The Arctic I.Cc.E. Project

Barton. It Rhymes with Dishearten.

Maybe someone can explain to me why some Texas Republicans are so threatened by the notion of climate change? The latest example is House Energy Committee Chairman Rep. Joe Barton, who has asked several prominent climate scientists to turn over the field research, data, the computer codes they used to reach conclusions about climate change and even their funding sources.  He says it is so he can better understand their reasoning.  (Wink. Wink. Nudge. Nudge.)

When I heard about this, I told myself there was nothing to be gained by calling the man names like "The Joe McCarthy of Climate Change" or "Commissioner of the Thought Police".  No, rather than stoop to that level, I decided to give him some constructive advice.  Earlier today I sent the Chairman an email and suggested that obtaining data from three scientists wasn't enough. No, if he wanted to really do the country a service, he should also demand the details of the science used by the following companies, countries, organizations and individuals when developing their climate change policies. And then went on to list nearly two hundred energy companies, governments, Republican members of Congress, Republican mayors, organizations and individuals.  I won't burden you with the entire list, but here's a small sample. It includes liberal wackos like Sunoco, Shell, BP, GE, and Cinergy.  Entire governments -- like the rogue nations of Canada, Great Britain and the Netherlands - have been duped by the tree huggers. The list even includes fringe elements like former Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Ted Stevens (R-Alasksa), New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) and Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski (also an R).

My point, of course, is that if Cong. Barton does the math, he'll see that he and his cadre of Texans plus one Oklahoman (Sen. Jim Inhofe) are part of a shrinking elite: people who still believe climate change is a hoax. Never mind that we are the only country left on earth that can't read a thermometer.  Never mind that an overwhelming number of scientists believe that not only is climate change a fact and not only have humans contributed to it, but that the phenomenon appears to be accelerating.  And never mind that the few scientists who say "Hog wash" to global warming almost always receive funding from ExxonMobil.

Cong. Barton refuses to let facts stand in the way of his conspiracy theory.  He ignores descriptions of the millions of dollars of climate-related damage occuring in the states of his fellow Republicans.  Cong. Barton even manages to stick his fingers in his ears and sing "La, la, la, la" at the top of his lungs when big oil companies (with the exception of ExxonMobil) try to tell him that the heat is on.

These unbelievable achievements have won Cong. Joe Barton of Texas this month's Big Drip Award, named of course, for the nagging sound that glaciers make when they melt.  A plaque inscribed with the Congressman's name and the words "Believes the Earth is Flat and Tobacco is an Herbal Supplement" will be sent to him shortly.

The March Big Drip Award

The Big Drip, an honor named after that nagging sound a glacier makes when it melts, is awarded each month to an individual or organization that, through ignorance, conflicts of interest, greed or old fashioned malice, is contributing to Arctic climate change.  This month's award goes to the senior Senator from Oklahoma, James Inhofe.

Inhofe believes that "poorly designed environmental regulations have been a large contributor to the energy problems we now face."  The view that environmental concern causes energy problems distinguishes Inhofe from the other 99 Senators who are more inclined to believe that energy consumption causes environmental problems. 

It takes tremendous courage to maintain such a solitary position and look the other way in the face of incontrovertible evidence.  Remaining righteous is made all the more difficult by Inhofe's Chairmanship of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, a job that, if he chose, would allow him to gather information and counsel from some of the best scientific minds in the world. It's a temptation that Inhofe has steadfastly resisted.

In fact, with nothing more than an undergraduate degree in economics, Inhofe has managed to conclude that global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."  And he's got research to prove it.  The Chairman found climatologist Dr. George Taylor, who says that Arctic temperatures are actually slightly cooler today than they were in the 1930s.  Though Inhofe does not explain why Taylor's findings are more credible than the hundreds of scientists whose research shows just the opposite, the Senator calls Taylor's work "pretty convincing stuff."

But he doesn't stop there.  Earlier this year Inhofe presented the Senate with a list of several scientists who disagree with the findings of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA).  He could have settled for the names of just one or two dissenters, but that's not good enough for Jim Inhofe.  He didn't stop until he was able to hold up a list of -- uh -- several.  These courageous individuals are not about to be swayed by the ACIA, a study that's accepted by most scientists, researchers and experts in the world today as the single most comprehensive look at Arctic climate change that's ever been done, that took three years to produce and involved the combined efforts of over a dozen nations and 300 scientists.  No sirree.  When the future of the Arctic is at stake, why believe the ravings of a few hundred elitist scientists when there's a former Oklahoma Realtor telling you how to think?

