Comedy Gold From The Times-Picayune: LA Needs Republicans To Be Pro-Environment
One day a peer-reviewed study co-authored by researchers at Tulane University made national headlines by reaching this conclusion: Unless current rates of sea level rise are reduced, the coastal master plan will fail because over the next 50 to 80 years those rising seas will swallow almost anything we build over. Science has proven that acceleration in sea level rise is being pushed by greenhouse gas emissions caused largely by the burning of oil, coal, gas and other fossil fuels.
But just a few days later, another headline told us this: Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry joined 14 GOP state AGs in filing a brief in support of oil companies California cities are suing for their part in producing those emissions -- the same emissions threatening to flood south Louisiana. Granted, Landry is known to have an oracle complex. He recently proclaimed climate change was a hoax, in effect telling us his law degree gives him more expertise on the future of the climate than 97 percent of all the published climate scientists in the world. But this is not an isolated case when it comes to the GOP pols Louisiana elects.
Rep. Steve Scalise from Metairie -- the GOP Whip in the House of Representatives -- agrees with Landry. His degree in political science apparently confers on him great insights into climate science that have escaped Louisiana researcher Virginia Burkett, who shared a Nobel Prize for work on climate science.
EDIT
By now it's painfully obvious the GOP is the biggest obstacle to the survival of south Louisiana. It shouldn't be, and it doesn't have to be. I'm not asking GOP voters to switch parties. There is nothing inconsistent with being pro-life, pro-gun, pro small government and pro-environment. There should be no conflict (no choice, really) in saying you're conservative on social and economic issues but believe it's wrong to allow companies to poison the air with chemicals. Those chemicals are also ensuring communities and industries located south of Interstate 10 will be under water in the next 50 to 80 years.
EDIT
http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2018/04/republicans_environment.html#incart_most_shared-environment
