One year ago, the right-wing media machine smeared climate scientists with the “Climategate” conspiracy theory, even as the climate itself continued to get hotter and more destructive.

Although the National Academies of Science says “the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change,” the Republican Party is now dominated by fossil-funded ideologues who repeat zombie myths about global warming. An exclusive survey by Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson, with research support by Daily Kos blogger RL Miller, has identified the members of Congress that are on record challenging the scientific consensus:

Click the map to see the 112th Congress climate deniers in each state.

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This World Resources Institute re-post is by Ruth Greenspan Bell.

Research shows that the benefits of environmental regulations consistently exceed costs, in part because they end up costing far less than both industry and the EPA predict.
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On heels of IPO, GM makes clean energy investment

Against a backdrop of what could be the largest IPO in US history, Chevrolet yesterday announced plans to invest $40m in carbon offset projects across the country over the next three to five years.

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Guest blogger Mike Livermore is executive director of NYU’s Institute for Policy Integrity.

The scent of burning rubber is already in the air as Congress skids towards utter climate gridlock. And now, as EPA starts to unroll it’s next round of greenhouse gas controls, several legislators have promised to do everything in their power to jam up traffic in the agency.

So it makes sense that many large environmental organizations are beginning to look to state capitals for leadership on climate change. But what will they find when they get there?

According to the study released by the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law this week, in many states they are likely to be met with a morass of inefficiency that is often biased against environmental regulation. Using a grading system that judges state regulatory review on factors like transparency and balance, even relatively progressive states like California earned grades in the D range.

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This is a cross-post from CAP’s Daniel J. Weiss.

The Senate has one last chance to pass clean energy measures before the 111th Congress adjourns for the year. Many other clean energy and climate measures were blocked in this Congress, but there’s hope for a better ending to this clean energy legislative tragedy: The pending bill currently is composed of proposals with bipartisan authors.

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One year ago, the right-wing media machine smeared climate scientists with the “Climategate” conspiracy theory, even as the climate itself continued to get hotter and more destructive. Although the National Academies of Science says “the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change,” the Republican Party is now dominated by fossil-funded ideologues who repeat zombie myths about global warming. An exclusive survey by the Wonk Room, with research support by Daily Kos blogger RL Miller, has identified the members of Congress from nearly every state in the union that are on record challenging the scientific consensus:

In January, 2011, the 112th Congress will open session, with a huge contingent of Republicans who have explicitly rejected the threat of manmade global warming pollution. These climate zombies express the classic variants of global warming denial: that the planet is not warming, that cold weather refutes concerns about global warming, that man’s influence is unclear, that climate scientists are engaged in a hoax, scam, or corrupt conspiracy, and that limiting greenhouse pollution would have no impact on global temperatures. Of special note are the conspiracy theorists who argue that hacked emails from climate scientists prove corruption, calling for kangaroo trials against practicing researchers.

Well over half (55 percent) of the incoming Republican caucus are climate zombies. Thirty-five of the 46 (76 percent) Republicans in the U.S. Senate next year publicly question the science of global warming. Of the 240 Republicans elected to the House of Representatives, 125 (52 percent) publicly question the science.

Of the freshmen Republicans — marked in boldface below — 36 of 85 in the House and 11 of 13 in the Senate have publicly questioned the science. There are no freshmen Republicans, in the House or Senate, who publicly accept the scientific consensus that greenhouse pollution is an immediate threat.

Nearly all the rest of the Republicans in the 112th Caucus either signed the “No Climate Tax” pledge from the climate-denier Koch Industries front group Americans For Prosperity, the “No Cap-And-Tax” Tea Party pledge, or co-sponsored a resolution to overturn the EPA’s scientific finding that greenhouse pollution threatens the American public’s health and welfare.

Read the full report: The Climate Zombie Caucus Of The 112th Congress.