Last week a summary of the global warming trend was released in Paris - preceded by criticism.
The initial criticism came from top United States climate scientists who rejected the forecasts in favor of more dismal predictions. The summary of the report was written on obsolete data and did not take into account recent ice sheet melt off in Greenland and Antarctica.
This amounts to taking your automobile in to have a flat tire repaired and being informed that your entire powertrain is quickly breaking down.
The light of insight brought by dire predictions tends to reveal the cockroaches attempting to secure the safety of their darkness: Enter Senator James Inhofe (R-OK).
Inhofe is a staunch conservative with a degree in economics who has equated the Environmental Protection Agency to the Gestapo, opposed environmental conservation measures, such as the Everglades restoration, and compared himself to Galileo.
Inhofe has received over a million dollars in campaign finances from oil, gas and electric utility industries and has been honored by the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy - sponsored by over 650,000 of ExxonMobil's dollars.
These qualifications prompted the 109th Congress to make him chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and now he is the ranking member of the committee.
The fox has been given the key to the henhouse and granted the temporary use of a chainsaw.
Inhofe was interviewed on CNN by Miles O'Brien to respond to assertions of global warming by President George Bush, Senator John McCain, James Hansen, a leading global warming scientist, and Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy.
Inhofe's initial assault was on Hansen, the recipient of a $250,000 cash reward for his research. The word Inhofe utilized to describe the award was "paid," implying Hansen reaped financial gain while conducting the research.
In fact, Hansen testified before Congress in 1988 and accepted the award in March 2001.
Turning the table on Inhofe, I feel fully justified in using the word "paid" to describe the money received by oil, gas and electric utility companies.
Inhofe then shamelessly promoted the Oregon Petition, a controversial document disputing global warming. The Oregon Petition was written in the manner of a scientific journal, but was never peer reviewed and falsely claimed the support of the U.S. National Academy of Science. Proponents of the petition profess the support of 17,800 scientists, including such notable intellects such as television characters, weathermen and dead people.
Inhofe concluded his interview with criticism of corporations, including British Petroleum (BP), General Electric and Duke Power, who have advocated emission controls on climate changing gases.
Inhofe's criticism centered on the present and future financial investment incentive in alternative energy being made by these corporations - as if the idea of making money in the American capitalistic economic system was a preposterous one.
The cockroach is scurrying around with one million dollars of fossil fuel money attempting to kick down the door of corporations attempting to do something right - all while questioning scientists who are striding to literally save the world.
Science is continuously based on theories that are refined from the older ones or created from new research. This, in effect, means that all science is nothing more than the current best guess at the ramifications of any given situation.
Global warming research is a vast collection of sciences and is therefore difficult to forecast with infinite precision given our current level of technology and experience.
But the scientific community is speaking out including the U.S. National Academy of Science, and the message is clear-global warming is accelerating and the result will be disastrous.
By the time the technology and experience has advanced for the results to be infinitely precise, it will be much too late to recover.
It is time to be proactive and not reactive before there is no time to be active at all.
Write to Jason at jlhodson@bsu.edu
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