Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) took to the Senate floor on Thursday, blocking a resolution that “would have acknowledged the reality of climate change.”
The resolution required a unanimous vote in order to pass, but Inhofe wanted no part of if because 9,000 so-called scientists had signed a petition expressing doubt that greenhouse gases cause global warming and claiming that the earth had experienced “no warming for the last 15 years.”
Enter Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) who stepped in to set matter straight – schooling Inhofe on the reality of his absurd claimes.
Whitehouse began by thanking Inhofe: “I appreciate very much having had the opportunity to hear those words, from what I can only describe as an alternate reality,” before totally ripping Inhofe’s remarks.
Whitehouse began by taking on Inhofe’s argument that the earth’s atmospheric temperature has not risen in the last 15 years.
That “little rhetorical device” Inhofe is using fails to consider two things, Whitehouse said. One, is that more than 90 percent of the heat generated from increased carbon emissions gets absorbed into the ocean, not into the atmosphere. Two, is that any changes in ocean temperature will eventually have “a pronounced effect” on atmospheric temperature. Indeed, recent studies show that global temperatures are set to rise rapidly in the face of our increasingly warm and acidic oceans.
“To say that we have no warming is just not factual,” he said.
Next, Whitehouse took on Inhofe’s assertion that federal government agencies were colluding to promote environmentalists’ agendas.
“Colluding together. That’s a fairly tough word to use. Let me tell you some of the government agencies who are so-called colluding together. How about NASA? We trust them to send our astronauts into space. We trust them to deliver a rover the size of an S.U.V. to the surface of Mars safely and drive it around, sending data and pictures back from Mars to us. You think these people know what they’re talking about? … How about the United States Navy? The commander in chief of our Pacific Command? Is he colluding when he says that? …
If you want to ignore the federal government, if you live in a world in which you think the federal government colludes with itself to make up things that aren’t true, okay. But look at the property casualty insurance and reinsurance industry. They’re the people with the biggest bet on this. They have billions of dollars riding on getting it right, and they say climate change is real, carbon pollution is causing it, we’ve got to do something about it. So does the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, because they care about the poor and the effect this will have on the people who have the least. So does every major U.S. scientific society. Every single one.”
Delivering the knockout blow, Whitehouse tore into Inhofe for his claims regarding the petition. Supposedly, The Petition Project features over 31,000 scientists, 9,029 who signed the petition stating “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide will, in the forseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere …”.
However, Whitehouse responded “I’m told that among the names on that petition are the Spice Girls,” Whitehouse said, “It’s almost a comedic effort.”
“The fact you can’t find 9,000 people who think the earth is flat is a bit of a stretch, and the idea that we should base our policy on a petition that imaginary people are on rather than on what NASA and NOAA and the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and every major scientific society and the entire property casualty reinsurance industry are telling us, it’s just extraordinary.”
Nevertheless, the measure failed due to Inhofe’s one negative vote.
You can watch Whitehouse in action, below:
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