Published on Truthout, 1 October 2014.
Given that over 97 percent of climate scientists agree on the matter, the fact that anyone is questioning the reality of anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) remains an amazing phenomenon.
If your child were sick, and 97 percent of doctors recommended one treatment for them, which treatment would you use?
Yet this kind of reasoning need not apply, apparently, to vast sectors of the media, political apparatus and general public in the United States. Instead of an informed public and rational elected leaders, we are left with what author John Kennedy Toole so perfectly described in the title of his most famous work, A Confederacy of Dunces.
Some very special ACD denial quotes from the confederacy:
“Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide.” John Boehner, Speaker of the House (R-Ohio).
“It could just be a shift on the axis.” Bill Cassidy, Congressman (R-Louisiana).
“The new fad thing that’s going through America and around the world. It’s called global warming.” Steve Stockman, Congressman (R-Texas).
“All voodoo, nonsense . . . a hoax.” Michele Bachmann, Congresswoman (R-Minnesota).
” . . . The idea that manmade gases, CO2, are causing catastrophic global warming is the greatest hoax every perpetrated on the American people.” James Inhofe, Senator (R-Oklahoma), former chair of the US Senate Committee on the Environment and Public.
“[ACD] led to the Vikings dominating Europe for several hundred years.” Morgan Griffith, Congressman (R-Virginia).
“It is not proven, it’s not science. It’s more of a religion than a science.” Steve King, Congressman (R-Iowa).
And one of my current favorites:
“The ice caps are melting, which we see over and over again. Yeah, they’re melting on Mars, too!” Dana Rohrabacher, Congressman (R-California).
The reason for this lunacy is simple, and the evidence lies not far below the surface.
