Capitol Words “lets you see what are the most popular words spoken by lawmakers on the House and Senate floor.” It uses the Congressional Record to give “you an at-a-glance view of which issues lawmakers address on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis,” by “Congress as a whole, by state delegation or by specific lawmaker” including trends over time.
Who says “Kyoto” the most? Why that would be Sen. James Inhofe (R-OIL), 94 times in the past two years — more than double that of the next 9 members combined. In second place, way behind, is John Kerry (D-MA) with a mere 16.
“IPCC“? Inhofe 87 times, next 9 members combined, 48. Kind of sobering since the IPCC is supposed to be a body whose work is cited by those seeking to advance climate action in this country (see “Has the IPCC rendered itself irrelevant?“)
But I seriously doubt you’ll guess which member of Congress has used the phrase “cap-and-trade” most. Or “caribou.” Or “hell.”
Sen. John Thune (R-SD) used cap-and-trade 41 times beating out Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) with 35. Interestingly, Thune’s most commonly used words in the last two years (ignoring all the common, little words like “the”), are
Inhofe’s favorite word is “billion” too. I assume this is conservatives declaiming against the excesses of federal government spending. Where were they from 2001 through 2006?
As for caribou, that would be Rep. Steve King (R-IA) — who knew that Iowa had so many reindeer? Heck, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) only used the word 12 times.
As for “hell” … that would be Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), whose favorite word is “service.”
So, go ahead, waste some time on Capitol Words, and let me know if you find anything interesting.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Who is speaking up the most about peak oil? No surprise, by a margin of more than 10:1 it’s Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD):
Top 10 Lawmakers Using The Word “peak”
1. 193 Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD-6)
2. 17 Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ-7)
3. 12 John Peterson (R-PA-5)
4. 10 Allyson Schwartz (D-PA-13)
5. 10 Michael Burgess (R-TX-26)
6. 9 Mark Udall (D-CO-2)
7. 9 Edward Markey (D-MA-7)
8. 8 Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX-18)
9. 8 Shelley Capito (R-WV-2)
10.7 Jason Altmire (D-PA-4)
That IS fun. At one point, I ended up on Rep Brian Bilbray, whose top two words are “San” and “Diego.” He represents San Diego, of course. Lots of “energy” as the top word spoken. TX rep Sheila Jackson-Lee is a VERY prolific speaker, twice as much as the next on the list.
Dick Durbin, the other senator from Illinois is #1 for the word “change” (462 times) and #2 for “hope” (498 times). #1 for “hope” is Harry Reid with over 1,000 uses! Talk about messaging.
Kind of off topic, but here goes anyway. I recently found this post
( http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25401759-5000117,00.html )
And it talks about how most of the global warming signs are not or have not come true. I was just curious if there were any significant rebutalls of what they state in this. Wrong data, misinterpretation, etc.
As to the scientific credibility of the person who wrote the piece, I know not. Just curious to the veracity of the statements the writer makes.
Note about me: I generally accept that there is Global Warming.
[JR: It is mostly half-baked denier talking points debunked here, at RealClimate.org and SkepticalScience.
Another surprise for Rep Inhofe…
Though I wish it could normalize for total words spoken.
Top 10 Lawmakers Using The Word “gore”
1. 100 75 James Inhofe (R-OK)
2. 42 32 Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA-46)
3. 34 26 Harry Reid (D-NV)
4. 14 11 Michael Castle (R-DE)
5. 13 10 Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
6. 10 8 Thomas Lantos (D-CA-12)
7. 8 6 Nick Rahall (D-WV-3)
8. 8 6 John Kerry (D-MA)
9. 8 6 Arlen Specter (R-PA)
10. 6 5 Jason Altmire (D-PA-4)
That’s the Congressional Record, which iirc has a lot of stuff that wasn’t really said on (either) floor. Ah yes, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Record
[quote]
That portion of the Congressional Record entitled Extensions of Remarks contains speeches, tributes and other extraneous words that were not actually uttered during open proceedings of the full Senate or of the full House of Representatives. In years past, this particular section of the Congressional Record has been called the “Appendix.” While Members of either body may insert material into the Extensions of Remarks portion of the Record, Senators rarely do so, and the overwhelming majority of what is found there is entered at the request of Members of the House of Representatives. From a legal standpoint, most materials in the Congressional Record are classified as secondary authority.
