.

The wackiest member of Congress after Michele Bachmann is no doubt Republican Senator Jim Inhofe.  Inhofe has been battling climate change legislation with a passion and fervor that borders on pure hysteria. He will be leading a contingent of crazies to the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen next month (he calls it a “truth squad“) to reiterate his claim that man-made global warming is a hoax.

Dana Milbank writes on how Inhofe is beginning to find himself increasingly isolated from his own party on the issue of climate change.

It must be very lonely being the last flat-earther.

Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, committed climate-change denier, found himself in just such a position Tuesday morning as the Senate environment committee, on which he is the ranking Republican, took up legislation on global warming. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was in talks with Democrats over a compromise bill — the traitor! And as Inhofe listened, fellow Republicans on the committee — turncoats! — made it clear that they no longer share, if they ever did, Inhofe’s view that man-made global warming is the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”

“Eleven academies in industrialized countries say that climate change is real; humans have caused most of the recent warming,” admitted Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). “If fire chiefs of the same reputation told me my house was about to burn down, I’d buy some fire insurance.”

Finally! A common sense statement from a Republican Congressman – not a common sighting these days.  And look, there’s more.

An oil-state senator, David Vitter (R-La), said that he, too, wants to “get us beyond high-carbon fuels” and “focus on conservation, nuclear, natural gas and new technologies like electric cars.” And an industrial-state senator, George Voinovich (R-Ohio), acknowledged that climate change “is a serious and complex issue that deserves our full attention.”

So where does all of this leave Inhofe and his inane, baseless beliefs?  Alone, hugging a polar bear on the last remaining ice floe, I hope.

___

To receive email notifications of new posts from MarioPiperniDotCom, click on Subscribe.

. .