This from Politico a few days back – the House Energy and Commerce committee which wants to block EPA rules basically (they want to override EPA on the science of global warming, cuz they’re all such great climatologists) – now want to forbid EPA from declaring carbon dioxide to be a greenhouse gas. Truth. They really do – rename it and problem goes away.
“Some Republicans refuted the claim that global warming science has been settled. “We should not put the U.S. economy in a straightjacket because of a theory that hasn’t been proven,” said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas). “To put this amendment into the law I think would go against everything that people on both sides of the aisle say they’re for.””
That’s kind of the same reasoning John Yoo used to define torture – “it’s torture when it results in organ failure”. And heaven’s sake, we don’t need seawalls just because floods might happen. And why vaccinate little Johnny when it’s probably going to be little Susie who gets polio? Seat belts? Nonsense, I can’t see the car around the corner that’s going to hit me!
When Barton’s ‘proof’ arrives, it will be too late; perhaps he’ll see it when his favorite golf course is underwater.
And then there was this from Ezra Klein:
Confronted by one of the most significant threats our planet faces, the 31 House Republicans charged with coordinating America’s response refused to even admit the underlying facts.
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
Whatever Works 
They don’t worry about the future because when the Rapture comes they’ll all be whisked off to heaven with their bags of cash…
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I thought they were leaving the cash and gold on the street with their clothing! Heck, that was the only reason I’ve been looking forward to the Rapture.
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I’ll take the cash and gold. You can have the clothes, although I thought you had better taste, Moe. Have you seen what some of those fundies wear? Yikes! That’s why Elvis is going to whisk them away sans clothing.
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You can have the cash chappy, but Glenn Beck has whispered in my ear that I should grab the gold.
When the day comes, I dearly hope there’s sufficient warning so we can cover our eyes . . .
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In the 10.000 years context – human societies do most often collapse as resources are exhausted, or the environment poisoned and ruined.
Mr. Barton goes front and center.
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That’s exactly right. Archelologists who examine ancient Urban Revolution sites find that the cities fell into ruin because of pollution, and exhausted resources of the region. Archeologists in the future will discover the same conditions as they dig up our cities that lay in ruin. That is of course assuming that we don’t drive ourselves to mass extinction first.
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Not looking too good for us actually. Back in the ‘fear of the atomic bomb’ days, nobody wanted it to happen but beleived it could. Today, heh, today our political class just don’t care.
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You got that right. BTW, what are you bringing to the rapture? I was thinking of bringing triscuits and buffalo chicken dip. I want to have something to munch on while all the nut job conservatives are getting swallowed into the earth by Beelzibub 😉
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Well, I have a lot of lawn chairs, so maybe I should bring those?
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Joe Barton is a wholly-owned whore of the oil industry. He’s shameless and disgusting and should probably be caged, with or without benefit of law.
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And yet his whoredom is called a ‘point of view’.
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It’s already too late. We are well above a 350 parts per million carbon count now, and even if all man made forms of carbon emmission were to end now and we began hard work to reverse it, it will be centuries before we could bring it back down. 350 is the magic number kids. Read the book “Eaarth” with two ‘a’s.
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I’m a McKibbon fan too! I also read Eaarth and he’s absolutely right. I remember Al Gore speaking of the tipping point, which is the thing we all fear, that moment when nothing we do can mitigate the changes that are coming.
When facts on the ground finally make it impossible to deny that it’s happening, I expect the deniers to segue right into arguing that we should welcome the changes – and people who can’t deal with it just aren’t trying hard enough so they will be blamed of course – for being hungry and such other sins.
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Right on. Someone will make money on this either way. And desperation and suffering just boost profits.
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Ms. Holland,
Why do you believe in man made global warming ?
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I beleive my eyes Alan and listen to people who know stuff – like NASA and the Pentagon. It’s happening – has been for 20 years; things are moving much faster now.
The right used to deny the warming. Then over hte last ten years, as the evidence piled up, they stopped denying it was happening and took up the cry that it isn’t man made.
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Ms. Holland ,
What do your eyes tell you about global warming ? Oh, we on the true right are still denying it . The late March 2 day snow storm I just lived through makes the denying easy . Didn’t you guys have a major citrus crop freeze this winter ? I know, I know, it is all consistent with climate change .
I work outside and my eyes tell me the opposite of whatever your eyes tell you .
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Check out the definition of climate change Alan – local weather (which is what a snowstorm is) doesn’t have any impact on planetary statistics. Go check out what’s happening to the snowcap in the Himalayas – pretty soon, the steady runoff that’s nourised entire nations will be gone. Tens of millions of people will be displaced. Some of the smaller Pacific island of “Polynesia”, are becoming uninhabitable; their populations are being resettled elsewhere. But the most visible? The opening of the fabled Northwest Passage and the resultant fight over resource among northern nations – mainly the US, Russia and Canada.
And then look at planetary temperatures – the ‘aughts’ included nine of the warmest years in the history of man (40,000 years or so). We’ve had climate shifts before of course – they used to take a few millenium; this time it looks to be under 50 years. That’s a violent shift and this time we have seven billion humans on the planet to worry about.
