Friday, November 17, 2006

Holy Shit - We May Get A Top Republican On The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Who Actually Believes Global Warming Exists!!!

Oh Lordy. I'm paying James Inhofe gets sent packing from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. And the Post says it may happen:

Dramatic changes in congressional oversight of environmental issues may pump new life into efforts to fight global warming, activist groups and lawmakers said yesterday.

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) announced his intention to become the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, now headed by Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), who has said that global warming is a hoax. Warner has called for action against climate change, and his ascension to a leadership post would accelerate significant changes already underway.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) -- a liberal who has called global warming a dire threat -- is in line to chair the committee in the next Congress as a result of last week's elections, which will give Democrats the Senate majority. Environmentalists have been hailing her impending replacement of Inhofe as chairman. Warner's takeover of the ranking minority member's slot, they said yesterday, would raise even greater hopes for advancing their agenda.

"That could drastically change the way that committee operates," said Karen Steuer, government affairs chief at the National Environmental Trust. "We might see, on a number of issues, bipartisan legislation coming out of that committee, and that would be a huge step forward. . . . In one fell swoop, it's gone from the Dark Ages to the Space Age."

First, however, GOP senators must decide whether Warner's seniority on the committee grants him the right to be the ranking Republican. Inhofe issued a statement saying that he thinks Warner "has misunderstood the rules" and that "I intend to retain my leadership position in the 110th Congress, returning as the Ranking Member" of the environment committee.

Warner responded in a statement: "I carefully reviewed the rules in consultation with the Secretary of the Majority, who assures me that my seniority on the Committee forms a clear basis, under longstanding precedent" for claiming the top Republican spot. Warner will surrender the Armed Services Committee chairmanship and assert his party leadership claim on the environmental panel.

Given that it's been 70 degrees all week and it's fucking November, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to have a ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee who doesn't think global warming is a commie pinko plot to brainwash children and turn them all into godless UN-loving hippies.

I'm just saying.

Comments:
Relax. Warner is a RINO anyway. He's about as worthless as tits on a boarhog. He writes canned responses and is just there to fill a seat, nothing more. A ham sandwich would be far more productive.
 
reality,

Global warming is not quite the flat-earth issue of the 21st century. It's probably more accurate to say it is the modern-day Malthusian Malady.

You might recall the economist Thomas Malthus who said the world's rapid population growth would lead to mass starvation. He said that a couple of hundred years ago when the global population was a small fraction of today's figure.

Global-warming Chicken Littles leap to the conclusion that most people are too stupid to see the problem and they also don't know how to solve it even if they see it.

Nonsense. Meanwhile, politicians will get in front of any charging herd of voters and claim to be leading them. Thus, if millions of people want to claim we're all about to choke to death on bad air, our elected officials won't argue the facts, they'll simply try to position themselves in front of the crowd and try to write laws that seem to tackle some minor part of the perceived problem.

Even if you are foolish enough to believe Al Gore, you can be sure that most people and most governments on Planet Earth don't care about what he has to say.

Even if the US reins in carbon emissions, the developing world will not. And there's more of them than us and they all want cars, trucks, planes, trains, motorcycles, boats, jet skis, ATVs, houses with central heating and central air conditioning, clean water, and profitable industries (except muslim nations, which prefer abject poverty, for religious reasons).

Worse for the Global Warming crowd is the rapid pace of population growth. We're at 6.5 billion people on the Earth now. There were 2.5 billion people in 1950. Global population is estimated to hit 9 billion around 2050.

No matter how conservation-minded we all become, our aggregate demand for energy will increase at a rapid rate. Nine billion people use a lot more energy than 6.5 billion, especially when most of them live in countries experiencing rapid economic improvement -- China, India -- which is manifested by growth in ownership of cars and better homes and so forth.

On the other hand, night-time aerial views of North Korea show a country in the dark, a big blank next to the blazing lights of all the cities and towns in South Korea.

So if you want to cut energy consumption and reduce the production of all those offending effluents, the path to that goal would include the formation of a Marxist government that would drive the economy into the ground and produce the starvation Thomas Malthus once predicted.
 
steve, you have a point, but frankly even a boar with tits would be better than James Inhofe.
 
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