Salon.com: Anti-Science Conservatives Must Be Stopped

[Hissyspit]

Anti-science conservatives must be stopped

Americans must not allow global warming deniers to block the policies needed to avert catastrophic climate change. Our future is at stake.

By Joseph Romm

June 30, 2008 | Conservatives put on a spectacular display of scientific ignorance this month in the U.S. Senate. During the debate on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which would regulate carbon dioxide by setting a cap on emissions and allowing emitters to trade carbon allowances, most Republican senators questioned the reality of human-caused climate change or ignored the climate threat entirely and repeated the talking point that the bill would raise gasoline and electricity prices. It was as if they had been locked in an isolation booth for the past decade. Let's go to the highlights.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.: "The vast majority of scientists do not believe that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are a major contributor to climate change."
Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.: This bill means "people must turn off air-conditioning in the summer."
Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.: "This bill will attack citizens at the pump" and "increase job losses."
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.: This bill will "leave us less competitive in the world marketplace."
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.: This bill "could bankrupt U.S. air carriers."
Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo.: "Nobody in their right mind" believes we can get half our power from wind and solar or drive a "fleet of golf carts."
Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo.: "It's unclear as to what the long-range trend is as far as the temperature of the Earth is concerned."

Conservatives sure are good at staying on message, even one that has no basis in fact. None of their scientific or technological claims is true and most of the economic claims are a wild exaggeration based on studies funded by fossil fuel companies. This may be a defining moment for humanity according to the world's increasingly desperate climate scientists, but to many conservatives it's apparently just another moment to score political points at the expense of future generations.

It's a terrifying thought. If the science of the last few years and the painful reality of a changing climate haven't persuaded the conservative movement of the dire nature of human-caused global warming, I can't imagine what chain of catastrophes would. We've already had record-breaking droughts, heat waves, wildfires, deluges, super storms and flooding at home and abroad -- just as climate science predicted. And we've had far more loss of ice from Greenland, Antarctica and the Arctic Sea than anyone expected.

A National Journal poll in June found that only 26 percent of GOP Congress members believe "it's been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the earth is warming because of man-made pollution." That matches their constituents -- only 27 percent of Republicans say the earth is warming because of human activity. Needless to say, if you don't believe humans are the cause of global warming, you're not going to believe that humans are the solution to global warming.

The global warming deniers and delayers managed to squash the Lieberman-Warner bill, although its authors promise it will be back next year. Even so, the policies needed to avert catastrophic climate change require so much effort and so much political consensus that conservatives can probably block them. The truth is, the bill would not have put the nation on a path to avert catastrophe. The science has already moved far past the legislation. We can no longer base our efforts to tackle climate change on hopes of reducing our own emissions at some point in the future or on letting others reduce emissions for us.

Progressives should stop playing the conservatives' game and promote a radical redesign to climate policy focused on aggressive deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency. Right now, progressives and moderates in and out of Congress are pushing an economy-wide cap on greenhouse gas emissions, which creates a market-based price for carbon, which in turn increases the cost of all carbon-based fuels, including oil. Not only does this give conservatives a powerful talking point against the legislation, it doesn't do much to reduce emissions in the transportation sector. You need an absurdly high price for carbon to have even a modest impact on oil consumption.

To avert disaster, we need to cut carbon emissions in the transportation sector some 60-80 percent by 2050. How high would the price of gasoline have to be? It would have to exceed $10 a gallon. Yet a serious price for a carbon emission allowance of even $400 per metric ton (which is three times the current price for carbon in the European Trading Scheme) would raise the price of gasoline only $1 a gallon. That price for carbon and that boost in gasoline prices is almost certainly a non-starter in this country.

If I were writing climate legislation, I would leave transportation out of the cap and trade system. Why legislate what is inevitable anyway? The price of petroleum, gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel are going to soar in the coming years because we haven't had intelligent energy policy for decades. Let our previous stupidity and myopia drive the price higher for the foreseeable future.

Next page: Note to Charles Krauthammer: Have you ever met a scientist?

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[Mr. Blonde]

1. Pushing alternative energy sources is the way to go

People vote with their pocketbook at every opportunity.

The fact that energy alternatives save money should be hammered into people at every chance. Regardless of someone's stance on global warming, they still believe in saving money.

[Norrin Radd]

3. What alarms me is that BP propaganda short that's being

aired recently in the commercial breaks during Countdown. The actors in it wonder out loud how the oil companies are going to address and usher in alternative energy. This floors me! Why do the oil corps think that they should be the ones who control alt energy, or that we automatically assume so? Yikes!

[zeos3]

2. Link, please

[Hissyspit]

5. LINK Here:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/06/30/climate_act

sorry bout that

[Diclotican]

4. Hissyspit

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.: This bill "could bankrupt U.S. air carriers."

The US airliners are doing a great work at bankrupt itself, and don't need a environmental bill to get them grounded.. That is something they manage quit well themself...:sarcasm:

But when it come to environmental protection. It is in no doubt that US need a strong bill. We all need a strong bill, in every one nation to protect our wildlife and our nature against pollution. It could not be a rocket si entice to understand that protection our nature, is protecting our own future... To blaim that US would not be productive in the future because of this bill is just stupid. Why can Japan, and many other nations manage to have a strict protection of the nature, and still be one of the most productive country in the world?..

The Katrina's of this would, who devastated a whole big city in the proses is not the first, and not the last to hit big city's and replace a lot of people in the proses.. If we as human want to live by the sea in the thousands.. Then we need to do it right, and protect our environment.. If we don't then we can expect more of the same.. And US have allot of city's who could be hit by this type of storms...

Diclotican

Sorry my bad english, not my native language