Tag Archives: Organizing for Action

Why It’s Hard Admit To Global Warming

Global Warming.Polar Bear

It’s hard to debate Global Warming.  Or climate change.  Or whatever the word.

It’s hard because you can’t discuss the science any longer without also really find yourself talking about the alarmist’ “cure.”

You wanna talk about the fact that greenhouse gases can increase the temperature?

Wanna discuss the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas?  Or that we’ve released more of it than would otherwise have been released?

How about positive feedback and the fact that assumptions regarding them are most likely overstated?

Let’s do that.

But instead we get this:

A Democratic video says 240 House members “voted in 2011 that climate change was a ‘hoax.’ ” Not exactly. The 2011 vote was ultimately a referendum on who should set climate change policy — the Environmental Protection Agency or Congress. It was not a vote on whether climate change is a “hoax.”

Organizing for Action, a nonprofit political group that advocates for President Obama’s policies, unveiled the climate change video on April 25. It is a compilation, for the most part, of Republicans talking dismissively about climate change. One clip shows Rep. John Boehner, who was minority leader at the time, downplaying the environmental harm caused by carbon dioxide — noting that it is emitted by humans exhaling and cows “doing what they do.” We corrected some of the misstatements Boehner made in that 2009 TV interview in a piece titled “Hot Air on ‘This Week.’ ”

But the Democratic video goes too far in its text and images when it says, “Number of House members who voted in 2011 that climate change was a ‘hoax’: 240.” That is immediately followed by a video clip of GOP Rep. Paul Broun calling climate change a “hoax” in a floor speech — which implies that Broun was speaking on the 2011 legislation mentioned in the video.

We asked OFA about that 2011 vote. We were referred to an April 6, 2011, vote on a Democratic amendment to a GOP-backed bill that would have prohibited the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases. The amendment, which was defeated 184-240, did not use the word “hoax.” Broun did not speak on the amendment during the debate, and, in fact, none of the Republicans who spoke against it called climate change a “hoax.”

Also, not all of the 240 who voted against it were Republicans; three were Democrats.

The full text of the amendment, which was sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman of California, reads: “Congress accepts the scientific findings of the Environmental Protection Agency that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare.”

We’re not going to have a serious debate on this topic anytime soon.  And we certainly aren’t going to see any meaningful legislation as long as this kinda nonsense continues to continue.