Willard Romney Divorced From America's Reality

Apparently, I'm not the only one that has noticed Willard Romney's talking points are completely divorced from reality.  How can we as a nation have significant discussions about the important issues of our time when the right refuses to ground their discussions in reality.  Republicans can find no data that supports trickle down economic theory, but its the only tax policy they support.  98 percent of all climate scientists support  man made global warming theory but almost all republicans reject it.  This fantasy life has so taken over the republicans that it affects their everyday talking points.  This ad from the Obama administration highlights some of Romney's talking points which are not grounded in reality. 

ThinkProgress; Today’s TOP 10 Romney Distortions, Half-truths, & Lies

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Senator Inhofe and Pope Urban VIII

image from Amazon, introduction available free online
"when man-made global warming is totally debunked"

Senator Inhofe:

Well actually the Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that “as long as the earth remains there will be springtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.” My point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.

There is no climate change because: the bible. All the scientific data pointing to global climate change is invalid because: the bible. Senator Inhofe believes that the bible is correct and science is wrong. That it is impossible for mankind to change the climate of this planet. I'm reminded of a similar discussion that took place 400 years ago between Pope Urban the VIII and Galileo Galilei. Galileo supported Copernicus' idea that the earth revolved around the sun. Most unfortunately, for Galileo the Catholic Church insisted the biblical model of the earth being the center of the solar system was the only "truth". The Catholic Church only had to point to the bible to refute both Copernicus and Galileo.

  "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved."

 "the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved."

The calculations, observations and theories of Copernicus and Galileo were no match for biblical verses. Copernicus didn't publish his book until after he died, but the Catholic Church was able to get its hands on Galileo and the Church tried him for heresy.   Galileo was fortunate to escape execution and spent the remainder of his life under house arrest. 
Senator Inhofe has refuted all the global climate change evidence with one quote from the bible.  The senators 2000 year old book and his checkbook (over 1.3 million dollars from oil and gas contributors) is more reliable than thousands of scientists across the world.   Does the senator  also believe that the sun orbits the earth?  Would Senator Inhofe like to lock up all the heretical climate scientists also?  Would the senator burn all the books that show the earth rotating the sun.

Senator Inhofe is appearing Tuesday, March 13 on the Rachel Maddow Show.  I'll bet Ms. Maddow has some interesting questions for the senator.

***Update*** 

From the Rachel Maddow show:

The good news is that the uncharacteristically exciting and consequential nature of the Alabama and Mississippi primaries means ramped-up and expanded coverage of those races tonight.   The bad news is that we therefore have to reschedule Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), who had been slated for The Interview tonight, on the subject of his new book on global warming (or the lack thereof).

When the senator reschedules, I'll post it.

***Update***

Part 1 of Rachel's interview with Senator Inhofe is here
Part 2

Senator Inhofe quotes are from the shameless start of Climategate.  Reliable news sources have retracted audacious claims and apologized.  Five seperate investigations were launched into climategate, not a single one of them found ANY merit to the outrageous charges of coverup, misleading or falsification of data.

Raymond Bradley, Director, Climate System Research Center, University of Massachusets

I hope that the media will devote as much attention to this comprehensive dismissal of the allegations as it did to promoting the hysteria surrounding the email theft in the first place. Will the Daily Telegraph now retract its claim that the emails revealed "the greatest scientific scandal of our age" and apologise unreservedly to Phil Jones? Will there now be a public inquiry about the erroneous, shallow and repetitive nonsense promulgated in the media over this affair?
If there is a scandal to be reported at all, it is this: the media stoked a controversy without properly investigating the issues, choosing to inflate trivialities to the level of an international scandal, without regard for the facts or individuals affected. This was a shameful chapter in the history of news reporting, and a lesson for those who are concerned about fair and honest communication with the public.

Related articles

• God versus James Inhofe (dailykos.com)
• Feb. 13, 1633: Church vs. Galileo (wired.com)
• How is climate change like Copernicus? (boingboing.net)
• Inhofe: It Is 'Arrogance Of People To Think That We ... Would Be Able To Change' What God Is Doing With The Climate (thinkprogress.org)
• U.S. senator: God says that there can't be global warming (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
• Inhofe: God Says Global Warming Is A Hoax (thinkprogress.org)

Rick Santorum, No Facts, Just the Bible

 Image by TalkMediaNews via Flickr
From the Des Moines Register

Discussing controversial classroom subjects such as evolution and global warming, Santorum said he has suggested that “science should get out of politics” and he is opposed to teaching that provides a “politically correct perspective.”

Rick Santorum would like to get science out of politics and the classroom in order to make room for religion in politics and the classroom.   He suggests that the government stop using data and facts to guide policy decisions and instead consult him and his little black bible.  Rick Santorum thinks that global warming is junk science and that climate change is a hoax, unsurprisingly, Mr. Santorum has no data to support his claims.  Not only does he want gays to stop having sex, he wants to make contraception illegal so sex is "only for procreation", again no data to support his position other than the scrawlings of long dead bronze aged goat herders.  America are you ready to remove science from religion and politics?  A majority of US congressmen believe in "millionaire job creators", "the job fairy" and the equally imaginary benefits of "trickle down economic theory" in spite of any reliable economic data to support those beliefs.  Fortunately, a recent Gallup poll of republican voters found that Rick Santorum was the least acceptable candidate at 27%.   Rick Santorum's campaign is not concerned about the polling, similar to evolution, climate change and teenage pregnancy statistics- its just data. 

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Exposing the "Science" Behind Climate Change Deniers

On Ethan Siegel's Blog Starts With a Bang, he analyzes data from the BEST (Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project) which was supposed to settle the question is Global Climate Change occurring.  Strangely, this study was funded in part by the Koch brothers and Richard Muller who headed the project was a vigorous skeptic of climate change.  When the BEST study found that indeed, the data did show a warming trend many were surprised.  It was also amazing how closely the data from the BEST study correlated with NOAA, NASA and other studies. 

