Climate Change

Choosing God Over Science

July 18, 2011 By mario piperni

How hot has it been across the U.S.?

17 states have issued heat warnings and advisories
Oklahoma City has seen 47 consecutive days of 90+ degree temperature with only a single day this month below 100
Record temperatures in various cities and towns has seen the high temperature record tied or broken over 800 times
Tallahassee, Florida: 105 degrees on June 15 – Record high
Amarillo, Texas: 111 degrees on June 26 – Record high
Borger, Texas: 112 degrees on June 26 – Record high
Childress, Texas: 117 degrees on June 26 – Record high
Gage, Oklahoma: 113 degrees on June 26 – Record high
29% of the U.S. is in drought and 12% is in exceptional drought – both are record highs

Tragic circumstances as the weather plays havoc with the lives of millions. So, what does Mary Fallin, Oklahoma’s Republican Governor, suggest people do?

Pray. Actually, she’s called for a statewide day of prayer.

“I think if we have a lot of people praying, it moves the heart of God.”

Is there anything wrong with people praying and asking for divine intervention at a time of crisis?

Definitely not if praying to one’s god helps comfort the soul and gives greater strength to deal with a difficult situation. In that case, it’s a positive. But if praying to one’s god is an excuse to sit on your ass and do nothing, then the practice is both dangerous and foolish.

In 2009, Mary Fallin, as a member of the United States Congress, voted against a global warming bill. Here was her rationale for doing so.

“Our state is a large producer of both oil and natural gas, and the restrictions this legislation places on the production and exploration of these resources will devastate our energy producers. That will not only destroy oil and gas related jobs, it will also lead to a reduction in tax revenue, which in turn will affect our ability to maintain and repair roads, bridges, schools and other public works and services.”

As a gubernatorial candidate in 2010, she said.

Protecting our nation should be a number one priority. Does leadership really think that our surveillance satellites should be aimed at polar ice caps and not terror cells, and that spies should be investigating global warming? Congress must adequately fund our intelligence operations. If we don’t, we may need to be more concerned about global warming in the U.S. caused by a nuclear attack in our own back yard.

She is on record as saying that climate legislation is completely unnecessary. Somehow, Fallin believes it makes much more sense to call for the citizens of her state to bow their heads, get down on their knees and pray to god to make it all go away even though climate science predicts the exact sort of extreme weather patterns which Oklahoma is currently experiencing.

Rest assured that while the ignorance displayed by Mary Fallin is astounding, it is secure and happy in the minds of Republican leadership everywhere.

Filed Under: Climate Change, Republican Idiocy Tagged With: global warming, oklahoma, Religion

Climate Change Controversy – “Wealth Over Reason”

June 27, 2011 By mario piperni

Two great minds discuss climate change.

Great Mind 1: What about global warming?

Great Mind 2: There is no such thing as global warming.

Great Mind 1 grimaces in approval.

Great Mind 1 (GM-1) is a present day Elmer Gantry-type huckster who excels at conning dimwits out of their money. He’s never met an anti-liberal conspiracy theory he hasn’t loved.

Great Mind 2 is a moralistic loon who somehow believes he has a chance at becoming President of the United States even though he got trounced in his 2006 Senate re-election bid. The good citizens of Pennsylvania rejected him by a margin of 18 percentage point.

GM-2 refers to global warming as “junk science”. He also believes that Intelligent Design should be taught in schools, that antiquated sodomy laws should be enforced and that gays should adopt a heterosexual lifestyle in the bedroom (“[I have] no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts”). Lovely.

Glenn Beck and Rick Santorum are idiots. No news there. The former will keep on making his millions no matter what nonsense he spews while the former has little chance of becoming the GOP presidential nominee – not that it makes much of a difference in regards to climate science; the majority of Republicans, including most running in the GOP primary, also believe that global warming is a hoax. No, what is truly troublesome is a recent poll which outlines American’s global warming beliefs. A survey conducted by Yale and George Mason universities finds that while 64% of Americans believe that the planet is in a warming trend, only 47% attribute global warming to human activity.

Beck, Santorum and their buddies in the fossil fuel industries are winning in their battle of misinformation. Even though there exists a broad consensus among climate scientists over the reality of global warming (98% of ALL climate scientists) and even though every National Academy of science in the world endorses climate science, when Americans surveyed were asked whether “most scientists think global warming is happening”, only 39% agreed with the statement. Sick.

