Elections Have Consequences

And among the consequences of the last one is another GOP war on science.

Witness the House Energy And Commerce Committee yesterday. From the NYTimes:

Moving on a central tenet of the Republican energy and environment platform, a House committee on Tuesday approved a measure to halt the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed program to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Republican leaders promised a floor vote on the bill before the Easter recess.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the bill, known as the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, by a vote of 34 to 19. Three Democrats, Representatives John Barrow of Georgia, Jim Matheson of Utah and Mike Ross of Arkansas, voted with the unanimous Republican majority.

The bill would repeal the E.P.A.’s finding that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases are a threat to human health and the environment and would bar the agency from imposing new rules to control them. Its Republican sponsors argue that new limits on greenhouse gas emissions from refineries, power plants and other major sources would drive up energy prices, depress the economy and hamper job creation.

And here's what the EPA said in December, 2009:

After a thorough examination of the scientific evidence and careful consideration of public comments, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that greenhouse gases (GHGs) threaten the public health and welfare of the American people. EPA also finds that GHG emissions from on-road vehicles contribute to that threat.

GHGs are the primary driver of climate change, which can lead to hotter, longer heat waves that threaten the health of the sick, poor or elderly; increases in ground-level ozone pollution linked to asthma and other respiratory illnesses; as well as other threats to the health and welfare of Americans.

And:

Scientific consensus shows that as a result of human activities, GHG concentrations in the atmosphere are at record high levels and data shows that the Earth has been warming over the past 100 years, with the steepest increase in warming in recent decades. The evidence of human-induced climate change goes beyond observed increases in average surface temperatures; it includes melting ice in the Arctic, melting glaciers around the world, increasing ocean temperatures, rising sea levels, acidification of the oceans due to excess carbon dioxide, changing precipitation patterns, and changing patterns of ecosystems and wildlife.

And here's where the EPA begin:

The Administrator has determined that the body of scientific evidence compellingly supports this finding. The major assessments by the U.S. Global Climate Research Program (USGCRP), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the National Research Council (NRC) serve as the primary scientific basis supporting the Administrator’s endangerment finding

The U.S. Global Climate Research Program according to its website "research carried out under the auspices of a number of Agencies of the US Federal Government." And they are:

• Agency for International Development
• Dept. of Agriculture
• Dept. of Commerce, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Admin. (also, National Institute of Standards and Technology)
• Dept. of Defense
• Dept. of Energy
• Dept. of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health
• Dept. of State
• Dept. of Transportation
• Dept. of the Interior, US Geological Survey
• Environmental Protection Agency
• National Aeronautics & Space Administration
• National Science Foundation
• Smithsonian Institution

You can read their latest findings here. They include:

Global temperature has increased over the past 50 years. This observed increase is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases.

And:

Climate-related changes are already observed in the United States and its coastal waters. These include increases in heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening growing seasons, lengthening ice-free seasons in the ocean and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, and alterations in river flows. These changes are projected to grow.

And so on.

The IPCC report can be found here. (We all know the anti-science crowd doesn't accept anything the IPCC says as credible so let's not waste any time going there. It's still true, however, that the Earth is warming and that Greenhouse Gasses are largely to blame.)

And the National Research Council's Division of Earth Science says:

A strong, credible body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems, concludes this panel report from the America's Climate Choices suite of studies.

None of that science had any meaning for the anti-science Republicans now running the House Energy and Commerce Committee who voted against this:

Congress accepts the scientific finding of the Environmental Protection Agency that ‘‘Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level.’’.

They then voted (all the Republicans on the committee and three democrats) voted in favor of HR 910 - which denies the science. All that science ignore for all that Koch money.

Elections have consequences, in this instance it's a mind-numbing war on science.

For The Climategate Files

Way back in late November 2009, Republican Senator James Inhofe announced on (of course) Fox "News" that he was calling for an investigation into the so-called Climategate emails.

Take a look (the announcement is about 3 minutes in):


And in late May of 2010, he sent a letter to the Inspector General of the Department of Commerce requesting an investigation. He also requested an investigation into Dr. Jane Lubchenco. You remember Lubchenco, right? She was quoted recently by the editorial board of the Tribune-Review. Inhofe was apparently unhappy about her testimony to Congress when she said:

The [CRU] emails really do nothing to undermine the very strong scientific consensus and the independent scientific analyses ofthousands of scientists around the world that tell us that the earth is warming and that the warming is largely a result of human activities. "

Which is the truth, apparently, but apparently annoyed Inhofe nonetheless.

So what happened with the investigation? You guessed it. From The Hill:

A Commerce Department inspector general investigation into the “Climategate” controversy finds that government scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration did not manipulate climate change data.

It’s the latest investigation to clear scientists of manipulating climate data after thousands of e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit were leaked in 2009.

