Are Republicans in Denial About Global Warming Because They Are So Fond Of Their Own Hot Air?

It never ceases to amaze me how willing the talking heads are to lie in order to further their cause. Even more surprising is how easily people accept their bogus information as fact. I live in Southeast Louisiana, and I do not have satellite radio, so needless to say all the talk radio I get is embossed with the Republican seal of approval. Practically every third commercial is a doomsday smear against Cap and Trade. These ads quite literally attempt to frighten little old ladies into thinking that Cap and Trade will tax them into an early grave. From Boehner's lips to Limbaughs rear-end they are telling you the average household will see a $3,100 a year increase in energy bills!

Hannity peddles this same idea on his radio and television show in between rants about Obama being the ultimate socialist and baby killer. In fact, O'Reilly is on this band wagon as well. Down here in oil town Louisiana people get all bent out of shape about energy policy, and they practically foaming at the mouth over their electric bill going up $3,100 a month. The reaction is understandable. Hell, I can't afford another $300 a month either. The only problem here is we arent' going to have to pay anywhere near that. In true Republican fashion they have taken something some really smart people have stated and then mangle and chop it all up until they can scare people with it. In this case and M.I.T. study was butchered.

How do Republicans figure American households will be out $3,100? The figure is based in part on a 2007 study by the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. The study estimated that a cap-and-trade market for 2015 would be worth $366 billion in revenue. Republicans, figuring that that amount would be passed from the energy companies to consumers, calculated the average cost per household by dividing $366 billion by 117 million households (a population of 300 million divided into households of 2.56 persons) to get $3,128, or roughly $3,100.

However, one of the authors of the MIT study disputes that figure.

In a letter sent to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on April 1, John Reilly, associate director for research at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, said that the study he coauthored had "been misrepresented in recent press releases distributed by the National Republican Congressional Committee." He said the GOP's calculation fails to account for Obama's stated intent to provide rebates to consumers to cushion the effect of increased prices: "[M]any of the proposals currently being considered by Congress and as proposed by the Administration have been designed to offset the energy cost impacts on middle and lower income households and so it is simplistic and misleading to only look at the impact on energy prices of these proposals as a measure of their impact on the average household."
-http://www.factcheck.org/politics/cap-and-trade_cost_inflation.html

You would think that after the really smart folks with advanced college degrees from one of the most prestigious universities on the planet earth told Mr. Boehner that he didn't have his facts straight and that he was misrepresenting their study, he would have recanted and at the very least, found a new angle of attack. Oooooh Nooooo. He stuck with it along with the rest of his party (for the most part) and ignored the facts. Amazingly enough some analysis of Cap and Trade show increase in rates being as little as $81 a year! That's a pretty big stretch to get to $3,100.

What disturbs me about this is not so much the deception. I've already accepted that these guys will liie blatantly to further their cause. Rather, my concern is that they are lying because they either do not care about the effects of Global Warming or do not believe in Global Warming. Either way it's a terrifying prospect. Here in Louisiana I listened to a radio interview with Commissioner Eric Skrmetta in which he flatly denied the existence of any planetary warming as a result of human produced greeenhouse gases. In fact he attends the school of thought which states that since we breathe out Carbon Dioxide it cannot be a contributing factor to Global Warming.

Oh and for any fundamental critics who say "but there are scientists who disagree with man-made global warming" please check out this list of 650 "respected scientists" who do exactly that. What a crock of B.S. I think my plumber is listed on it somewhere.

http://mind.ofdan.ca/?p=1922