Year 2, Month 9, Day 10: How’s That Pray-For-Rain Thing Working Out?

Anne MacQuarie has an excellent op-ed in the September 7 issue of the Carson City-based Nevada Appeal. It’s great:

…it’s been interesting to watch the Republican presidential candidates refine — if I can use that word for so blundering a process — their views on climate change.

Current wisdom — backed by some polls — is that the Republican base thinks human-caused climate change is a bunch of hooey and that we can’t do anything about it anyway. Candidates are falling all over themselves to, instead of lead, agree. Here’s a rundown of some of the candidates’ views, including current frontrunners Perry and Bachman.

Rick Perry believes “the issue of global warming has been politicized” and “scientists have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling in to their projects.”

Regarding doing anything at all to alleviate or halt climate change, Perry says he doesn’t want America “to be engaged in spending that much money on still a scientific theory that has not been proven and from my perspective is more and more being put into question.”

It’s a fine thing to be able to slap Rick Perry around a bit. He must never be allowed anywhere near national governance. Think Bush was a disaster? Perry will make us nostalgic for Dubya. Sent Sept. 7:

When Republican politicians discuss climate change, the projection is thick on the ground. Rick Perry’s assertion that scientists have manipulated data for financial gain offers a window into the mindset of people who’ve specialized in greed-driven data-manipulation for years. These are the same folks who cherry-picked intelligence to sell the American public an unnecessary (albeit profitable) war, remember? That they ascribe the same motives to others should be no surprise.

Scientific method is the best tool we have yet found for arriving at verifiable truth in reporting and analysis. While there are unethical scientists who are driven by pecuniary motives, they are a decided minority; most researchers are propelled by intellectual curiosity — a state of mind completely foreign to the GOP mindset.

Let’s agree, however, that there are some climate scientists who are decidedly guilty of data manipulation for personal gain. They’re on big oil’s payroll.

Warren Senders