By custom and rules of each House, Members also frequently “revise and extend” the remarks they actually made on the floor before the debates are published in the Congressional Record. Therefore, for many years, speeches that were not actually delivered in Congress appeared in the Record, including in the sections purporting to be verbatim reports of debates. In recent years, however, these revised remarks have been preceded by a “bullet” symbol or, more recently and presently, printed in a typeface discernibly different from that used to report words actually spoken by Members.
[/quote]
Joe, why isn’t this filed under “Humor”?
[JR: Sorry, good idea. In this new version of Word Press, category selection is far less accessible and visible to me.]
Senator Jack Reed of RI has word #1 as Rhode, word #2 as funding, and word #3 as Island.
Unless it is getting confused between “Rhode” and “Road” and “Rode” why is he saying Rhode without Island?
@Derek
The premise of many of those items on the list you linked to aren’t even considered effects directly attributed to Climate Change.
The person who wrote that article does not understand the difference between weather and climate. That is the first distinction that must be made when considering the effects of Climate Change.
The notion that the temperature has actually declined is just not factual. The evidence they provided was derived from temperature measured from satellites. The satellites do not even directly measure temperature, there is a mathematical process used to determine temp based on other variables in the atmosphere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurements).
Notice that in that article, the accuracy of this system is doubted by the scientific community.
The majority of data used in determining fluctuations in global temp is derived from a system of stations around the world measuring temperatures. These makeup a system of temp anomalies, accurately judging deviation in temperature. You can learn more about this here: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/index.php
You can see from that source of information that March was one of the warmest months we’ve had on record.
Not very convenient for someone to post data on their site that would contradict the point they are trying to make, right? The fact is that you can’t present such a strong argument without considering all forms of research and observation. In this case, the website is excluding the most reliable and widely used form of temp monitoring.
The polar ice caps aren’t melting… well in Antarctica, there is a region of cooling that has been happening for years. This is well known and documented by climate change researchers, and there are many theories as to why this might be. You can learn more about that at Wiki. The fact is, that a small portion of regional cooling does not refute the overall global warming trend, nor does one melting ice cap refute the obvious observation of nearly every other ice sheet and glacier in the world. In short, this issue has been discussed for years, and in no way does it suggest evidence to the contrary of climate change.
Neither myth 3 or 4 are even considered indicators of climate change. Whether or not there’s a long drought it tends to be cooler in a city for one season does not have anything to do with the reality of climate change. Climate change is based off of long term climate patterns, not short term weather patterns. Once this distinction is made you can being to separate good arguments from the bad ones. Also, climate trends cycle, if you look at any climate change graph out there you’ll see how the trend of temps is increasing, but they go up and down every year. The argument of “Its snowing outside, so much for climate change” does not have any validity at all altogether. There is no simple way for me to explain that, but if you study climate change for a little while and understand the concept, you’ll be able to understand what I’m saying. Remember, climate change is involved in long term climate patterns, not short term weather patterns. There’s a BIG difference there, and most climate change deniers do not understand the distinction between the two because most climate change deniers don’t have a background in science or any related field.
I don’t have time to argue the rest of the myths, but they are just rhetorical points used to sway an individual who doesn’t know anything about climate change away from the truth. I encourage you to study the subject and learn more about it, that way you can formulate an educated opinion rather than base it off of rhetoric. These articles continue to leave out the bulk of research, and only cling to a study that may contradict climate change predictions.
Remember, its all about long term trends. Now how the current state of weather is.
Edit: Not how the current state of weather is*
At the bottom of my last comment, sorry.
He’s attacking present minor rates of global warming when the real target should be future warming. He’s pulling an expert from each side of the debate question to brainwash mildly, readers into assuming uncertainty. He writes for a Right-Wing newspaper. I’ve had an email mini-debate with a well-known Canadian columnist and when I explain how issuing government bonds for weatherizing home renovations pays for itself in a few years (pretty much every stimulus package in the world uses this or already has weatherized except Canada whose government’s base is oil sands and coal Provinces), he ends the debate and keeps lobbying for Human Extinction.
ohh
Glad I stumbled into this article! In my opinion, renovation is an investment no matter what the goal is. Finally, got what I was looking for to put on my school report