(Image courtesy of wpclipart.com.)
The political right would have us believe that pumping endless amounts of carbon dioxide into the air, for decades, has no effect on the environment. For example, Congressman David McKinley (R-W.Va.), who receives a large chunk of his campaign cash from the fossil fuel industry, informed his fellow Republicans that human-caused climate change is nothing more than a politically-motivated lie (see "House Directs Pentagon To Ignore Climate Change"). And a Republican legislator in Kentucky, who just so happens to own a mining company, said there's no truth to the claim that man is contributing to climate change because Earth and Mars have the same temperature (see "Republican Calls Climate Change A Hoax Because Earth And Mars Have 'Exactly' Same Temperature").
Of course, Earth and Mars do not have the same temperature (and even if they did, it would still be difficult to follow this legislator's wacky reasoning), but that probably doesn't matter. Millions of Americans will continue to vote for Republicans and Tea Partiers, no matter how outlandish their claims. A Republican candidate could declare that global warming is a hoax because Santa and his elves are still making toys at the cold North Pole, and still get plenty of votes as long as he/she stated the obligatory "Obama is a Marxist," "the unemployed are lazy-good-for-nothings," and "billionaires are struggling to survive under the oppressive tax system."
(WPA poster, courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.)
Right-wing politicians--and the super-wealthy Americans who control their puppet strings--have fueled so much insanity that some people have now rigged their vehicles to pollute more, apparently in protest of Obama, the EPA, and environmentalists. They are breathing in their vehicle's exhaust, and spraying people with it, to thumb their nose at people who want to breathe clean air (see "Political Protest Or Just Blowing Smoke? Anti-Environmentalists Are Now 'Rolling Coal'").
CNN anchor Carol Costello asks "Why are we still debating climate change?" It's a good question, when you consider the following: (a) 97% of climate scientists agree that man is contributing to global warming; (b) the U.S. Department of Defense has warned us about national security issues related to climate change; (c) the United Nations has highlighted that climate change is already causing problems; (d) former EPA chief William Ruckelshaus, a Republican who served under Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan said of climate change and pollution-curbing regulations: "We all feel strongly that something should be done and we should get on with this"; and (e) a scientist funded by the Koch brothers reversed his opinion after considering more research and said: "Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.”
(WPA poster, courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.)
New Deal policymakers knew that humans could have a detrimental impact on the environment. It was (and should be today) common sense. That's why they had young men in the Civilian Conservation Corps plant three billion trees across the nation. That's why they had WPA workers plant eight million bushels of oysters. Not everything they did was environmentally sound, but at least they tried. Further, they didn't claim that Earth and Mars have the same temperature (which is false) and so we don't need to be concerned (which is idiotic).
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