“Climategate” has become something of a rallying call for climate skeptics, who have pointed to the e-mails to suggest there is a conspiracy among the world’s scientists. But a slew of investigations into the e-mails have cleared scientists of any wrongdoing.

Something we probably won't be seeing anytime soon on the Trib's Op-Ed page. The same Op-Ed page that only last November published:

If the work of blame-mankind climate "scientists" were unimpeachable, they wouldn't be gearing up for a charm offensive.

Seven hundred global-warming doomsayers have agreed to defend their dubious "science" publicly under the auspices of the American Geophysical Union. And 39 Chicken Littles have signed up for a separate "climate rapid response team" organized by a professor at Minnesota's St. Thomas University for deployment to radio and TV talk shows.

Both efforts smack of increasing desperation fueled by the blame-mankind crowd's credibility crumbling beneath the weight of the scandalous Climategate e-mails, which show data manipulation, and greater public recognition of their leftist big-government agenda. That's why skeptics of global-warming orthodoxy make up half of the new GOP members just elected to Congress.

But I digress.

Here's the report Inhofe requested. And the jackpot:

In our review of the CRU emails, we did not find any evidence that NOAA inappropriately manipulated data comprising the GHCN-M dataset or failed to adhere to appropriate peer review procedures. In addition, we found no evidence to suggest that NOAA was non-compliant with the IQA or the Shelby Amendment.

And let me write that again: No evidence NOAA inappropriately manipulated the data.

Will Senator Inhofe be making an announcement to that effect on Fox "News"? Will Scaife's braintrust?

We won't be holding our breath.

Yet Again...

Scaife's braintrust over at the Tribune-Review tries, yet again, to claim some sort of upper hand regarding climate science.

And they make a huge embarrassing blunder doing it.

Take a look:

If the work of blame-mankind climate "scientists" were unimpeachable, they wouldn't be gearing up for a charm offensive.

Seven hundred global-warming doomsayers have agreed to defend their dubious "science" publicly under the auspices of the American Geophysical Union. And 39 Chicken Littles have signed up for a separate "climate rapid response team" organized by a professor at Minnesota's St. Thomas University for deployment to radio and TV talk shows.

So what's so embarrassing about that?

Simple. It was published November 13 and the American Geophysical Union has already released a statement 5 days ago saying the initial reporting at the LA Times was "innacurate."

Did the Trib miss it? Did they not bother to check? What an embarrassment - either way.

More embarrassing is the braintrust's continuing denial of reality:

Both efforts smack of increasing desperation fueled by the blame-mankind crowd's credibility crumbling beneath the weight of the scandalous Climategate e-mails, which show data manipulation, and greater public recognition of their leftist big-government agenda. That's why skeptics of global-warming orthodoxy make up half of the new GOP members just elected to Congress.

Climategate? They're resting this on Climategate?

From the AP, March 30, 2010:

The first of several British investigations into the e-mails leaked from one of the world's leading climate research centers has largely vindicated the scientists involved.

The House of Commons' Science and Technology Committee said Wednesday that it had seen no evidence to support charges that the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) or its director, Phil Jones, had tampered with data or perverted the peer review process to exaggerate the threat of global warming — two of the most serious criticisms levied against the climatologist and his colleagues.

In its report, the committee said that, as far as it was able to ascertain, "the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact," adding that nothing in the more than 1,000 stolen e-mails, or the controversy kicked up by their publication, challenged scientific consensus that "global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity."

From the Science Assessment Panel, April 10, 2010:

We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit and had it been there we believe that it is likely that we would have detected it. Rather we found a small group of dedicated if slightly disorganised researchers who were ill-prepared for being the focus of public attention. As with many small research groups their internal procedures were rather informal.

From the NYTimes, July 7, 2010:

A British panel on Wednesday exonerated the scientists caught up in the controversy known as Climategate of charges that they had manipulated their research to support preconceived ideas about global warming.

But the panel also rebuked the scientists for several aspects of their behavior, especially their reluctance to release computer files supporting their scientific work. And it declared that a chart they produced in 1999 about past climate was “misleading.”

The new report is the last in a series of investigations of leading British and American climate researchers, prompted by the release of a cache of e-mail messages that cast doubt on their conduct and raised fresh public controversy over the science of global warming.

All five investigations have come down largely on the side of the climate researchers, rejecting a number of criticisms raised by global-warming skeptics. Still, mainstream climate science has not emerged from the turmoil unscathed.

Some polls suggest that the recent controversy has eroded public support for action on climate change, complicating the politics of that issue in Washington and other world capitals. And leading climate researchers have come in for criticism of their deportment, of their episodic reluctance to share data with climate skeptics, and for not always responding well to critical analysis of their work.