Go ahead and don’t beleive it. The globe doesn’t care what anyone thinks.
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I love the ” look at all the snow and ice” argument. What people tend to overlook is the fact that our increase in average temps is creating more precipitation.
While we may be getting more snow and ice, average temps are still above normal. Storms are becoming more severe no matter what the season, because the atmospheric temps are higher. I can’t remember the last time our winter time temps in the midwest hit single digits for more than a day or two.
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For the second year in a row, we had a cold winter here in South Florida – this is something that happens now and then and normally wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. But now some climatologists are saying that for us, this may be the ‘new normal’ – the winter cold air is being pushed further south by the warmer northern temps – or something like that.
And yeah, when I hear ‘but we had a big snowstorn’ I just want to turn away.
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LOL, every time I hear that, I can’t help but think about my biology class from last year. We were having a huge debate in the discussion boards about global warming. The only person who didn’t belive in it kept harping on the fact that she had more snow than ever during the winter, therefore global warming was a myth. Her argument was ” well we had a snow storm in early march and it killed off my tulips!”
What was sad about her argument is that she lives in the mountains of Northern California, where, you know, there’s a lot of snow in the winter. She never made the connection between the fact that there was more precipitation in the atmosphere and the increased frequency of severe storms.
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More precipitation from more moisture in the air from more condensation from higher temperatures. It’s not hard, but then . . .
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Yup. Of course the same people who poo-poo our environmental crisis are the same people who think our economy can be fixed by giving more money to the incredibly wealthy, while systematically breaking down the poor and middle class. I can has Republican logic? Geez.
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You can haz, I can haz, we all can haz, cuz it looks more and more like that’s our ‘new world order’.
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You can haz, I can haz, we all can haz, cuz it’s looking more and more like that will be our ‘new world order’.
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Ms. Holland , Beneath The Tin Foil Hat ,
I seem to detect snickering among the both of you . You obviously are far smarter than the woman who had her tulips killed by a snow storm and of course you are smarter than myself . So in the public interest, I request you two clear up something for me, because I am not up to your level of understanding .
Tell me please, why the local weather in the Himalayas, Polynesia, and the ” fabled Northwest Passage ” is more important than the local weather over Florida and Pennsylvania in determining climate change . I am counting on your generosity, because the difference just went over my Global Warming Denier head .
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“the difference just went over my Global Warming Denier head”
That’s because you’ve got your head up your ass.
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Rofl!
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I think Mr. Scott just got “Ric Rolled.” 🙂
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Come on Alan, you’re just messing with us. Those things aren’t weather. The Himalayas are continent sized and as such drive entire weather systems. Polynesian islands are suffering what’s happening across the world’s oceans. And the melting Artic (also continuent sized) is a bit more significant than snow in your backyard.
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Another thing to consider is that the two biggest carbon sinks in the world are now two of the biggest contributors. The Amazon basin with its ever shrinking river due to rapid evaporation as well as massive deforestation. Then we have the ever thawing arctic tundra, which is releasing massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere. The methane not only contributes to the greenhouse gasses; it’s also destabilizing which means at some point we may very well bear witness to the big kaboom.
Of course that’s the last thing we’ll witness, right before we’re all flame broiled to ashes. Then the whole global warming argument will be a moot point…
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I don’t know, maybe we should reconsider jumping aboard that Rapture Wagon?
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Maybe so, Earth is a living breathing entity, just like everything that exists upon it. I have a distinct feeling it is working overtime to correct the unbalance we have thrust upon it. It that’s true, there may be a mass extinction in our life time: Us.
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Well we’ve been doing a hell of a job shutting down the ‘lungs’ with deforestation and rainfall destruction.
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Ric,
” That’s because you’ve got your head up your ass. ”
I was as polite as I could be in discussing the topic and you just put the debate into the gutter . I have been trying to follow the spirit of the words of our President who said ” it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds. ”
Again I was trying to be civil and you kicked me in the teeth . I am upset and shocked at your language .
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Nonsense. You’re a full-of-shit troll. Your so-called politeness is nothing more than a cover for your arrogance and your ignorance. If you want to argue global warming go to a legitimate climatology site. Maybe they can slap the stupid out of you. Frankly I’m sick of you clueless wonders who know nothing, who can’t reason your way out of a wet paper bag, and yet presume to know more than thousands of professional scientists who have studied climate for decades. You don’t want to see facts and evidence because you haven’t got the brains to understand any of it. So yes, you have your head up your ass and that’s why you’re full of your own shitty nonsense.
Sorry, Moe. He’s pathetic.
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Ric,
I can match you scientist for scientist, expert for expert. But how about you and I talk about the false predictions ” your experts ” have made ? Katrina was supposedly caused by Global freakin Warming . Well did Climate Change reverse itself ? We were predicted to get more Cat 5 storms in the Gulf of Mexico. Last I heard New Orleans the big easy is still there .
