Climate Change: The Gotcha Politics of Global Warming

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The record breaking snow fall and cold temperatures in Washington DC and much of the east coast has left a warm and fuzzy feeling inside of the global warming skeptics. In fact we’ve been getting an ear full from this band of conservatives the past few months. In December, at the eve of the climate change conference in Copenhagen, we had Climate Gate where hackers broke into the emails of scientists and claimed to have found proof that data was manipulated to intentionally produce the results that the climate change phenomenon is real. In January we had conservatives up in a frenzy over the supposedly tree hugging propaganda in the epic movie Avatar. And now February has given global warming deniers yet another ah-ha moment – the blizzard of 2010.

The fact that people are confusing today’s weather with long term weather patterns (or climate) would be comical if the consequences were not so serious. Not only is this right wing campaign to minimize the effects of pollution on our planet relieving individuals of the responsibility to reduce their carbon footprints, but it also weakens any chance of getting meaningful legislation passed through Congress to reign in corporate polluters. Watch as Keith Olbermann explains how even Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources committee, although he has a solid environmental friendly record, is buckling under the weight of the cold weather means global warming is a hoax hype and as a result is grounding an important climate change bill:

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To be fair the framers and supporters of the green movement helped in creating an environment where sound science of global warming was casted into the world of doubt and debate. They did this by claiming that record high temperatures or strong frequent huricanes were proof that the earth was overheating. Therefore weather should never have been brought into the discussion of global warming because naturally the flip side to that coin can be exploited by the nay sayers. For example Dr. Robert Book of The Heritage Foundation stated:

So it is with global warming. If there is lower-than-average snow it’s due to global warming (“too warm for snow to form”) and if there is higher-than-average snow it’s due to global warming (“more moisture there, more snow here”), and if snowfall is average, the two cancel out. If northern Europe as a less severe winter, it’s due to global warming making winters less cold; if northern Europe as a more severe winter, it’s due to global warming interfering with the Gulf Stream.

As loathsome and disagreeable as it is, I can see how corporate polluters can decide to hire researchers and think tanks to question the existence of global warming. It is usually in their financial best interest to do so. But what is it with this love affair of rank and file conservatives with cutting off their noses to spite their faces? All of last year they were easily lead to the alter to sacrifice their own self interest by vehemently opposing health care reform so long as it meant running a political hit job on President Obama. They were promised that its failure would be his Waterloo. And now here we go again, sacrificing the health of the planet in exchange for political one-upmanship, this time with Al Gore and the green energy movement in their cross hairs. A divided nation is fertile ground for gotcha politics, logic or reason or sound science be damned. If people are willing to forego their own financial and physical health to score political points, how much more will they be willing to sabotage the environment.