Year 2, Month 3, Day 21: Rep. Upton? It’s David Koch For You, On Line Seven.

The Boston Globe runs an AP piece on a recent study that defines the task of the Navy in coping with a post-global-warming planet:

WASHINGTON—The Navy and Coast Guard need to prepare for more missions in the Arctic, and plan for potential damage to bases from rising sea levels, as global warming increases, the National Research Council said Thursday.

“Naval forces need to monitor more closely and start preparing now for projected challenges climate change will present in the future,” Frank L. Bowman, a retired Navy admiral who was co-chairman of the committee that wrote the report, said in a statement.

The new analysis noted that ocean sea lanes could be regularly open across the Arctic by 2030 as rising temperatures continue to melt the sea ice. It said the Navy needs to increase its cold-weather training and operations programs so it will be able to protect U.S. interests in the region.

Sent to the Boston Globe (my hometown paper!) on March 12:

As evidenced by their recent travesty of a hearing on the future of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives is immune to scientific evidence on the critical issue of climate change. Apparently they are also unaffected by the opinions of experts from the CIA experts, which last year began including global warming and its epiphenomena in its analyses of potential political trouble-spots. It doesn’t take a crystal ball to predict that the GOP will also discount the National Research Council’s advice to the Navy on preparation for a drastically hotter world. In fact, there’s only one source of authority that could transform their reflexive hostility to science. If international oil corporations changed their positions to favor reality-based climate policies, a Republican turnaround would follow as the night the day. Until that day comes, sadly, we can expect more of the same: denial and delusion.

Warren Senders