Flat Earthers

Mike Carey, president of the American Council for Affordable and Reliable Energy, was on KMOX's Hancock & Kelleyshow last week to talk about new billboards his organization is financing in the St. Louis area.  The American Council for Affordable and Reliable Energy is a Washington, D.C.-based group financed by coal companies created to protect companies' ability to pollute at their current unsustainable levels.

In the interview, Carey was unable to provide the name of a single funder or supporter unconnected to the coal industry, and struggled to explain why his organization was not running similar ads in any other areas of the country. And just in case you thought the ads weren't political in nature, Carey admitted on air that his organization has only tried to purchase ads in one other Congressional district in the country: Arkansas's Second.  But when Democratic Congressman Vic Snyder announced that his retirement in January, Carey and ACARE lost interest.

Carey was last seen in St. Louis at the November 2009 "Tea Party" as a keynote speaker, along with the recently-arrested James O’Keefe.  The St. Louis Tea Party wrote at the time that Carey created his organization last year "when he saw that misinformation and lies were beginning to shape the political landscape on coal and global warming." Before serving as president of the ACARE, Carey was president of the Ohio Coal Association.

Frustrated with the proceedings of a mid-February hearing of the House Energy and Environment Committee, a citizen who testified briefly sent a frustrated email to the full membership of the committee.  He was frustrated with the way Chair Walt Bivens allocated time for different points of view. 

In response, Representatives Casey Guernsey (R-Bethany) and Tim Jones (R-Eureka) -- a pair of Republicans who collaborated last year in propagating birther conspiracy theories -- unleashed angry responses. The offending citizen letter and emails from Guernsey and Jones can be read below the break.  I've redacted the name of the individual who sent the letter -- his testimony is part of public committee documents, so I'll leave it to others if they want to criticize him by name. 

What a maroon:

"It's a hoax. It's nonsense. It's a bunch of green folks who think they know how to live better than you do," [Luetkemeyer] said. "Man-made global change is nonsense."

Ed Emery jams with Orly Taitz, July 2009

Via The Turner Report, I see that birther Rep. Ed Emery (R-Lamar) thinks that global warming and climate change are a bunch of hooey.

As a scientist, I have been frustrated for some time over the absence of logic in some of the climate-change declarations...

In the rippling heat of “consensus,” the ostrich of Climate-Gate is being permitted to continue its economic destruction undetected and unimpeded. Someone has to say something – maybe it should be Missouri. The climate is important to all of us, but it is time to demand that predictions be based on measured data and developed following the scientific method, not political consensus.

World-renowned Jerry Nolte (R-Gladstone) sponsored a forward-thinking and well-researched resolution last week (HCR 32) calling for Congress to reject any cap-and-trade legislation to reduce climate changing emissions. 

In addition to expressing concern with the modest increases in energy costs that would come from such a system -- costs that would be nowhere near what Republican leaders and their industry allies have promised -- Nolte's resolution follows the lead of Missouri's top climate change denier, Blaine Luetkemeyer, in criticizing the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Incredibly, scientists and scientific organizations continue to spew bogus global warming data, undeterred by moronic politicians and industry-funded smear campaigns.  It's shameful, really.  

Printed today in the New York Times:

PAST DECADE WARMEST ON RECORD, NASA DATA SHOWS

The decade ending in 2009 was the warmest on record, new surface temperature figures released Thursday by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration show.

I can't help but wonder what prominent Republican Catholics -- folks like Cong. Blaine Luetkemeyer and Crazy Eddie Martin -- think of this left-wing garbage coming out of the Vatican.

Pope Benedict XVI denounced the failure of world leaders to agree to a new climate change treaty in Copenhagen last month, saying Monday that world peace depends on safeguarding God's creation...

Benedict has been dubbed the "green pope" for his increasingly vocal concern about protecting the environment, an issue he has reflected on in encyclicals, during foreign trips and most recently in his annual peace message. Under Benedict's watch, the Vatican has installed photovoltaic cells on its main auditorium to convert sunlight into electricity and has joined a reforestation project aimed at offsetting its CO2 emissions.

Via MPNblog.com, I see that Vicky Hartzler thinks climate change and global warming is just one great big "hoax."  

Given the importance of military issues and voters in the 4th District, maybe Hartlzer can explain why Pentagon planners now officially consider global warming a threat to national security?  As ThinkProgress notes, the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review "will report that climate change could result in food and water scarcity, pandemics, population displacement, and other destabilizing events that could create conflict."

In the Southeast Missourian: 

I'm don't have anything particularly insightful or clever to say about this column -- it's just embarrassing.

There have been some very disturbing and yet enlightening developments about the real science surrounding theories of man-made global warming. In recent days, we also have seen our state’s major university system provide a detailed accounting of how harmful and expensive cap-and-trade legislation will be to higher education in Missouri.

Blaine Luetkemeyer has called for a congressional investigation into the 'climategate' emails.

A new editorial in the Kansas City Star declares the controversy about hacked emails from climate scientists a "dud." 

But in reacting to this development, some people have leaped to absurd conclusions.

The first is that this incident “proves” climate change is not occurring.

The second is that it shows there’s no need for the world’s political leaders to take bold action at the upcoming Climate Conference in Copenhagen, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Wrong. And wrong.

The Plum Line's Greg Sargent looks at some of the data from the new Washington Post-ABC News poll about global warming.

They show that only a bare majority of Republicans believe in global warming, and that GOPers are surprisingly out of step with the rest of the electorate (independents included) on the issue. The crosstabs reveal:

• Only 54% of Republicans believe “the world’s temperature may have been going up slowly over the past 100 years,” versus 43% who don’t believe it. By contrast, 71% of independents say it’s been happening — almost exactly the same at the 72% overall who believe this. Obviously, an even higher number of Dems (86%) believe it.
• Only a quarter of Republicans believe global warming is a “very serious” problem, versus 43% of independents who believe this, nearly a 20-point difference. Overall, 44% believe it’s a very serious problem.
• Republicans are the only group where a minority (43%) believes that the United States should take action on global warming “even if other countries do less.” Majorities of independents (52%) and Democrats (66%) believe the U.S. should take action despite the actions of other countries.

"Scientists for Truth" kicks off their global warming denying conference in Springfield today, with what's sure to be an enlightening discussion. 

One of the key speakers at the event to take on "climate change myths" is Marc Morano. Believe it or not, Morano was actually the first to publish unfounded claims from Vietnam Swift-boat veterans about John Kerry's military service in 2004.  Morano was also "previously known as Rush Limbaugh’s “Man in Washington” as reporter and producer for the Rush Limbaugh Television Show." 

What, you thought the "Scientists for Truth" panelists would be interested in truth?  Or truthiness? 

I don't know either, but the flat-earthers are having a party in Springfield this Thursday.

The event, sponsored by the "Scientists for Truth" organization, "has lured a veritable who's who of climate change skeptics." No word yet as to whether representatives of Blaine Luetkemeyer and Todd Akin will be in attendance to criticize scientific findings they haven't read and don't understand.

Maybe Orly will be there too.