Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Inhofe Lies

The other day Sen. James Inhofe spoke on the senate floor, and this may well go down as the most brazen lie every uttered by a politician about any subject whatsoever:
“The vast majority of scientists do not believe that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are a major contributor to global warming.”
I don't believe in hell, and so I don't think James Inhofe is going to hell. But I simply cannot imagine the degree of complicity and utter truthlessness that a man must revert to to claim an absolute falsehood.

As lies go, this is as egregious as they come. Why is the press not all over this? I know, of course -- because they feel they have to respond to Hillary Clinton's endless and countless machinations in her withdrawal.

We are doomed as a species. I mean that sincerely and utterly. Our society has no ability whatsoever to clearly react to the environment around us, and to the changes we observe and measure that threaten us.

5 comments:

John Fleck said...

Better for the press to ignore this than engage it. To engage it in the press is a losing proposition. It gives him a broader platform to explain why he thinks this is the case. Rebuttals at that point do not matter. The people who understand will accept the rebuttal and recognize that he is lying. A substantial proportion of those who are ignorant of the details will choose to believe Inhofe.

Dano said...

What Fleck said.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is or good men to do nothing".

This piece of sh*t won't win in the long run, but we need leadership and our country isn't set up to allow leadership (this is both good and bad). Leadership will show when folks are galvanized. Not that I'm much more optimistic than you , but that's how things work.

Best,

D

Steve Bloom said...

Of course he's comparing the 31,000-strong fake scientist petition to the 1,700-strong real scientist petition, so confronting him would just boil down to arguing about whether people who got a BS in some science or another decades ago are really scientists or not. Well, he says they are and the dictionary definition of scientist probably doesn't contradict him directly enough to help.

And don't blame the presidential race. Inhofe has said plenty of equally ridiculous things on slow news days and gotten away with it.

Michael Tobis said...

I don't get it, John, Dano.

We should ignore it when a senator says things that aren't true because he might say more things that aren't true? I still can't wrap my head around the proposition.

Sure, if some nut case says something obviously false you don't repeat it for fear of stirring up the other nut cases. I can see that. But, um, he is already a US senator.

Exactly when, if ever, should one actually confront blatant untruths coming from people in positions of responsibility and authority?

Dano said...

"Ohhh, that Inhofe! Always shouting inanities from the lunatic fringe! Anyway, how long is a ton a ton? And what is a ton, anyway? What are the sequestration offsets for lawns vs working forests?"

"Sure, a tiny few hold those views, but that was settled in the scientific community long ago, we're moving on to whether we incentivize early adaptors of technology, and how long is a ton a ton?"

"Well, a smalll fraction of society hold those views, and we don't want them to hold the rest of society back, so we're discussing carbon pricing per ton. The latest proposal was $55/ton, and then how are we going to change our land-use patterns so we don't pay so many carbon taxes and simplify our offsets?"


That's what I'm talking about. Don't play their game. Play yours.

Best,

D