Inhofe shows grace under fire in global warming exchange

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) exchanged words with an independent journalist and enviro-activist about global warming. Inhofe has a new book coming out about the politics of global warming—The Hoax. Although the journalist and the activist quizzed him based on the premise manmade global warming science is settled, Inhofe didn’t back down.

The science of course is not settled. Hundreds of experts disagree with the political stance adopted by the UN global warmist regime.

Global warming has been a difficult theory to sell to the public—that difficulty and scandals over internal UN emails (ClimateGate) prompted alarmists renew their campaign with a broader label—climate change.

Does the climate change? Of course.  I’ve often said if it didn’t, we’d be dodging dinosaurs instead of alligators on backcountry roads in Florida.

Regardless of whether the US levies even more harsh taxes on Americans, other countries won’t limit their carbon emissions. That situation will send jobs to places like China and Mexico. China is still rather amazingly characterized as a ‘developing country.’ And China’s emissions are based on population rather than total emissions. Democrat policy has once again punted opportunity overseas.

Should we protect the environment? Absolutely. The US probably does a better job of that than any other country in the world.

Inhofe sums up the situation created by a political class of scientists who feed at the trough of government money, a lot of it supplied by the captive US taxpayer.

The Daily Caller reported what Inhofe said:

“JI: When you ask that question ‘what if you’re wrong?’, Stop and think about it. What if you are wrong and we pass the largest tax increase in the history of America to do something that is not justified. I remember, and I use this in testimony. In 1993, you weren’t around in 1993… the Clinton/Gore tax increase was the largest tax increase at that point in history. All marginal rates, gasoline, everything went up. That was a total of a $30 billion tax increase. This would be ten times that great. This would be somewhere between $300 and $400 billion tax increase. That admittedly, now listen to this very carefully, according to the director at the EPA would not have any effect on emissions because that would only be in the United States. As jobs went to places like India and China and Mexico and maybe places that they don’t have any emissions requirements and actually increase emissions. So should we do that when we know and you know and everyone out here knows that it would not reduce worldwide emissions? Period. We all know this.”

The DC caught the exchange on videotape.

I suspect the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 wrought more climate change than a century of fossil fuel in the U.S. Overgrazing of pasture lands, aggressive deforestation in third world countries, locating cities and edifices in low lying areas not suitable for long term stability and destruction of wildlife habitat contribute to real climate change. At the moment world governments are not addressing those issues. Instead they are spending billions on scientific research that by all accounts in the rational world is most definitely not settled.

The Discovery Channel recently aired a very informative video about the Krakatoa climate change phenomenon. For an in-depth study, read the book Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded by Simon Winchester. The book is a challenging read because Winchester is more into the science than the narrative, but it's a valuable and worthwhile read.

You can overlook the alarmism in the young woman who quizzed Inhofe. She’s the product of leftwing brainwashing dominant in government-run universities in the U.S.

Inhofe showed grace under fire. Hopefully his pragmatic approach will draw attention to a subject most Americans find boring but in fact are already paying for dearly via backdoor regulatory fees.

The global warming movement has been an effective tool for redistributing US wealth. Anyone who says different is just plain wrong.