(FINE PRINT:  While Inhofe admitted that his list was compiled by the Center for Science and Public Policy, he neglected to say that the Center is part of a tax-exempt organization that receives most of its funding from Republican groups, the tobacco industry and Exxonmobil.)

Anyway, what's most remarkable about Inhofe, the reason he really deserves this award, is the depth of his convictions, his ability to stir and drink his own Koolaid.  Senator Inhofe believes that the climate disruptions we're experience --from the doubling of the rate at which the world's largest glacier slides seaward, to the melting of Alaskan permafrost at record rates and the fact that the Northwest Passage will become navigable year-round within five years -- he thinks these changes and thousands of others are clearly part of a natural climactic cycle.  One that must occur every -- oh, 400 million years or so -- since there is no record of this cycle in human history.

The point is that Senator Inhofe's willingness to shut his eyes, stick his fingers in his ears and drown out the world-wide scientific consensus by singing "la-la-la-la", represents a rare force of will. 

It's the Inhofes of this world who kept us from falling for that guy Christopher Columbus who kept raving about the planet being round or something. It's men like Jimmy Inhofe who stood between our schools and some ridiculous Copernican model of the solar system that puts the sun -- that's right! -- the sun in the middle instead of the earth. 

No, without Jimmy's unflinching rejection of thousands of scientific findings, without his condemnation of any environmental group that is not funded, at least in part, by Exxonmobil or the American Petroleum Institute, the United States might find itself in the company of some very irresponsible countries, like Great Britan, New Zealand and Germany, that believe human beings are causing climate change and are making effort to do something about it.  Without Inhofe, we might have actually joined the Kyoto Protocol and be working along side rogue nations like France, Sweden, Canada, Italy -- stop me at any time here --- Denmark, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Finland, -- just say when --- Belgium, Russia, Norway, Iceland, Japan, Argentina, Korea -- any time now -- Chile, Columbia, Thailand, Costa Rica...

I think you get the point.

So, if there ever was a man who deserved the Big Drip, it's Senator James Inhofe.  My only regret is that he wasn't around when we really needed him. You know, when we gave in to those quack scientists who claimed that tobacco causes cancer.

The Big Drip Award

This month I'm initiating an award, The Big Drip, named after that nagging sound that glaciers make when they melt.  And the inaugural Big Drip winner is: the city government of Houston, Texas, which refuses to use the words global and warming in the same sentence.  Likewise for the words climate and change.

Houston merits this award because, as the city's director of health policy, Elena Marks explained on February 8th, city officials do not -- must not -- use the words global warming when devising ways to protect citizens from rising seas. "Within the city we speak in terms of sustainable development", Marks said, "and try to depoliticize climate change and what it will involve. We try to use language that doesn't put people off."

Call me crazy, but isn't that like preserving someone's peace of mind by putting them on chemo without mentioning the word cancer?  Apparently, Houston city initiatives fare best when residents are spared the upset of the ugly truth.

Ah, but here's the tiny flaw in Mark's and White's mums-the-word strategy. Even if they manage to eliminate the "GW" words from their vocabularies, residents will certainly hear them spoken by others. They'll watch CNN or read USA Today and learn of this week's conference at Rice University describing the actions of 13 of the world's largest coastal cities to prepare for the all-but-inevitable rise of the oceans in the years to come.  Houston is one of those cities.

Won't the Houston city government lose more than a little credibility when residents learn that Houston is unique among these 13 cities in pretending that its evacuation plans and other taxpayer funded safeguards have been designed to protect them from -- what? -- really, really, really high tides?   

Can you say "Houston, we have a problem"?

You gotta wonder whether this "keep-them-in-the-dark-for-their-own-good" strategy has anything to do with the fact that Houston is in the heart of oil country and hydro-carbon emissions, produced when oil is burned, are widely believed to be a primary source of global warming?  Would it have anything to do with the fact that oil company taxes are an important source of city revenue? Or that oil companies were big supporters of Mayor White's election campaign?   Of course not. And shame on me for even speculating.

I will endeavor to send the Mayor and Ms. Marks their award trophy soon.  It is a spiffy little vial of Arctic glacier water on which I wrote their names in Magic Marker.  A small trinket to remind them of that phenomenon that doesn't exist but which they are working so hard to protect themselves against.