Eugene Robinson: Republicans are stubbornly blocking the road on climate – The Washington Post
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 7: Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) holds a telephone conference with reporters in his office on Capitol Hill on January 7, 2015 in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/For The Washington Post)
By Eugene Robinson Opinion writer January 19 at 6:59 PM
“Hold on a minute,” I hear someone objecting. “I seem to recall that last winter featured the dreaded polar vortex, which brought frigid arctic air to much of the United States. Some warming!”
Is that you, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), new chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee and the Senate’s point man on climate change? Let me try to put this in a way you might understand: The planet we live on is really, really big — so big that when it’s cold in our country, which covers only a small percentage of Earth’s surface, it can be hot in other places. At the very same time!
Okay, I’m being somewhat unfair. Inhofe actually reacted to the news of 2014’s record heat by calling the reported increase tiny and meaningless. But his long-held position is not that climate change is overblown or misinterpreted or poorly understood but that it is actually a “hoax” and a “conspiracy.” He wrote a book taking this stance. At times, he has claimed that global warming, if it were indeed taking place, would be a good thing. And he has scoffed at the notion that humans could ever have such a massive impact on God’s immense creation.
Let me repeat: This is the man whose task is to lead the U.S. Senate in setting environmental policy.
Eugene Robinson: Republicans are stubbornly blocking the road on climate – The Washington Post