Big oil and the fossil fuel industries have bought out enough Rich Santorums to make the words of Al Gore more true than ever; it’s a clear case of “wealth over reason.” Check out Gore’s great piece in Rolling Stone (Climate of Denial) to see what part you can play in overcoming the evil deeds of deniers. We can’t let the fools destroy our planet without a fight.

Meanwhile, in the Land of Idiots…

Filed Under: Climate Change Tagged With: global warming, Republicans

A Plea To All Fox Viewers

January 27, 2011 By mario piperni

Hey, Fox sheeple, don’t let them mess with your heads any longer. Listen up, I’m here to help you on this climate change thing.

During their recent coverage of winter storms, Fox News has repeatedly mocked former Vice President Al Gore and cited the cold and snowy weather to attempt to discredit global warming. Fox News and other right-wing media routinely use snow to cast doubt on global warming, and internal emails from Fox News’ Washington bureau show that in the past Fox employees have been instructed to question climate science.

Example…

On the January 27 broadcast of Fox & Friends, host Steve Doocy reported from outside of Fox News’ studios to show viewers how much snow fell in New York City during the previous evening’s storm. During the segment, he asked, “I wonder where Al Gore is this morning?” He then added: “That global warming is really taking its toll. Isn’t it?”

and…

During one segment about the recent snowstorm, Fox & Friends aired an on-screen graphic that read, “What Global Warming?”

and…

On his January 25 radio show, Glenn Beck suggested that cold weather and snow mean that global warming isn’t happening, saying during a discussion of a NASA website on climate change, “By the way, has anybody noticed the record temperatures and continual driving snow in Manhattan?” Beck has also used January snowstorms to mock Al Gore, saying on the January 14 edition of his radio show, “Al Gore, you suck for being so wrong.”

The information is out there explaining the clear distinction between weather and climate. It really is. Google ‘climate versus weather’ and you’ll discover that a snowstorm in January is no more telling than a heat wave in July. Don’t let the connivers at Fox mislead you any longer.

I know that most of you who watch Fox regularly are a sorry lot who wouldn’t know the truth if it hit you on the side of your silly, little heads, but let’s try anyway…

2010 was the warmest climate year on record.
2000 – 2009 was the warmest decade on record.
December 2010 recorded the lowest arctic sea ice cover on record.
The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred within the last 12 years.
Weather deals with the behavior of atmospheric conditions over a short period of time.
Climate does the same but covers a relatively long period of time.

Got that? Good, but there’s a lot more to learn. Prove us wrong – ‘us’ being those who mock you so relentlessly. Show us you actually care about the planet you live on. Show us that on a matter as important as this one, you’re willing to do more than just blindly believe the words of a Glenn Beck or a Steve Doocy.

Just this once, climb out of that dark, dark place you’ve all found refuge in for so long a time. I for one choose to believe that you’re not all as woefully ignorant as you’ve shown yourselves to be. You can’t be. No one can be so consistently stupid.

So go now and research climate change and report back here in a week. You can thank me then.

(Here’s a head start as you begin your exciting new quest for truth and knowledge: the world is not flat!)

Filed Under: Climate Change Tagged With: FOX, global warming

Climate Change Science Does Battle With Fools

November 8, 2010 By mario piperni

It appears that the two sides in the climate change ‘debate’ are getting ready to do epic battle.

In the red trunks and weighing in at a mere 98 pounds, the Deniers.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the incoming head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has pledged to hold hearings on the “Politicization of Science,” which will consist of a rehashing of the so-called ClimateGate “scandal.” He’s also called for greater oversight of the Environmental Protection Agency’s coming regulations of greenhouse gases. With Issa in charge, the oversight committee will devote a good deal of time to hauling government and university climate scientists before Congress.

A Republican politician is complaining about the “politicization of Science’? Funny. I wonder who he might think is doing the politicization.

In the blue trunks and weighing in at a whopping 255 pounds, climate scientists.

Faced with rising political attacks, hundreds of climate scientists are joining a broad campaign to push back against congressional conservatives who have threatened prominent researchers with investigations and vowed to kill regulations to rein in man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

The still-evolving efforts reveal a shift among climate scientists, many of whom have traditionally stayed out of politics and avoided the news media. Many now say they are willing to go toe-to-toe with their critics, some of whom gained new power after the Republicans won control of the House in Tuesday’s election.

