Posted on 06/25/2010 8:02:45 PM PDT by Star Traveler
By Alex Cameron, Oklahoma Impact Team
Posted: Jun 24, 2010 9:53 PM
Updated: Jun 25, 2010 9:03 AM
PERRY, OK -- He's been called an idiot, a climate killer, and one of the worst enemies of the planet, and it couldn't make Jim Inhofe more proud.
To Oklahoma's senior U.S. Senator, the insults just validate his efforts to expose what he says are the lies and exaggerations of global warming alarmists. And, as he told our Oklahoma Impact Team, his efforts are finally paying off, because public opinion on the issue is shifting.
Recent polls show this claim to be true.
A Pew Research Center poll done last October showed that Americans who believe there's "solid evidence the earth is warming" had dropped from 71 percent in 2008 to 57 percent. Also, a Gallup poll this March showed that the percentage of Americans who feel the seriousness of global warming is being exaggerated had jumped from 31, in 2008, to 48.
Poll results like those have Senator Inhofe feeling, not only validated, but vindicated.
"It was eight years ago that I got involved in this whole global warming, cap and trade thing," Sen. Inhofe explained to a group of voters recently at a town hall meeting in Perry.
"I was called the worst person--well, the most dangerous man on the planet," Inhofe recalled, "that's what they called me at that time."
'That' time was not long after a signature speech Inhofe delivered on the Senate floor in July 2003, in which he offered "compelling evidence that catastrophic global warming is a hoax."
The speech thrust Inhofe into a position few, if any, other elected officials had publicly staked out -- global warming denier. Not only was the self-proclaimed maverick saying that global warming is not being caused by human activity, he was saying global warming isn't happening at all.
"Now, I have to say," Inhofe told us in a sit-down interview, "it was miserable for about six years, because I was the only one out there."
Inhofe was ridiculed and dismissed in mainstream and left-leaning publications, and he says even his own granddaughter questioned his thinking.
"She said, 'why is it that you don't understand global warming?' This is my granddaughter!"
But then came the scandal that gave Inhofe and other climate change skeptics something tangible to hold up for public scrutiny. And it came, perhaps not coincidentally, on the eve of the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen last December.
Dubbed "Climategate," the scandal surrounded the publication of more than a thousand hacked e-mails between top climate change scientists affiliated with the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Great Britain.
Among other things, the e-mails made reference to the use of a statistical "trick" to hide a decline in temperatures; to keeping papers that contradicted the scientists' conclusions about climate change out of the UN climate report; and to the current lack of warming not fitting with their global warming theory.
Follow-up investigations conducted by the British Parliament, as well as, by university authorities have cleared the scientists and their science.
But Senator Inhofe says his own investigation has shown that Climategate is "real" and that the science behind global warming has been "cooked."
"After what has been exposed now," Inhofe stated, "I can't imagine there's anyone out there who really does believe."
The truth is, of course, there are many who still believe that the earth is warming.
Oklahoma climatologist Gary McManus is one of them, despite the e-mail scandal.
"I took that controversy very seriously and I did look through all the documents," McManus said.
He says the e-mails do reflect poor decisions by some of the most influential scientists in the field, but "that doesn't really devalue the rest of the science that the world has provided us on climate change."
McManus says the science has been independently verified at numerous labs, including NASA and the National Climatic Data Center, both in the United States.
"Overwhelmingly, that science reports that the earth has been warming," McManus said, "and the cause is mainly the increased concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."
Senator Inhofe calls that alarmist rhetoric. He says the e-mails showed how scientists have manipulated data to fit their theory, and have exposed the global warming lie.
In another signature moment, shortly after the scandal broke last November, Mr. Inhofe told the chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, Barbara Boxer, D-California, the issue is now settled:
"It's over, gone, done. We won, you lost, get a life!"
And, in another bit of good timing for Inhofe, Washington, D.C. was blanketed in record snowfall around this same time. Visiting Inhofe family members built an igloo not far from the Capitol and crowned it with a homemade sign reading: Al Gore's New Home. (Former Vice President Gore is among the leading proponents of global warming theory.)
"We've won that battle," Inhofe told the gathering of about 50 people in Perry.
Senator Inhofe insists the 'consensus' on global warming is now unraveling, and says, after enduring years of name-calling and disparagement, the last laugh will be his.
"Everything you found out in Climategate on how they're cooking the science, I said on the Senate floor back then," Inhofe explained to the crowd. "Now I've been vindicated."
Polls may show public opinion shifting more in line with Senator Inhofe's views, but they also show that his views remain in the minority. A poll conducted by Stanford University in the first week of June shows three out of four Americans think the earth has been warming over the last 100 years, and the same number think human activity is at least in part to blame.
Bet he never assaulted a woman, neither.
I moved to OK (from the People’s Republic of Kalifornia) a few years ago. I sure am impressed with this man. I hope he a) always sticks to his conservative, no comprimise guns and b) is being groomed for the Top Spot.
It is really hard for me to believe that 71% of American’s believed in global warming in 2008.
Inhofe has endorsed Todd Tiahrt for the Kansas Senate!
They are both great guys!
I like Inhofe. I agree with him 99% of the time so he gets my vote.
There was a video of him talking about legalization of pot that I didn’t like. He basically said there is no proof that pot has any medicinal value and that anything it can do(medicinally? I wondered) can be done with prescription drugs.
