree in any natural science, and he has always worked as an economist.)

So just to compare: Watergate involved the cover-up of a criminal enterprise directed from the Oval Office. "Carbongate" involves the EPA ignoring a scientific study by a non-scientist that it never commissioned and which hasn't been published in any scientific journal.

Of course, these denialists don't give a shit about science. Their industry-driven propaganda is at odds with what is a remarkable consensus among the world's leading researchers. Unable to win on the facts, they're resorting to smears, to allegations of some Obama-led cover-up, touting as science what is really just ideological deception.

It's all so predictable, and all so pathetic, and all so popular on the right, and, alas, all so prevalent, still, with an American public that in large numbers has been taken in by the propaganda.

As for Barton, it seems that Inhofe now has a challenger to his title of Most Deranged Denialist.