Year 4, Month 8, Day 8: You Know What Your Problem Is? Your Problem Is That You’re Full Of Sh*t.

The LA Times notes that some Democrats are moving a little bit on climate, with predictable results from the wingnut caucus:

…some GOP members of the panel outlined what they said was a White House conspiracy designed to mislead the public on the threat of climate change. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) declared that Obama “believes that government can make better decisions than the people, and regulating carbon dioxide will give him all he needs to make nearly every decision for the American people.”

Liberals on the panel responded with fiery comments of their own. “To deny the fact that the overwhelming majority of scientists who have published peer review articles believe not only is global warming real, but it is man-made, and to continue discussion of ‘we are not sure, let’s look at something else’, is almost beyond intellectual comprehension,” said Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.).

Experts from the think tanks Climate Central and Climate Solutions then testified about the devastating effects they said global warming is having on the environment, and the need for immediate action.

An executive from the Reinsurance Assn. of America spoke of how the insurance industry is alarmed by what its modeling shows is an increasing frequency of extreme weather events caused by global warming.

Representatives from the conservative Manhattan Institute and the Institute for Energy Research gave opposing testimony, warning the action sought by Democrats in Congress will hurt the economy and have limited effect on the climate.

All-too-believable, alas. July 19:

The prating of self-styled deficit hawks is an utterly predictable element of any attempt at meaningful policies to tackle the climate crisis. It’ll “damage the economy,” or “kill jobs” — a particularly rich accusation coming from legislators who’ve recoiled from job-creation bills like vampires from a cross.

But the point is that intensifying climate change will damage agriculture, creating food shortages. As insect vectors move northward, invasive tropical diseases will become more common. Wildfires and extreme weather are going to clobber communities all over America and the world. In other words, more people are going to die as we approach what biologists coyly call an “evolutionary bottleneck.” Forget “killing jobs.” Failure to address climate change is going to kill people.

If the preservation of a habitable Earth is somehow bad for the economy, that’s a strong argument for changing our economy — not for shirking our responsibilities to our posterity.

Warren Senders