Speaking on Face the Nation this weekend, GOP front-runner and future guest-in-a sweater vest Romper Room host Rick Santourm decreed that Barack Obama is following a phony, dare we say heretical theology, in which the end goal is to enslave man to that commie bitch mother earth. Or something like that:
(TPM) — “When you have a worldview that elevates the Earth above man and says that we can’t take those resources because we’re going to harm the Earth; by things that frankly are just not scientifically proven, for example, the politicization of the whole global warming debate — this is all an attempt to, you know, to centralize power and to give more power to the government,” Santorum said.
If temperature records taken by super accurate land, sea, and satellite based thermometers and backed up by ice cores, tree rings, and coral growth lines clearly showing a marked increase in global temperatures going back a millennia compiled by NASA aren’t enough, I’m not sure what Santorum or anyone else needs to accept the fact of recent global warming. If corresponding increases in fossil fuel greenhouse gases clearly showing the chemical signatures of human activity and the known, high school level physics of how some gases trap heat better than others won’t do the trick, nothing will. He could be up his wooly neck treading warm water in what was once the ice-covered North Pole and he’d be singing the same song to the rabid cheers of adoring wingnut troglodytes.
Speaking of phony arguments, here’s what I don’t get, why doesn’t the energy industry and/or politicians interested in representing their interests just make an honest argument? Because there’s an honest and compelling argument to be made here that goes something like this: We the Fossil Energy Companies provide fuel, You the Consumers are the ones who keep buying it. If you stopped buying it we’d be out of business. But You the Consumer won’t stop buying it, because you like fresh strawberries and cream in winter along with central heating and air conditioning, and all the other cool gizmos you carry around in your pocket or rely on to get through a single week in abject luxury. There, an honest point, a good place to start charting our future. One where we’re all being upfront about our motives instead of surreptitiously paying off creepy bloggers and media shills and the whole character assassination and disinformation industry to broadcast the modern-day version of ‘who ya gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?’
If Gawd loves Greenhouse gases so much – especially Carbon dioxide – then why did (S)He / It / They – create Earth with an atmosphere composed mostly of nitrogen with Co2 a trace gas down in only the millionths of a single percent of our air?
Why didn’t God make Earth’s atmosphere more like that of Mars or Venus which are “blessed” to be mostly Co2 but whose planetary climates strike one as, umm, somewhat less than ideal?
Oil companies make an honest argument, and solar panel installation companies earn billions of dollars inside of a week.
… I support this.
Elevating the Earth above people? The problem is that if we trash the environment, people are fucked too. Apparently Santorum has been too busy obsessing about Americans’ sex lives to realize this.
We face some really hard decisions. Unfortunately, we can’t have a grown-up conversation about the future of our planet when one of our political parties seems to be living on a different one.
StevoR:
I don’t know if 0.039% is “millionths”!
I get no pay-off from that “paying off” link.
Thanks Pierce, it’s fixed.
@3
That’s correct; elevating the Earth above people. Which is actually okay, as long as we can keep elevating people above water.
You know what they say: A rising tide lifts all boats–great news for the 1% of people who own boats and make a living renting out a plank to the other 99%.
@keithb -February 21, 2012 at 10:50 am :
Fair enough – as y’all prob’ly know, Carbon Dioxide is measured in the parts per million though which is where I got that from.
NASA climatologist and expert James Hansen suggests – in his excellent book ‘Storms of our Grandchildren’ among other places – that to avoid dangerous climate change we need to keep Co2 at about 350 ppm.
Currently we’re at 393 ppm and rising faster than ever. :-(
See :
http://co2now.org/
for the latest figures & my source for that.
@The Lorax – February 21, 2012 at 9:16 am :
Seconded by me.
Most sane people, I think, support that as well.
PS. CORRECTION :
D’oh! Sorry. See :
http://www.stormsofmygrandchildren.com/storms_of_my_grandchildren_media.html
Or its wikipedia page for more. That is one book I’d strongly recommend everyone read btw. Of course, the people who most *need* to read & think about it seriously are also those least likely to do so such as Santorum the santorum.