On top of that he said that anyone that wanted to smoke pot instead of taking prescription drugs was just doing it to get high.
My cut on that is, so what? Who are you to tell me what I can and cant do. After his logic seem to point at the fact that there are some benefits, for some people, to smoke pot, i.e. relieve symptoms that can also be relieved by prescription drugs.
Like I said I agree with him overwhelmingly, but I do have a,”who are you to tell me what I can and can’t do,” bent.
But he is on target with everything else I have heard him say.
PS. I don’t smoke pot. I just think gubment should stay out of what people do in their own states and their own homes(or place where like minded people decide to meet behind closed doors)
Of course, it is the LIABILITY that makes it so expensive. If a pregnant mother so much as touches a pill, it will cause birth defects, the stuff is that strong! What does it do?
It promotes APPETITE!
Seems to me POT could do that allot cheaper, and also take care of some pain and anxiety.
But, do not expect politicians to be ready for this -— not for awhile yet.
McManus says the science has been independently verified at numerous labs, including NASA and the National Climatic Data Center, both in the United StatesWhat science has been verified? The flawed, bogus fraud from East Anglia?
Just recently the NASA "science" has been exposed as lies...AND, let me take this opportunity to say:
DEFUND NASA NOW!
It's yet another taxpayer subsidized tool for the environmental dimits out to destroy your life as you know it.
Jim Inhofe is a good conservative senator, which is why I voted for him. The left shows us how much a threat Inhofe is to them by smearing Inhofe on the climate issue as well as issues of fiscal responsibility. You can tell who they’re scared of by who they lie about. I’m proud to have Inhofe as my senator, and given the chance, I’d vote for him again.
It’s a bad question. Lots of people do believe the earth IS warming, but the big question is IS MAN causing it?
Many scientists who do believe there is a warming trend think it is coming from changes in the sun - some believe the problem to be sunspots.
From wikipedia: “Recent measurements, based also on observation of infra-red spectral lines, have suggested that sunspot activity may again be disappearing, possibly leading to a new minimum.[13] From 2007-2009, sunspot levels were far below average. In 2008, the sun was spot-free 73 per cent of the time, extreme even for a solar minimum. Only 1913 was more pronounced, with 85 per cent of that year clear. The sun continued to languish through mid-December of 2009, when the largest group of sunspots to emerge for several years appeared. Even then, sunspot levels remained well below normal.”
Jim was a great Mayor and always just a great guy.
But, more importantly, a man of thoughtful and consistent character, who challenged the Globull Lying concept and was proven right by the lies exposed by the Soviets.
Well if pot was a prescription drug or even the counter relief, then it would have solid credibility from a social standpoint.
I don’t smoke the stuff but have many friends who have or have had debilitating diseases such as Cancer, Lupus, MS, etc and threw down or even threw away the prescription drugs for the advantages of Cannabis, as their body saw fit to respond to for relief.
I think you're right but I thought it was a generational thing that would pass 30 years ago. Propaganda is a hard thing to overcome. The communists have done well with theirs for over a hundred years now.
It costs roughly $8,000.00 PER MONTH!
That would buy enough pot, even at black market inflated prices, for about ten years worth of medicine. Most cancer and AIDS patients wouldn't even live that long. But lowering health care costs has never really been a political goal.
PS.’.........(or place where like minded people decide to meet behind closed doors)’
Except for like mined people behind closed doors in the halls of Congress. In the halls of Congress there should be no “closed door meetings”. We need a lot more sunshine in Washington.
Hurrah!
I think with "pot":
1) there's a stigma created by the "me" generation in power now (what does Michael Savage call them - "the red diaper dope smoking babies"?) - they have obvious brain damage evidenced by their life in a parallel universe and they're the ones breaking down societal norms and collapsing our free market system;I can see many good arguments on both sides based on today's THC supercharged pot. But for crying out loud - someone with a verifiable disease like glaucoma or cancer should be able to use whatever makes their living condition better. The current laws for impaired driving covers people abusing their prescription drugs. The knock against legalizing marijuana is as much or more about big pharma using guberment to control competition and maintain big margins within the USA in order to subsidize global prices, as it is about public safety.
2) big pharma hasn't figured out how to duplicate the benefits in a cheap synthetic pill yet, like they did with Ephredria, and;
3) many years ago, the cotton farming lobby killed the hemp industry because the fibers were too darn durable and don't need frequent replacement. So, the larger cotton industry used guberment to snuff out competition.
[It's worth noting that the hemp version of marijuana had a tiny fraction of the THC potency of today's mind-bending stuff].
Case in point - Ambien is OK, but not Pot? Ambien has some really bizarre side effects - acting like conscious sedation where people can converse or drive a car, but don't remember a thing. Xyrem is a much better sleeping aid with far fewer negative side effects, plus some positives to help heal debilitating fibromialgia. It was available as a cheap health supplement some years ago, but got branded as "the date rape drug" and was taken off the market until just recently. Now it's only offered by one pharmacy nationally and a one month supply costs $1,800! So it went from a very useful, available, and cheap health supplement - to nearly impossible to obtain or afford. Meanwhile, people are driving their cars around while they're anesthetized by expensive, hard to obtain Ambien.
Kudos to Sen Inhofe! He held his ground amidst all the mumbo-jumbo of sky is falling crowd. And, as an aside, Gore is in the news this week, but for a different reason.
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