Global Warming is All Too Real
by
John J. Dunphy
(originally published in The [Alton, IL] Telegraph, 5.7.15)
Since Republicans still believe that giving the wealthiest Americans tax cut after tax cut somehow ensures prosperity for our nation, we can hardly be surprised that they also believe human activity doesn’t contribute to climate change. Republican obstinacy in the face of scientific facts was vividly demonstrated last month when GOP members of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology unanimously voted to approve a budget authorization for NASA that slashed the agency’s funds for earth sciences.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden was justifiably angered and released a statement in which he argued that such a drastic cut “guts our Earth science program and threatens to set back generations worth of progress in better understanding our changing climate and our ability to prepare for and respond to earthquakes, droughts and storm events.” Other Americans who respect scientific facts readily agreed with Bolden’s analysis and squarely laid the blame on Republican committee members. “It’s difficult to escape the impression that the recent budgets are part of a concerted effort to ensure that the country does nothing about addressing climate change,” John Timmer wrote in ars technica. Timmer’s article, “House Science Committee guts NASA Earth sciences budget,” was subtitled “Appears to be part of a concerted attack on climate research and responses.” Had I been the editor, I would have deleted “Appears to be” and shorted the title to “Part of a concerted attack on climate change research and responses.”
Senate Republicans are equally clueless. In a 50–49 vote this January, our Republican-dominated senate defeated a measure, which required 60 votes in order to pass, affirming that climate change is real and human activity significantly contributes to it. Sean Cockerham of the McClatchy Washington Bureau quoted Democratic senator Brian Schatz as lamenting, “Only in the halls of Congress is this a controversial piece of legislation.”
Schatz wasn’t exaggerating. In “The 97% consensus on global warming,” the web site Skeptical Science reported that “In the scientific field of climate…the consensus is demonstrated by the number of scientists who have stopped arguing about what is causing climate change — and that’s nearly all of them. A survey of 928 peer-reviewed abstracts on the subject ‘global climate change’ published between 1993 and 2003 shows that not a single paper rejected the consensus position that global warming is man caused (Oreskes 2004).” A follow-up study of “over 12,000 peer-reviewed abstracts on the subject of ‘global warming’ and ‘global climate change’ published between 1991 and 2011 found that of the papers taking a position on the cause of global warming, over 97% agreed that humans are causing it (Cook 2013).”
Republicans rejoiced when Rush Limbaugh triumphantly bellowed that a recent Duke University study proved “there isn’t any warming going on” and “there’s no evidence whatsoever to suggest that long-term warming over the next 100 years is going to be anything even noticeable, abnormal.” Of course he was lying. In his article “Duke Researcher Denounces Rush Limbaugh’s ‘Ridiculous’ Distortion Of His Global Warming Study,” Kevin Kalhoeffer quoted Patrick Brown, one of the study’s authors, as saying, “The idea that there ‘isn’t any warming’ is ridiculous. Over the past century there are countless datasets indicating warming (weather stations, sea level, ice mass, ocean temperatures, etc).”
Republicans steadfastly maintain that every problem can be solved by repealing government regulations and/or giving the wealthy more tax cuts. Since it’s obvious even to them that neither approach is effective against global warming and our role in it, Republicans feel compelled to dismiss the entire issue as a fraud cooked up by Democrats. Most Americans, however, now know that human activity contributes to global warming, which means that next year’s elections just might find Republican politicians in hot water.
— — — — — — — — —
John J. Dunphy is a writer and poet who lives in Godfrey, IL. He is the author of Abolitionism and the Civil War in Southwestern Illinois and Unsung Heroes of the Dachau Trials: The Investigative Work of the U.S. Army 7708 War Crimes Group, 1945–1947.