Taking on the Anti-Earthies, Listen Up Senator Inhofe!

This guy is said to be a key player in the controversy on global warming -- In that he is one of the "global warming" doesn't exist Poster Boys and "researchers." Any who follow in his stead: listen up! I have read several of his articles and this is what I have to say.

For the record, Inhofe is concentrating on Fossil Fuels, and their emission levels, and he puts this up against a historical presence or absence of automobiles in the world in the past. (no Environmentalist uses this exclusively as the cause of global warming,) He talks about "hockey sticks" and the vascillation between cold and warm "spells" as indicative of the governments inability to make up its mind, when the truth is that irrespective of what direction climate change may go, any large changes to the contrary Will lead to the destruction of life. The danger of Global warming eventually instigating an ice age may be what they were speaking to.

He also does not take into account other ecological damage — the coal mines, the mass deforestation of Ireland and France during the tin age or the French Revolution which burned and chopped down massive swaths of forests to fund their politics. The burning of the African Congo to build railroads. The Industrialized Age began in the years 1830-40, and by 1850 in London — coal was the major fuel source for thousands of people, including ALL their colonies. You know the term London Fog? That's coal smog. And not even a decade later, we experience a "random" warming. These are all HUGE changes in how we went about our energy consumption in our daily lives.

The removal of trees affects the CO2 levels too, Not just cars, further, it may not even have had such an impact if we hadn't heavily deforested the planet which helps regulate and recycle CO2. Inhofe's article fails to take into account the fact that other eco-systems which man destroys affects planetary balance.

How about that Medieval warm period? The Medieval Warm Period of unusually warm weather occurred around 800-1300 AD, during the European Medieval period. Initial research on the MWP and the following Little Ice Age (LIA) was largely done in Europe, where the phenomenon was most obvious and clearly documented. It was initially believed that the temperature changes were global. (as Inhofe protests: global warmth without cars!) However, this view has been questioned; the 2001 IPCC report summarizes this research, saying "…current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this time frame, and the conventional terms of 'Little Ice Age' and 'Medieval Warm Period' appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries". Yeah, it was warm, in Europe. The Medieval Warm Period partially coincides with the peak in solar activity named the Medieval Maximum (1100–1250). In contrast, the evidence for a global (or at least northern hemisphere) "Little Ice Age" from the 15th to 19th centuries as a period when the Earth was generally cooler than in the mid 20th century has more or less stood the test of time as Paleoclimatic records have become numerous. The idea of a global or hemispheric "Medieval Warm Period" that was warmer than today however, has turned out to be incorrect.

Inhofe talks about 1859 as a warm year and yet fails to tell us that this was the FIRST year where petroleum began being used as a new "improved" resource, this is the same year that Japan went into its high industrialization, burning coal almost exclusively for energy in Kyoto and Tokyo. It is also the year that countries began drilling for Natural gas deposits.... (leaving behind hollow empty bubbles of air, which creates instability in the earth's crust and actually effects the wobble on the earth's axis. It isn't the only contributor by a long-shot but it is one of them.)

Fact is in the 1850's: Coal became more attractive, both because deposits were often found near the new railroad rights of way and because its higher energy content increased the range and load of steam trains. Demand for coal also rose because the railroads were laying thousands of miles of new track and the metals industry needed an economical source of coal to make iron and steel for the rails and spikes. The transportation and industrial sectors in general began to grow rapidly during the latter half of the century, and coal helped fuel their growth.

Petroleum also got its start between 1840 and 1855. By the end of WWI America's appetite for energy, alone, as it industrialized was prodigious, roughly quadrupling between 1880 and 1918. Coal fed much of this growth, in applications and total use alike. Petroleum got major boosts with the discovery of Texas's vast Spindletop Oil Field in 1901 and with the advent of mass-produced automobiles, several million of which had been built by 1918. (Let me repeat, he says 1895 NOT 1995)

In the years after World War II, "Old King Coal" relinquished its place as the premier fuel in the United States. The railroads lost business to trucks that ran on gasoline and diesel fuel, and also began switching to diesel locomotives themselves. Labor troubles and safety standards drove up coal production costs. The coal industry survived, however, mainly because nationwide electrification created new demand for coal among electric utilities despite regional competition from hydroelectric and petroleum-fired generation. Yet Inhofe sits by and snidely comments on how in 1950 politicians were complaining about climate disruptions (just 5 years after the atomic bomb is dropped – he doesn't even take that into consideration).

Most energy produced today in the United States, as in the rest of the industrialized world, comes from fossil fuels —coal, natural gas, crude oil, and natural gas plant liquids. It's not just about cars when it comes to fossil fuel emissions.

All of this affects the planet. Who was created to be as she was by God. The truth is, this is nothing new, it just keeps getting worse.

He also talks about the ice shelf in the arctic and Canada as overloading with ice — but you can look at the satellite photos of Rhode island sized ice shelves breaking away from Greenland. This is due to a lake of warm water that has melted on top of a section of ice, which just like in your soda, will fracture and shrink the mass, whether or not their is more ice now than in the past, the rate at which the ice is freezing and thawing to create these fractures is in no way normal. And that's what's important. Yeah, we're losing ice in one small spot and gaining ice in places where it was scarce before. Glaciers are advancing in South America, he says, and this doesn't seem like a problem, if ice melts in one place and freezes densely in another, it can alter the tilt of the planet.

He says the government in 1930 took a break from the ice age spiel and went into warmth warnings, why would that be? 1930 was another huge coal year. Not for the US but for Russia which achieved under Stalin in 1927, its own industrial revolution surge. And Russian population at the time was huge. Meanwhile, by the end of 1929 in the US, crop failures were rampant, and by 33 we were deep into the dust bowl. Caused by drought, and wind and excessive heat. Inhofe quotes that the NYT in 1933 (of all years) reports a 25 year high in temperature, the most since 1776. I find that interesting. Of course they'd be talking about heat! Half the population of the lower Midwest states became migrant workers in CA's San Joaquin valley (Grapes of Wrath? Steinbeck?)

Furthermore, his tone is incredulous, unscientific and smacks of someone who jabs at a truth without doing the proper research, he alludes to studies, but never gives documented data. At least the UN ( a panel of 113 Countries) speaks about their position without being derisive.

And Senator Inhofe is the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and part of a good 40 other companies and committees, incl. the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy all of which find that their funding is provided in more than a large part by ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company. Wouldn't you consider this to be a conflict of interests? If you looked him up on the web there are countless articles on him being "bought" by the oil companies to provide the answers that would support their endeavors.

Inhofe has a history of opposing environmental groups and global warming initiatives. There are several transcripts of Inhofe speeches on the Senate floor regarding this offered a documents by his official website:

* July 28, 2003, "The Science of Climate Change"
* October 4, 2004, "Partisan Environmental Groups"
* January 4, 2005, "Climate Change Update"
* April 8, 2005, "First Four Pillars Speech"

On April 28, 2004, Inhofe was honored for his "work in promoting science-based public policy" [6] by the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy, a think tank that disputes the scientific consensus on the causes and magnitude of global warming. (The think tank has received $658,575 from ExxonMobil since 1998).

So do I find him to be an unbiased representative of the other side? Not at all. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him, he has been paid more than half a million dollars towards his committees and think tanks by the fossil fuel corporate giants. Anybody receiving that much money for campaign or research is obligated to some degree to their backers. Just like Presidents and their campaign fund lobbyists.