On Monday, the American Geophysical Union, the country’s largest association of climate scientists, plans to announce that 700 climate scientists have agreed to speak out as experts on questions about global warming and the role of man-made air pollution.

About time.

“This group feels strongly that science and politics can’t be divorced and that we need to take bold measures to not only communicate science but also to aggressively engage the denialists and politicians who attack climate science and its scientists,” said Scott Mandia, professor of physical sciences at Suffolk County Community College in New York.

“We are taking the fight to them because we are … tired of taking the hits. The notion that truth will prevail is not working. The truth has been out there for the past two decades, and nothing has changed.”

Actually, I’m happy that Republicans have decided to make climate change an issue in the next Congress. Let them subpoena climate scientists by the dozen and let’s hear these guys being vocal about what science has to say. The question becomes how effective the truth will be against the forces (and money) the Deniers have going for them. You can’t force people to hear what they don’t want to hear.

I honestly wanted to get through this short post without hurling a single insult at the people who trash science in the way that they do…but, I just can’t do it. So, if you’re a climate change denier, then please understand that you are the most ignorant, naive and gullible type of person I could ever imagine. Anyone who believes that 97 percent of the world’s scientists could all be so wrong but that Bill O’Reilly and Exxon’s CEO have it right are, in my view anyway, as pathetically stupid as stupid gets. You’re idiots.

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Filed Under: Climate Change Tagged With: Climate Change, congress, political issues, Republicans

Teabaggers, Bastards and Saving Your Planet

October 21, 2010 By mario piperni

I tend to classify climate change deniers into two distinct groups. a) Self-Serving Bastards and b) Dummies.

Self-serving bastards include executives of the fossil fuel industries as well as the politicians who serve their needs. Both of these profit financially by promoting the idea that climate change is a hoax. They do so by funneling millions into propaganda campaigns with the sole purpose of playing down the real threat of global warming.

With no real science of their own to back up their claims, they have been successful in muddying up the waters and creating the false impression that there is a raging debate within the scientific community as to whether man plays a critical role in advancing global warming. There is no such debate. Climatologists have the data. Self-serving Bastards have the lies.

The target audience for Self-serving Bastards is the second group, the Dummies. Dummies are typically your Fox News groupies who think it reasonable to believe a Beck or Limbaugh (also members of the Self-serving Bastards group) over those of the world’s top scientists.

At a recent debate in Indiana, Democratic Rep. Baron Hill noted that:

“Climate change is real, and man is causing it. That is indisputable. And we have to do something about it.”

Here is how one Dummy (and a Tea Party founder) reacted to the statement.

“It’s a flat-out lie,” Mr. Dennison said in an interview after the debate, adding that he had based his view on the preaching of Rush Limbaugh and the teaching of Scripture. “I read my Bible,” Mr. Dennison said. “He made this earth for us to utilize.”

Lovely. The earth is dying and jackasses like Dennison are hanging on tight to the preaching of Rush Limbaugh and the Bible on matters of science. And you thought you needed another reason to keep teabaggers out of political office.

Skepticism and outright denial of global warming are among the articles of faith of the Tea Party movement…

Those who support the Tea Party movement are considerably more dubious about the existence and effects of global warming than the American public at large, according to a New York Times/CBS News Poll conducted this month. The survey found that only 14 percent of Tea Party supporters said that global warming is an environmental problem that is having an effect now, while 49 percent of the rest of the public believes that it is. More than half of Tea Party supporters said that global warming would have no serious effect at any time in the future, while only 15 percent of other Americans share that view, the poll found.

And 8 percent of Tea Party adherents volunteered that they did not believe global warming exists at all, while only 1 percent of other respondents agreed.

And this:

The oil, coal and utility industries have collectively spent $500 million just since the beginning of 2009 to lobby against legislation to address climate change and to defeat candidates, like Mr. Hill, who support it, according to a new analysis from the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a left-leaning advocacy group in Washington.

Their message appears to have fallen on receptive ears. Of the 20 Republican Senate candidates in contested races, 19 question the science of global warming and oppose any comprehensive legislation to deal with it, according to a National Journal survey.

There are a hundred good reasons why voting Republican this November is a serious mistake but if you needed only one, the battle to save your planet might be it.

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Filed Under: Climate Change, Tea Party Madness Tagged With: Climate Change, political issues, tea party, teabaggers