Breaking: I’ll do a longer post tomorrow on the debate, but for now, here’s Howard Fineman at HuffPost:
Perry Over His Head On Climate Change
Rick Perry just bought the farm on climate change. He came off as dangerously in over his head. He said that despite the fact that most credible scientists think that human activity has something to do with climate change, he was not convinced.
“Galileo was outnumbered for a spell!” he declared. He got the analogy exactly wrong. Galileo was the scientist; the church and its allies, who knew nothing about the scientific method, were lined up against him. He never answered the question about which scientists he had consulted. He suddenly looked like the guy Karl Rove says he is, “a guy who only cares about soundbites.”
The League of Conservation Voters just sent out this fact sheet about Perry’s statement on climate science at the debate:
LCV FACT CHECK: Perry Goes Against 97% of Scientists, Challenges Settled Climate Science
In tonight’s NBC News/POLITICO presidential debate, Rick Perry wrongly stated that the science is not settled on climate change. LCV released the following fact check in response:
QUOTE: “The science is not settled on this.”
FACT: 97% of climate scientists agree that humans play a role in causing global warming. [CNN, 1/19/09]
After a five year investigation requested by Congress, the National Academy of Sciences confirmed in 2010 that “Climate change is occurring, is very likely caused primarily by human activities, and poses significant risks to humans and the environment.” [LA Times, 5/20/10; National Academy of Sciences, 2010-11]
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which includes the input of thousands of scientists, from 130 countries ruled in 2007 that the existence of global warming was unequivocal and that the likelihood that global warming was caused by humans was greater than 90%. [New York Times, 6/2/07]
Related Post:
- Huntsman Slams Perry on Climate and Evolution: We Are “On the Wrong Side of Science and Therefore in a Losing Position.”
- Perry’s Climate Lies Win 4 Pinocchios as Huntsman Aide Says GOP Can’t Win “If We Become the Anti-Science Party.”
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Perry out of his depth of everything.
Being out of his depth will appeal to Republican voters. Remember HL Mencken’s famous observation.
Perry only embraces science when it comes to killing people(lethal injection) or keeping them out of the country(drones on the border).
It was hard to watch Bachmann, Perry, AND Huntsman.
Huntsman needed to ask the other candidates to raise their hands if they believed that human emissions were the primary cause of climate change. If nobody raised their hand, he needed to flatly state that they are in disagreement with nearly every climate scientist. Then he could have explained how results are reviewed, re-confirmed or rejected, and eventually consolidated into reports such as those from the NAS and IPCC. This is the best picture of climate science knowledge.
NRC Report – America’s Climate Choices – states that anthropogenic climate change is a “settled fact.” So Perry is basically saying that the National Research Council is wrong.
I would love to see a reporter ask him if he thinks the National Research Council is mistaken.
That’s a good proposal, Robert. We already know where Perry’s at on this, but we need to find out if there are any actual reporters left.
Quite terrifying that these dorks are actually up for presidential election. Just goes to show what a failed democracy we are, that we allow dinguses like this to run the show. History will show us as the stupidest, fattest, and most selfish generation to ever exist.
RE # 5
Shaheer, that is who we Americans have become and the world is watching us stumble and fall closer to our third world ranking.
Of course we could have this position in history. But the best part of being the last empire on earth full of hatred and ignorance to fall is that there probably won’t be too many years of ‘history’ remaining.
Given that Texas is in the grip of record-breaking drought and wildfires, forecast to continue through next summer, even after Perry very publicly prayed for rain, could we call Perry “the candidate from hell”?
More like the candidate from Venus. All these deniers are secretly venusian agents working to veniform the earth for their invasion.
As the GOP is ideologically and intellectually misaligned on the topic of climate change, it’s hard to see how Perry’s repeatedly stated ignorance on the subject will be exploitable as a campaign issue, particularly in times of economic difficulty.
But we can still hope.
Perry evoked a big red flag with that and his comment on Social security and death penalty mistakes. He now doesn’t just seem anti science:
Narcissistic personality disorder
7. Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.
People who are diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder use splitting (black and white thinking) as a central defense mechanism.
