U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican — naturally — from California’s 46th congressional district, doesn’t believe that anthropogenic global warming is occurring. However, he believes that if it is occurring, then governments should implement policies of deforestation to curb carbon dioxide emissions. He asks, “Is there some thought being given to subsidizing the clearing of rainforests in order for some countries to eliminate that production of greenhouse gases?” He continued, “Or would people be supportive of cutting down older trees in order to plant younger trees as a means to prevent this disaster from happening?” Of course, “the focus of global warming policy actually centers [and should center] on keeping the world’s trees standing, especially in places like the Amazon, Congo and Indonesia.” According to Politico, Rohrabacher’s comments are reminiscent of “Ronald Reagan’s much-lampooned statement that trees cause pollution.”
The issue of energy availability, which is connected to environmental degradation and climate change, is perhaps the most important issue facing the world’s governments and their citizens today. However, ignorant statements from politicians such as Rohrabacher will not take us forward or allow us to solve the most pressing problems facing the world today. Ignorant, uninformed, and dithering politicians, who fail to do their homework in order to educate themselves on the most pressing issues, only take us backward at our detriment. More via Politico:
Jay Gulledge, a senior scientist at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said Rohrabacher is correct that 80 to 90 percent of gross greenhouse gas emissions do come from nature, with humans producing the rest. But it’s that small percentage that is changing the Earth’s climate — not to mention that trees help absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in huge quantities.
“How he’s using it is totally off the wall,” Gulledge said. “It’s beyond the pale. It makes no sense.”
And here’s a nugget from Bill McKibben:
Caution: It is vitally important not to make connections. When you see pictures of rubble like this week’s shots from Joplin, Mo., you should not wonder: Is this somehow related to the tornado outbreak three weeks ago in Tuscaloosa, Ala., or the enormous outbreak a couple of weeks before that (which, together, comprised the most active April for tornadoes in U.S. history). No, that doesn’t mean a thing.
It is far better to think of these as isolated, unpredictable, discrete events. It is not advisable to try to connect them in your mind with, say, the fires burning across Texas — fires that have burned more of America at this point this year than any wildfires have in previous years. Texas, and adjoining parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico, are drier than they’ve ever been — the drought is worse than that of the Dust Bowl. But do not wonder if they’re somehow connected.
If you did wonder, you see, you would also have to wonder about whether this year’s record snowfalls and rainfalls across the Midwest — resulting in record flooding along the Mississippi — could somehow be related. And then you might find your thoughts wandering to, oh, global warming, and to the fact that climatologists have been predicting for years that as we flood the atmosphere with carbon we will also start both drying and flooding the planet, since warm air holds more water vapor than cold air.
It’s far smarter to repeat to yourself the comforting mantra that no single weather event can ever be directly tied to climate change. There have been tornadoes before, and floods — that’s the important thing. Just be careful to make sure you don’t let yourself wonder why all these record-breaking events are happening in such proximity — that is, why there have been unprecedented megafloods in Australia, New Zealand and Pakistan in the past year. Why it’s just now that the Arctic has melted for the first time in thousands of years.
. . .
Better to join with the U.S. House of Representatives, which voted 240 to 184 this spring to defeat a resolution saying simply that “climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare.” Propose your own physics; ignore physics altogether. Just don’t start asking yourself whether there might be some relation among last year’s failed grain harvest from the Russian heat wave, and Queensland’s failed grain harvest from its record flood, and France’s and Germany’s current drought-related crop failures, and the death of the winter wheat crop in Texas, and the inability of Midwestern farmers to get corn planted in their sodden fields. Surely the record food prices are just freak outliers, not signs of anything systemic.
It’s very important to stay calm. If you got upset about any of this, you might forget how important it is not to disrupt the record profits of our fossil fuel companies. If worst ever did come to worst, it’s reassuring to remember what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce told the Environmental Protection Agency in a recent filing: that there’s no need to worry because “populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of behavioral, physiological, and technological adaptations.” I’m pretty sure that’s what residents are telling themselves in Joplin today.