“The e-mails don’t at all change the fundamental tenets of the science,” said Roger Pielke Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado. “But they changed the notion that people could blindly trust one authoritative group, when it turns out they’re just like everybody else.”

I take it there are more reports exonerating the CPU. Not that it matters. It's like the braintrust inhabits a different reality. Where is their evidence that "climategate" is anything other than a faded photograph of a puff of smoke in a hall of mirrors?

They don't have any because that evidence doesn't exist. All they have is the (false) assertion that Climategate somehow undermined the science.

It didn't.

Repeating the lie that it did doesn't make it so.

Speaking of rightwing climate change crazie, get a gander at this from the Toronto Star:

U.S. Representative John Shimkus, possible future chairman of the Congressional committee that deals with energy and its attendant environmental concerns, believes that climate change should not concern us since God has already promised not to destroy the Earth.

Some background:

During a hearing in 2009, he dismissed the dangers of climate change and the warnings of the scientific community by quoting the Bible.

First, he noted God’s post-Flood promise to Noah in Genesis 8:21-22.

“Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though all inclinations of his heart are evil from childhood and never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.

“As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease.”

“I believe that’s the infallible word of God, and that’s the way it’s going to be for his creation,” Shimkus said.

Then he quoted Matthew 24:31.

“And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of the heavens to the other.”

“The Earth will end only when God declares it’s time to be over. Man will not destroy this Earth. This Earth will not be destroyed by a Flood,” Shimkus asserted. “I do believe that God’s word is infallible, unchanging, perfect.”

While I usually think the lines from the 11th century poet unfair as the distiction between those with brains and those with religion is too harshly drawn, in this instance Abul'-Ala' al-Ma'arri was more than adequately describing Shimkus when he wrote:

The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts:
Those with brains, but no religion,
And those with religion, but no brains.

Such unending and frightening ignorance. Even more frightening that it's found a comfortable home deep in the GOP.

Special Comment About The Election

Since I have nothing original to say (ever), I found some snippets of what some other folks have written around the blogosphere to reflect what I am thinking right now.

David Neiwert at Crooks and Liars:

...I blame the geniuses in the Democratic Party -- both in the White House and elsewhere -- who failed to establish firmly the narrative after the election that needed to be hammered home daily and relentlessly and fearlessly: that Americans had repudiated conservative rule because it had manifestly proven itself a failure. Instead, Democrats thought "bipartisanship" was more important. Sure it was.

This clearly was The Fox Election. This was a political victory entirely engineered by a fake "news network" that in reality is a relentless and powerful right-wing propaganda machine. Democrats need to wake up and figure out how they're going to beat it.

Then from a few days before the election there was Jodi Jacobson at Reality Check. She starts out saying she was a "soccer mom" for Obama but now has hung up her cleats (it's a metaphor - it means the Dems have lost her support).

She explains her disappointment with the Obama administration.

I never thought for a split second that it would be easy for Obama to turn things around after eight years, or that any of it would happen over night.

I certainly never thought it would happen without a fight.

But the bottom line is I expected him to fight. I expected him to understand that the change many of us sought was the use of political power for good, that we had delivered this Administration and the Democratic Party massive election turnout and a Democratic House and Senate to lead effectively, proactively, strongly, and vocally on economic change, health reform, climate change, energy use, education, women's rights, gay rights, science and evidence. This was not wishful thinking--Obama was on the record for every one of these things in the campaign. [Italics in original]

She goes on:

I did expect him to take action, not to spend months--in fact nearly two years--vacillating between preemptive compromises with a Republican party that set out on November 3rd, 2008 to destroy him before he even took the oath and continuous pleading with them to give him "their ideas." I think we already knew what those ideas were.

One more on "bipartisanship" with the GOP:

I did expect him to put John Boehner, Mitch McConnel and the rest of the wrecking crew in their place, making them compromise with him, instead of the other way around.

If there was an "enthusiasm gap" it's found in places described by Neiwart and Jacobson. Add to that the noise emanating from the propaganda machine known as Fox "News" and the Democratic Party's apparent lack of interest in denouncing every "death panel" lie, every "Obama raised taxes on everyone" lie and you get something close to last night's results.

Not surprising, really. But they blew it. Blew it big time. The biggest Congressional margins in decades and they blew it because they didn't realize that the GOP was never looking to play nice with them in the first place.

And because of that, for the next two years (at the very least) we'll be seeing House hearings on Climate-gate, Hawaiian Birth Certificates, and how Obama's racist Department of Justice turns a blind eye to voter intimidation when the intimidators are two black men in Philadelphia. We may even see hearings on how George Soros funded all that ACORN voter fraud.

And no compromises, no bipartisanship whatsoever from the GOP. John Boehner has already promised that one.

They blew it.