TIP-TOEING TOWARD EXTINCTION
On Friday I read a New York Times headline and my spirits rose: AMID EXTREME WEATHER, A SHIFT AMONG REPUBLICANS ON CLIMATE CHANGE. At last a maybe-too-late recognition of our looming catastrophe, so perhaps there was still hope.
I found that hope in the article’s second paragraph: “Members of Congress who long insisted that the climate is changing due to natural cycles have notably adjusted that view, with many now acknowledging the solid science that emissions from burning oil, gas, and coal have raised Earth’s temperature.”
What prompted the change of mind? Forest fires raging across the American West? The same in Greece and Turkey? Killer floods in Germany? The temperature on the sea-cooled island of Sicily reaching 124 degrees F? These clear signs just couldn’t be ignored any longer. Great! Was that why 19 Republicans joined all 50 Democrats in passing the one trillion dollar infrastructure bill last Tuesday? Great!
As I read on in the Times article my hope bubble began deflating. Turns out the GOP solons want a go-slow on switching to wind and solar and geothermal energy; instead, they want to combat the climate threat by taking such halting steps as planting carbon-absorbing trees, giving tax credits to businesses that capture carbon dioxide they produce, relying more on “clean” energies like nuclear. (Yeah, try selling that one to the NIMBYs.)
Turns out Republican Senators are doing what their voters want. According to a Pew poll taken in May, only ten percent of Republicans are very concerned with climate change, and most fear that combating it is the best way will hurt the economy. (They apparently haven’t yet figured out that if you’re dead, the state of the economy won’t worry you at all.) In addition, fossil fuel makers and sellers are lobbying hard against Democratic attempts to regulate them, and in 2020 alone gave $46 million to the Republican Party, according to the Times.
So what do Republican Senators have to say on the subject of global warming?
“I’m not doing anything to raise the cost of living on American families,” said Senator Rick Scott of climate-ravaged Florida. “You can’t do it where you’re killing jobs.” (How about killing people?)
Senator Bill Cassidy of LNG-exporting Louisiana was more succinct. “We cannot live without fossil fuels or chemicals, period, end of story.” (LNG is an emitter of methane, more potent in the short run than carbon dioxide.)
Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, an oil and gas producer hard-hit by a drought that has decimated crops and livestock this summer, says “we need to be on an anti-carbon mission, not an anti-fuel mission.” (But aren’t the two joined at the hip? How do you pull that off?)
Senator John Cornyn of Texas said “I have no doubt the climate is changing and people contribute to it.” I suspect that qualifies as “courageous” in the petroleum-rich Lone Star state these days.
The Senate Minority Leader “Moscow Mitch” McConnell said of climate change, “I concur that it is happening and it is a problem. The argument is how to best address it.” (That is another masterful job of kicking the can down the road into a fog bank.)
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida says, according to the Times, that it makes no sense for us to cut emissions while other countries, like coal-burning China, does not. (I confess the logic here baffles me. Is Little Marco saying that we should quicken the extinction of humankind out of spite? By the way, the Times reports that the Senior Senator from Florida opposed trade measures meant to curb China’s emissions. This seems to confirm his commitment to a mass suicide pact among all nations that will let planet earth heal herself. Gaia should be pleased.)
Let’s conclude this journey through the clown-house with a listen to one of its two dumbest members of the “greatest deliberative body in the world,” James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma. (Yes, yes, I know, Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is still the favorite to win the Senate’s Stupid Derby.) Inhofe, you will remember, is the guy who took a snowball to the Senate floor to prove there was no such thing as global warming. He also wrote a book titled The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. Now, according the Times, he denies ever calling global warming a “hoax,” which may be attributable to a “senior moment,” or because he thinks no one of consequence would read a book published by a far-right publisher that specializes in “Big Lies” and conspiracy theories.
My conclusion? With passage of the infrastructure bill another baby step has been taken toward countering climate change. Readers should know though, that thanks to those 19 Republicans who supported its passage, no fossil fuel producers were injured in the process.
I can’t help but end this without recalling a relevant quote from our beloved Mark Twain:
“Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.”
Right on the mark, Mark.