His State In Record Heat Wave, Inhofe Bails On Climate Denier Conference: ‘I Am Under The Weather’

As record-shattering heat cripples Oklahoma, Sen. Jim “global warming is a hoax” Inhofe (R-OK) failed to show for an fossil-industry-funded climate denial conference. A shrinking band of far-right economists, lawyers, and a few scientists have gathered in Washington, DC, for the Heartland Institute’s sixth International Conference on Climate Change, funded, like Inhofe himself, by Koch Industries and Exxon Mobil. Inhofe was scheduled to be the denier conference’s keynote speaker, but he bailed out, explaining appropriately that he is “under the weather“:

I am sorry that I will not be able to join you today at the Heartland Institute’s sixth International Conference on Climate Change. Unfortunately, I am under the weather, but I did want to send a short note to say thank you for all of your hard work and dedication. Your efforts have gone a long way to stop the global warming alarmist agenda.

Although the Koch denial machine has succeeding in blocking global warming legislation, they have certainly done nothing to stop global warming itself. Billions of tons of fossil fuel pollution are cooking the entire planet, bringing a slew of climate disasters to the United States, including “extraordinary heat and wind” behind “exceptional drought” in Inhofe’s home state. Wildfires have torn through Oklahoma’s bone-dry prairie. The “drought’s impacts have been enormous,” and “very little relief is in sight,” Oklahoma’s state climatologist, Gary McManus writes. The average high temperature in Oklahoma City in June 2011 was 10 degrees above normal, 97 degrees instead of 87 degrees. “Any way you slice it, it has been hot,” Oklahoma City’s Stephen Mullins explains:

Today marks the 29th consecutive day over 90. That is a record.

Today is forecast to be the 10th day above 100 in June. That is a record.

Today marks the 34th consecutive day above normal.

June 2011 set or tied single-day record high temperatures on the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 27th. Those record temperatures were 103, 104, 101, and 103 degrees, respectively.

Earlier in June, Inhofe cosponsored legislation to have the federal government cut $12 billion from the general budget to provide tax breaks for residents of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee who were victims of climate disasters this spring. In April, Inhofe championed legislation to reverse the scientific finding that greenhouse pollution threatens the public welfare of American citizens.