Right now in our hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota, we are preparing for what might possibly be record-breaking floods due to winter’s heavy snowfall and the threat of heavier spring downpours. Minnesota has already experienced two 100-year floods in the Red River Valley within the past 13 years. Local doctors report an increase in cases of children with asthma and other respiratory conditions. Lake Superior has seen record low water levels in recent years, threatening not only drinking water supplies but the Duluth-Superior port that receives more than 1,200 ships and 48 million tons of cargo.
All of these public health, economic, and environmental trends have been strongly linked to climate change.
That’s from a great op-ed in The Hill by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) and Dr. John Abraham, an associate professor of thermal sciences MN who helped found the Climate Science Rapid Response Team.
Here’s more:
Multiple studies have shown that 97 percent of the most qualified climate scientists are in agreement that humans are causing the planet to warm. If this was an illness, and 97 percent of doctors recommended a certain treatment, we would take appropriate action.
Instead, the majority party in the House of Representatives is choosing to willfully defy the diagnosis and overturn established science by voting on a bill (H.R. 910) that will gut the Clean Air Act and prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from ever protecting the American people from the disastrous impacts of climate change.
During the committee markup of H.R. 910, not a single Republican voted to even acknowledge the validity of EPA’s scientific finding that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” caused by human activities, and a threat to public health. The rejection of those amendments is shocking to scientists who understand the serious risks Americans face from global climate change.
This places the climate deniers on the same side as those fringe extremists who denied the harmful impacts of cigarette smoking and DDT, and the causes of acid rain and ozone depletion. Proponents of H.R. 910 are denying science and dangerously on the wrong side of history.
We believe now is the time to confront climate change. If we act wisely, we can simultaneously protect the environment, create jobs, diversify our energy supplies, and improve national security.
A recent report by Pew Environment Group shows the U.S. has now fallen to number three behind China and Germany for clean energy private investment. Passage of H.R. 910 will guarantee America loses out on the jobs of the future by obstructing efforts to build the new clean energy economy. It will deepen America’s dependence on dirty coal and imported oil instead of creating American jobs through investments in renewable resources and energy efficiency.
Our country must turn the problems presented by climate change into an opportunity. Instead of devoting its time to discrediting scientists and undermining the EPA, Congress should put more faith in the genius of the American spirit to protect our environment and human health while creating economic growth. With the right clean energy incentives and framework, we believe America can out-innovate and out-build anyone in the world. The proponents of H.R. 910 not only deny climate change, they undermine America’s ability to find solutions that benefit consumers, workers and the environment.
Every single member of Congress has a choice: deny the science of climate change or take real steps to confront a changing climate. Congress must accept scientific reality and act on climate change.
Hear! Hear!
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Politics also killed an important climate monitoring satellite, according to this interesting article from Popular Science.
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-03/lost-satellite?cmpid=enews040711
Excellent letter. John Abraham, thanks for your recent evisceration of Lord Monckton, though I do confess that I miss him a bit for the unintentional humor. He appears to be off the payroll now. More importantly, his funders are showing a little more caution about the charlatans they choose to protect their income.
I wish we could shame the Republicans even more, though this is a good start. The problem may be the reluctance of the media to loudly announce the obvious degradation of scientific and democratic processes.
Congress is on the wrong side of climate change- as it has been for many other important issues in history- the problem now is that climate change will be the most important problem we have ever faced.
The Federal Government’s chief climate adviser Ross Garnaut has blamed “high-profile” commentators for spreading misinformation about global warming.
He says it is a “puzzle” that a proportion of Australians “haven’t absorbed those basic realities”.
http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=137331073007250&id=139434822741700
“The effects of unmitigated climate change are frightening so it’s a very natural response of some people to not want to face up to it. That’s a normal human reaction,” he said.
“When you analyse the situation more carefully you see that uncertainty is a reason for doing more in mitigation and to do it with greater urgency.”
He says if climate change is worse than average scientific expectations, then this will be “catastrophic”.
“Humans, Australians among them, are usually prepared to pay some insurance to avoid catastrophic outcomes,” he said.
If Congress gets its way long enough, there won’t be a history to be on the wrong side of.
It is so frustrating to read such cogent portrayals of the insanity of our current elected representatives and the public. It is all a result of companies brainwashing us via the media and biasing our election system. It is also so tragic. I hope this denial ends soon. I just want to know what will bring us back our sanity.
Repuglicans are living embodiments of twobobs law
twobobs law states that:
The IQ of any individual is inversely proportional to the amount of murdoch media consumed.
Anyone for fox?
I’m with Jen, #6. The ideologically driven denialists, 99% Rightwing, are indeed mad. They are also, if they believe the malarkey, imbecilic. If they know the truth, but proceed regardless, then it might be said that they are evil. I read a short article in today’s The Independent where the author disputed the use of ‘evil’, and put much of such bad behaviour down to lack of empathy. He rated empathy on a scale of one to six, with those at the low end a menace to all, and those most empathic a menace only to themselves in that they felt things too strongly for their own good. One aspect that I thought was not covered adequately is that empathy is not equally displayed to different groups. Those who display little or none to those they hate for racist, sectarian or class reasons, may display great empathy towards those that they approve of. To be empathic towards denialists tests even my lofty moral capacity, I can tell you. The Right displays little empathy towards those harmed by their actions, but great empathy, expressed in their usual perverse manner as groveling sycophancy, towards their rich paymasters. The author put the comparative or absolute lack of empathy down to genetic influences, or early infant attachment deficits. There was no mention of that other great influence on human behaviour, peer pressure, which, in the case of the Right, is perhaps, in my opinion, the most malign influence of them all.
Your article has a bad link to Dr. Abraham’s Rapid Response site.
[JR: Fixed.]
http://www.climaterapidresponse.org/
The Republicans are just trying to use this budget crisis to get rid of the EPA.