Watch a US Senator Cite the Bible to Prove That Humans Aren't Causing Global Warming

[cbayer]

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/inhofe-climate-change-bible

"Biblical evidence."
—By Jeremy Schulman | Thu Jan. 22, 2015 2:06 PM EST

To understand the craziness that just went down on the floor of the US Senate, you first have to understand the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change. It's pretty simple, actually: The planet is getting warmer, largely because humans are releasing heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide. Or, as the world's leading climate scientists put it in a recent report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal," and it's "extremely likely"—that is, at least 95 percent certain—"that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century."

These are well established scientific facts, but congressional Republicans have had a hard time accepting them. So on Wednesday, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), sought to put his colleagues on record by having them vote on a simple measure declaring it the sense of the Senate that "climate change is real and not a hoax."

When Whitehouse first introduced this amendment a couple days ago, he made clear that by "climate change," he was referring to "what our carbon pollution…is doing to our atmosphere and what it is doing to our oceans." But the amendment didn't literally say that, and the Senate's most outspoken climate science denier saw this as an opportunity. James Inhofe—an Oklahoma Republican who has previously pointed to the Bible as evidence that human-caused global warming is a hoax—urged his fellow senators to support the amendment.

Addressing his Senate colleagues before the vote, Inhofe once again cited the Bible to argue that the climate does indeed change but that humans aren't the cause. "Climate is changing, and climate has always changed," said Inhofe, who chairs the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee. "There's archeological evidence of that. There's biblical evidence of that. There's historic evidence of that." He continued: "The hoax is that there are some people who are so arrogant to think that they are so powerful, they can change climate. Man can't change climate." You can watch the back-and-forth above.

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[hrmjustin]

1. Jesus wept!

[Fred Sanders]

2. Someone should tell these folks that America is a secular state before they get carried away and

start to make public policy based on religious beliefs...or is it already too late?

America is being made the laughing stock of the world by the GOP and their propaganda arm, Fox, certainly in Europe.

[cbayer]

3. Er, this is really only about one person.

The rest of the senate did ok here.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Only 'OK' in terms of 'not using the bible to deny science'; 48 other Repubs still denied science

49 of them voted that humans are not contributing significantly to global warming. Inhofe may have been the only one to stand up and say "because my bible tells me so"; the other 48 may think that because of the donations from fossil fuel industries, because they agree about the bible but didn't say it, or just deny man-made global warming on the grounds that Democrats recognise it, so they have to say the opposite.

[cbayer]

5. I stand corrected. I thought they were talking about the 98-1 vote

that "climate change is not a hoax". That was Wicker from MS who had the one dissenting vote. I was confused.

[cbayer]

6. I apologize Fred Sanders.

I misread this and thought it was about another vote.

While religion wasn't so overtly on display among the other Republican Senators, I'm sure it was driving many of them… well, that and being terrified of doing anything that would challenge the party line.

[okasha]

9. Or reduce their kickbacks from the oil industry.

[cbayer]

10. Exactly. I think they use religion as a cover for their greed sometimes.

[okasha]

7. Inhofe is a "Family" lackey.

[cbayer]

8. He chairs the Senate Committee on the Environment!

[struggle4progress]

11. It's the result of a calculation