Some global warming clown in England predicted that English school children soon would only know about snow from history books and pictures because England would warm up that much . Well they have been getting freak snow storms like the rest of us .
And tell me Dr. Rick, what makes you qualified to tell me I am wrong ? Are you a Meteorologist or are you just an Al Gore zombie ?
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Actually you can’t match expert for expert, etcetera, but you are proving my hypothesis about you, which states that every time you open your mouth in public you prove my opinion of you is correct. So you just go ahead and keep talking. You’re amusing now and then. But I won’t engage in argument with you: there’s no point – you’re not good at it, and you choose to be willfully ignorant and arrogantly proud of your ignorance, a constellation of personal attributes that comprise the attribute of stupidity.
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Ric,
So you saying that you will not engage in arguing with me means you are giving me the last word, thank you . Very generous of you .
The difference between us is that I welcome testing my ideas against people who disagree with me . It strengthens my arguments . Your ideas only survive in an echo chamber .
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I do believe that I can now safely upgrade my hypothesis to the status of theory, and can safely add ‘insufferable prig’ to the list of your proven attributes.
Sometime you might try testing your ‘ideas’ against reality instead of merely spreading your bilious spew of ignorance on the blogs of other people.
And you might want to look up the difference between meterology and climatology before you try to pass yourself off as knowledgeable in either field.
You may have all the last words you want. It is certain that none of them will be your last, until your dying day, and that the vast majority of them will be drenched in the self-deluding fires of ignorance.
Have a nice day.
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“The difference between us is that I welcome testing my ideas against people who disagree with me”
Well, no, that’s not true. You spew the lies and ignorance that the Oil Company Fairies James Inhofe and Joe Barton whisper in your ear in the middle of the night. And apparently you only regurgitate their bile at sites like Moe’s where no one is an expert on climate change, but where most of the readers are intelligent and informed and have some genuine understanding of how science works. You never present reasoned arguments based on legitimate fact and evidence and research. You merely assert your ignorance.
Which is to say you are too much a coward to go to a site like Real Climate and present your so-called ideas to experts in climate science. I predict that if you do go there you won’t make a serious effort to understand the science, that you’ll complain that they are lying or are corrupt or treated you badly. I think you have neither the spine nor the brains to do the work to understand global warming. Or much else, for that matter.
So, let me add to my theory about you the attribute of cowardice.
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Ms. Holland ,
” Well we’ve been doing a hell of a job shutting down the ‘lungs’ with deforestation and rainfall destruction. ”
I agree. Damned Brazilians keep cutting down the Amazon rain forests for their sugar cane plantations to make ethanol . That still doesn’t make global warming true .
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That’s Brazil. Idiots. But the entire Amazon basin is under attack, being razed so we can graze and feed more cattle, so McDonald’s can sell us more hamburgers so we can all die of coronary artery disease. Which is a good thing, because without the Amazon rainforests, there won’t be enough photosynthesis anyway and we’ll all be choking to death.
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Ms. Holland ,
” But the entire Amazon basin is under attack, being razed so we can graze and feed more cattle, so McDonald’s can sell us more hamburgers so we can all die of coronary artery disease. ”
Just a rootin tootin minute thar missy . I happen to be addicted to mushroom and swiss angus burgers . If you want to eat whatever liberals eat to stay healthy, no one is twisting your arm to stop at Ronald Mcdonald’s place . You almost give me a heart attack saying Ronald is responsible for flatnin the rain forest .
You owe Ronald a big apology. According to the website most of their beef is from good old American farms . The rest comes from our good friends in Australia and New Zealand .
The Hamburglar, Ronald, and Mayor McCheese would never be guilty of what you accuse them of .
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And here I thought trolls lived under bridges and ate squirrels. Thanks for setting the record straight.
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He’s right within the modern context. McDonalds largely stopped using South American beef, both due to consumer pressure (free market forces do work) and issue with diseases and parasites in the beef (regulation can work as well).
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I never argued that fact. The point I’m presenting is that he’s a troll, merely looking to start a fight. At least when you and Pino come calling, you take the time to provide facts to support your opinions, and you don’t bring in the condescending attitude. I can respect that. Mr. Scott, not so much.
He swoops in claiming to want more information, and when you give it to him, he attacks without providing support to his claims. Than when he gets his hands slapped for his boorish behavior, he feigns insult. His fact about McDonalds would be the first accurate claim I’ve seen him provide. Though it was presented in the condescending manner I previously mentioned.
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Beneath The Tin Foil Hat ,
I might have to start a new club . Trolls for truth . Correcting your mistakes is a full time job .
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Alan,
It’s useless to attempt to converse with things like Ric; it is incapable of basic human interaction.
The correct course of action would be, of course, to exterminate it and anything so unfortunate as to have been sired by it, but we humans are an often overly kind species and allow such mockeries to thrive.
Therefor, ignoring it or spurning it as one would spurn any other vermin is the best course of action.
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…said the guy talking like a cheap Hollywood imitation of a psychopath and whose icon looks like a bad B-movie’s idea of a psychotic.
You guys should get together. You’ve earned each other. Try not to breed.
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