But there was one dissenter, Judith Curry the sole climatologist assigned to the study, disagreed and stated that the global warming trend had slowed and the data that Richard Muller presented in the  BEST results hid the decline.

"In Prof Curry’s view, two of the papers were not ready to be  published, in part because they did not properly address the arguments of climate sceptics.
As for the graph disseminated to the media, she said: ‘This is “hide the decline” stuff. Our data show the pause, just as the other sets of data do. Muller is hiding the decline.
‘To say this is the end of scepticism is misleading, as is the  statement that warming hasn’t paused. It is also misleading to say, as he has, that the issue of heat islands has been settled.’" [1.]

 It's a great read, and Ethan Siegel explains very clearly so it's easy to see how Prof. Curry manipulated the data to create what some are calling fraudulent claims.   You can find it here.
[1.] The Daily Mail interview with Prof. Curry

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American Heroines arrested for standing against big oil

Two American heroines sent to jail for peacefully protesting the construction of the Keystone XL tar sands Pipeline.  I can't locate image credit for this great photo, pls. leave a comment if you know who took this.

 These two young ladies were among 150 others arrested in Washington D.C. in the past week for peacefully protesting the Keystone XL pipeline.  The park service deciding to get tough with the protestors is now sentencing them to jail time.  The grassroots fight against the Keystone XL pipeline gained substantial steam today with a NY Times editorial: "Tar Sands and the Carbon Numbers". Canada has a vast repository of tar sands which contain an oil with a much larger carbon footprint.  To extract the oil, vast tracts of arboreal forests must be cut down, then the tar sands must be steam heated to release the oil.  Not only does the tar sand oil significantly add to global climate change, it also means the loss of a valuable carbon sink through the loss of the forest lands.  Finally, they want to build a pipeline carrying this crude slurry from Canada to refineries in Texas.  Who feels comfortable with an oil company running a pipeline carrying a noxious crude slurry (diluted bitumen) through the heartland of this country?  Toxic chemicals are released throughout the refining process, leaving compromised watersheds wherever the tar sands have been extracted or refined.  This pipeline is the wrong direction for our country, oil is yesterday, we need green energy.  If we are going to build infrastructure, lets do it for the future.  We can build solar plants in Arizona or windmills almost anywhere and upgrade our electrical grid throughout the country to carry this free renewable resource.  This is a much better use of our dwindling resources.
 
Sign Credo's petition to stop the Tar Sands  Over 160,000 people have signed
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Republicans, holding onto the past and blocking our future

image from NOAA

Every red dot on this map is a record high daytime temperature, every yellowish dot is a record nighttime high temperature.  This map just represents the month of July.  So many records were set in the month of July that this map clearly shows the outline of the USA.  These high temperatures are very hard on the elderly and all those who cannot afford air conditioning.  It's sad that so many of our political leaders do not believe the climate data showing a warming trend on the earth.  We look to our leaders to lead, instead many of them have their heads bowed in conversations with imaginary deities while their ears are cocked toward oil and coal industries instead of reading the latest climate change papers.  Republicans true to  their coal, oil and gas palm liners have consistently fought, fuel efficient vehicles, clean air regulations and almost all green energy programs.  The republicans are heavily weighted against the future and want to hold onto the past.   If Henry Ford was trying to bring automobiles to the American public today, the republicans representing the horse and buggy industry would do everything in their power to make sure that those new fangled darn contraptions wouldn't see wide usage.  They would provide tax deductions for livery stables, farm subsidies to hay and oat growers, reduce taxation on all horse breeders, and similarly would place restrictions on the usage of automobiles.  Sound familiar?  Just stand near a republican, you can smell the horse manure.

How can the Conservative Republicans deny the science behind Climate Change?

There was an interesting article in Mother Jones last week called The science of why we don't believe science.  They mention a 2008 Pew Research Poll which I remember reading and disbelieving when it came it out.   The poll showed that college educated republicans were more likely to not believe in man made climate change than  non-college graduate  republicans.  The only way I could explain that was: pew did a bad poll.  But in a new paper analyzing 10 years of Gallup

data they found the same strong correlation.
we find that the effects of educational attainment and self-reported understanding on beliefs about climate science and personal concern about global warming are positive for liberals and Democrats, but are weaker or negative for conservatives and Republicans. 
The data isn't changing  but Democrats and Republicans see two very different conclusions from the same data.  How are we going to address the energy crisis and global warming if only one side sees a problem?  Democrats see our resources racing overseas to pay for our national oil appetite and Republicans see very large contributions to their campaigns from the oil companies.  Democrats see a warming climate with unknown consequences for the future and Republicans see large checks from coal and gas companies.  Democrats see a polluted gulf of Mexico, devastated tourism, ecosystems and wildlife while Republicans  see a poor oil company getting the shakedown.   Chris Mooney in the Mother Jones article thinks:  

Conservatives are more likely to embrace climate science if it comes to them via a business or religious leader, who can set the issue in the context of different values than those from which environmentalists or scientists often argue. 

That is exactly the point-we don't share the same values.  And the concept of conservative business or religious leaders advocating for climate change is almost laughable.  Pat Robertson and the Koch Brothers present: Climate Change?  Last year Donald Trump, wanted Al Gore stripped of his Nobel Prize after record snowfalls hit Washington DC.  Political leaders?  Imagine Speaker of the house John Bohner advocating for climate change?  The same John Bohner who said of the birthers:  "Its not my job to tell people what to think."  I've come to realize the only values we Democrats share with the Republicans are dollars, and their not sharing.