Senator Rockefeller, for instance, said: “I am not here to deny or bicker fruitlessly about the science… In fact, I would suggest that I think the science is correct. Greenhouse gas emissions are not healthy for the Earth or her people, and we must take significant action to reduce them. We must develop and deploy clean energy, period.”
And yet the man voted to hamstring the EPA. Indeed, Senator Rockefeller intends to push his own bill that would put the EPA's effort to confront global warming on hold–giving West Virginia's coal industry a free pass for two more years.
Senator Chambliss from Georgia, meanwhile, said, “I know the climate is changing.” And Senator Hutchison from Texas declared: “As a solution to climate change, we need to work together to promote the use of clean and renewable sources of energy….It is important that we work together. We are the elected representatives of the people.”
And yet both of them voted against one of our main tools for combating global warming pollution: the EPA.
I'm sorry, but if you really believe this is a crisis, why wouldn't you want to fight it with every weapon available? Why wouldn't you deploy the muscle of both Congress AND the federal government?
While I was listening to last week's debate, I couldn't help but be reminded of teaching my three-year-old how to tie her shoes. I showed her how to do it with two hands, of course. Why on earth would I suggest she do it with one?
Yet that is what these Senators seem to be proposing. Senator Collins from Maine said:
“I believe global climate change and the development of alternatives to fossil fuels are significant and urgent priorities for our country.”
Why would she want us to fight global warming with one hand tied behind our back?
On the one hand, these statements are good news – despite the yelping of Inhofe and Hatch, the Senate is not a bastion of climate deniers. There's even a consensus that something must be done. The bad news is they're still not doing it. What is it that these Senators actually would support that isn't just some vague theory?
Part of the answer is surely that these contradictory positions reflect the schizoid attitudes that many voters hold.
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p>I know the climate is changing, and we have to do something, but if I have to pay even a penny more at the pump the deal’s off.
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p>I know that immediate action is necessary, so lets wait for zillions of R&D or nuclear power to bail us out in 30 years or so.
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p>I know this complex problem requires sacrifice and leadership, so please hand me a reason to not hope–to to fold my arms and blame someone else.
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p>I do not mean to let any of these rich, oil-marinated creeps off the hook, but they are mirroring their constituents.
Senatorial behavior will make more sense to you if you realize that these senators are just angling for more giveaways to corporations in the name of climate change. These take the form of subsidies for more expensive renewable energy, or loans/grants to companies to develop green technology. For instance BP gets money pumping oil, but their green campaign got them government money to NOT pump oil.
Interestingly, Scott Brown posts on Red Mass Group in “My Meeting With The President”:
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p>First, impressive that Brown posts directly on RMG on such subjects. Senator Kennedy was never so familiar with bloggers to the best of my recollection.
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p>Second, it sounds like Brown is ahead of Obama on this one, and closer to those who, like me, suggest that the government should take over B.P.’s operations on the Deepwater Horizon well, in the Gulf, or in the US as a whole. A lot of the RMG commenters agree with this position.
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p>Yo Senator Brown: that’s stupid. Quit your grandstanding. Every scientist and engineer? Even the nuclear physicists? The aerospace engineers? The forestry scientists? The civil engineers who design off ramps for interstates?
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p>18,000 Americans earn Ph Ds in science or engineering each year. Figure that most of ’em stay in America. That means that there’s what, 25 years worth working now, probably more. 450,000 of ’em. That’s just Ph D level — that doesn’t include those with masters or bachelors.
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p>Every scientist and engineer? Those who are working on breakthrough pharmaceuticals should stop? Those working on making sure that the buildings designed by architects won’t fall over? Those monitoring for earthquakes in California or tornadoes in Arkansas? The textile polymer chemists working on better fire-resistant materials for occupational safety?
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p>Why not amp it up? Every lawyer in America should be working on this, making sure that BP is held legally responsible. Every environmental firm should be working on this, squeegeeing pelicans. Christ. Every Republican who’s ever uttered “drill baby drill” in the country should be swimming in the oil filled gulf now working on solving his or her own stupid.
But sometimes a little red meat for breakfast just deserves a ‘6’.
in comments.
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p>God, you can read the authoritarianism (mostly followers) in just about every single conservative comment on that thread! They’re not interested in debate and hashing out things there – like just about every thread on BMG winds up being, even between same-winged commeters. Just stuff like “You’ve got our support!!!” and “lefty catch the T back to the fens and spout off with your boys” and “Keep the pedal on the floorboard Scott Brown!!!” and “WHAT SENATOR BROWN COULD SAY TO MR. OBAMA” (a little double high there, telling Brown what to say) and demanding that “We should not let this environmental disaster scare us away from drilling in the arctic.”
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p>Hilarious microcosm of what sort of people the GOP is made of…
And Maurice Strong’s 1992 Bernie Madoff global standard of living lowering tax to establish sociopathic global governance, School of America waterboarding rendition datamining surveillance world police state tazer grandma at the G20 meeting mandatory swine flu shot getting educational global citizen indoctrinating second Bilderberg ordered gun confiscating……..
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p>Oh yeah, that most definitively was not clear.