Repugs Turn Ire On Scientists In Global Warming Hearing

[ignatzmouse]

http://www.ajc.com/search/content/auto/epaper/editions/today/news_34f5c18004c752cd00f7.html

Charge of bias stirs up Senate briefing on global warming
Jeff Nesmith - Cox Washington Bureau
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, October 26, 2005

"A congressional briefing on global warming and hurricanes by scientists from Georgia Tech and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology came to a stormy end Tuesday when a Senate staff member charged that their presentation was "one-sided."

"You people are espousing minority views that a vast majority of scientists dispute," John Shanahan, an aide to Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), told scientists Judith Curry of Georgia Tech and Kerry Emanuel of MIT."

<snip>

"Curry and Georgia Tech climatologist Peter Webster published an article in the journal Science last month showing that although the frequency of hurricanes has not increased with global warming, the frequency of big storms has.

They said the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide has averaged 18 per year since 1990. In the 1970s, there were about 10 of the major storms annually, they said."

http://www.ajc.com/search/content/auto/epaper/editions/today/news_34f5c18004c752cd00f7.html

It's just this simple and undeniable: warm water fuels hurricanes. We see it every time a hurricane moves into warmer water. It makes them stronger. Rising water temperatures MUST correlate with stronger and more destructive systems. Any child can see that, but when it comes to the green Earth, Republicans in Congress are only capable of seeing greenbacks.

Responsibility eludes the Republican Party once again. If scientific facts clash with business gluttony, then the facts must be censored and reality renamed. Damn the present and future of our planet -- Sen. Oily McMoneypupils finds it imperative to stuff his pants with cash before the Rapture.

Republicans, The IRResponsible Party. IRResponsible on the Environment. IRResponsible on Jobs. IRResponsible on Security. Incapable of Leading.

[acmavm]

1. What a mess. Washington is full of republicans who are not only

morally bankrupt and who's motto should be 'Anything for a Buck' (sorry Larry, Darryl and Darryl) but they couldn't pass a high school science class. Hell, junior high might prove to be a challenge.

[rooboy]

2. Since James Inhofe is regarded as the dumbest senator in Washington...

it should only follow that his aides are of a similarly low IQ.

[xchrom]

3. lol -- and irresponsible on education, and if you don't believe it

they'll be happy to show you.

from creationism and {un}intelligent design to global warming and climate change -- conservatives are always only too happy to show just how stupid a human can be.

i just wish they'd waste time showing each other rather than me -- talk about tedious and boring...

[HereSince1628]

4. Shanahan's previous position was with the coal mining industry

He is counsel to the committee, one of the authors of the "Clear Skies" legislation.

We will of course remember "Clear Skies" as another favorable deal to the coal and coal-burning power industries. Clear Skies gave us a low target for pollution from coal burning, increased the amount of mercury that could be exhausted, exempted coal burning power plants from some EPA testing as required by regulation, and postponed until 2015 reaching the new pollution standards.

His career began in marketing, he came into government working in the first Bush administration. He has spent a decade working in the area of environmental policy.

So as typical of the Bush Administration and the RW Congress, we have a lawyer (with limited if any formal training in science) attacking science.

[sepia_steel]

5. That 'a vast majority of scientists dispute'???

What planet is he on?! Kansas and OK reps make me ILL. I'm so glad I no longer live anywhere near there.

[RoBear]

8. Where are YOU from?

No repuke there? Why pick on only KS and OK. I despise the repukes representing our state, but not ONLY them.

[sepia_steel]

10. I'm grew up in OK, and I think they're the worst.

I think I'm more than entitled to that opinion.

I can't stand Gary Miller, the Repuke in my current state.

Feel better?


RELAX.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. Stubborn Facts.

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
John Adams, 'Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials,' December 1770

"Get the facts, or the facts will get you. And when you get them, get them right, or they will get you wrong."
Dr. Thomas Fuller (1654 - 1734), Gnomologia, 1732

[annabanana]

7. sent these quotes to Inhofe's website

Delusional, these people.

[zbdent]

9. "a vast majority of scientists dispute," - ha ha ha

any time that a repuke throws out that nugget - ask for names.

And hold up the reams of paper with the names of the "minority" of scientists . . .