Collateral Damage


Submitted by dochoc on Fri, 2009-12-18 18:58

Did U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe’s demonstrative antics over global warming reached new heights of absurdity at the climate-change summit in Copenhagen?

Inhofe, a Republican and the state’s senior senator, was not invited to speak at the conference and could have easily reiterated his global-warming hoax claims from Washington or Oklahoma. Instead, Inhofe flew to Copenhagen to speak to reporters and continue his disinformation campaign on an international stage.

Inhofe’s Copenhagen comments were utterly gratuitous. He said he was simply there to tell everyone that the United States Senate would not pass a cap and trade bill dealing with carbon emissions no matter what President Barack Obama says at the conference.

Did he really have to fly all the way to Copenhagen to try to embarrass an American president?

Apparently, Inhofe also brought up so-called “climate-gate,” which is a right-wing manufactured controversy involving emails from scientists who study climate change at East Anglia University in England. Hackers retrieved emails sent over a 13-year period and then published them on the Internet. Inhofe and others have cherry-picked a few of the emails and distorted their meaning to argue scientists have exaggerated global warming. (Here’s a good, scientific discussion about the issue.)

The emails prove nothing. Other scientists throughout the world have also studied climate change and have concluded the planet is warming. The arctic ice cap is melting. Developing alternative, renewable energy sources and reducing our country’s dependency on foreign oil is a good thing in terms of national security even if the plant wasn’t getting warmer.

The Union of Concerned Scientists also pointed out that Inhofe made an “embarrassing gaffe” in his remarks. The organization argues on its Internet site:

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) made an embarrassing gaffe in a speech at the Copenhagen climate conference today that demonstrates his lack of understanding of climate science and the significance of emails stolen from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). First, he erroneously claimed that one stolen email was written in response to another email that was written 10 years before. Second, he misrepresented the meaning of the contents of those emails to attack climate science.

Inhofe’s absurd argument that climate-change science is some liberal hoax is a wild and ultimately dangerous accusation, but the mainstream media reports it often because the senator consistently pushes his misinformation campaign in support of national and international companies who reap massive profits from selling fossil fuels.

Don’t forget that for many international people, Inhofe is what they mainly know about Oklahoma. He makes the state residents seem anti-science, irrational and even kooky to the world. Despite this, he gets strong support from the local corporate media, which ignores the collateral damage inflicted on the state’s image by Inhofe’s political stunts.

Ultimately, Inhofe’s Copenhagen trip was anti-American and anti-Oklahoma.

Source: http://okiefunk.com/node/677

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