They do this to preserve their self-esteem, by seeing the self as purely good and the others as purely bad. The use of splitting also implies the use of other defense mechanisms, namely devaluation, idealization and denial.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder )
Someone should ask Perry how much funding Jesus would have cut from volunteer fire fighters.
Perry only cut 75% of their funding in one year — during the worst drought and wildfires season in Texas history. But he increased prayers for rain by 300%. And he is begging Obama to shovel federal taxpayer dollars into a bailout for his state. No word yet on which Americans will see program funding cut to “balance” the books on the newest Texas money grab.
Yes indeed, a miracle is unfolding in Texas.
But Barry, think of those to whom Perry is appealing. By being lambasted by the ‘liberal’ media, Perry wins, even if he comes across as a ‘downright moron’. The Dunning-Krugerites will lap it up.
GOP, Republican, Tea Party, Bachmann, Paul, Perry, Romney…
In summation that which is, and those who are…
“The condom on the prick of progress!”
Rejection of the denialist theories of the wingnuts is likely to be a vote loser for Huntsman. Nobody gets elected by bringing bad news, and climate change and evolution are bad news to the unthinking masses who are relying on Perry or Bachmann to cancel reality.
Who needs the truth of what we’re facing, when Bachmann says she’ll halve the price of gas when she gets to be President. Doesn’t it make more sense to suspend reason and vote for gas at $2 a gallon? Don’t forget our entire society functions on oil, without it we die. Literally. Or how much better to have a President who prays to a raingod as a solution to a drought that’s killing the land he lives in.
These clowns don’t actually believe the nonsense they offer, but they know that they have to say it, to gain credence with a society obsessed with god and consumerism.
If evolution is correct, then that’s one prop kicked away, the church and its bible destroyed. If catastrophic climate change is happening, then that’s the end of infinite consumption and the ‘American Dream’ . Not a pleasant thought when you see infrastructure crumbling, 40 million on food aid, and homeless people in what is supposed to be the richest country on earth, forced to accept that a messiah isn’t going to return to fix things. It’s much better to have a President who bases public policy on the supernatural, believes in hoaxes and conspiracies and a mysterious ‘they’ out there who are preventing the ‘American Dream’ being realized for everyone. Don’t laugh at them, there are enough desperate people out there to put them in office.
“Don’t forget our entire society functions on oil, without it we die.” That’s funny… were you serious?
Not much analysis is really needed here. Rick Perry is a bought-and-paid-for stooge of the fossil fuel corporations, who have paid him over $11 MILLION to say and do whatever they tell him to say and do. End of story.
With millions of homes underwater, financially and literally, we all seem to live in a crumbling empire of modern Rome. Hale Caesar. And watch out for hail storms.
Barbarians are no longer at the gate. Barbarians are occupying and running for office, on “both sides of the aisle” which is now the edge of our cascading disaster.
Call these “investment bankers,” “sovereign wealth funds,” and the national insecurity complex. Are we feeling secure? Or are we living in a climate of fear, privatization, contamination, privation and privilege in the best plutocracy money can buy?
Governance by wealth is not a democracy. The American Empire is built on fraud, and it crumbles before our selfish eyes and historical human tendency toward militant, corporate fascism.
You all might find Thursdays’ Democracy Now program of interest – Texas Faces Massive Wildfires, Record Drought As Gov. Rick Perry Denies Existence of Global Warming – http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/8/texas_faces_massive_wildfires_record_drought
All well and good, but in Perry’s ‘base’ the Dunning-Krugerite, Dominionists, being lambasted as an ignoramus by the ‘Carmnist water-melons’ of the Left is a sign of divine approval. Texas is burning because of sinful behaviour by those ‘liberals’, not anything that good ole, God-fearing, down-on-his-knees Rick ever did. And they will all vote, while those duped by Obama stay away in droves.
Fineman: Rick Perry just bought the farm on climate change. He came off as dangerously in over his head.
And perhaps on the state economy as well. Some of the best ammunition against Perry comes from the “Students4Palin” Web site:
As noted in The New Republic, Perry refuses to touch that rainy day fund.
http://www.tnr.com/node/90370
One of the commenters there compared him to Wile E. Coyote, suddenly finding himself in midair but suspended — until he looks down.
Then of course there’s ThinkProgress, with “Ten Things Rick Perry Doesn’t Want You To Know.”