‘Do-Nothing’ Republicans refuse to act on climate change
The warmest year on record comes to a close as Republicans prepare to take over both chambers of Congress - and do nothing to fix climate change. Ed Schultz, Paul Douglas and Reese Halter discuss.

Thoughts:

The Republicans probably started saying "I'm not a scientist" as a compromise between outright lying/making-up-facts and keeping the public misinformed... after consulting with their lawyers.

Jim  Inhofe: 'we have people tied up in trying to prove this hoax is a reality'... hmmm, I'm guessing Jim has his life tied up in proving 97% of scientists - across the globe - wrong about something which he claims not to be an expert in. Whose the real conspiracy monger here?

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Climate Change Debate (HBO)

Related Posts:

Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe Takes A Know Nothing Approach To Climate Change (& Facts!) 

The Koch Brothers Seem To Be Buying The Keystone XL Pipeline With Their Supporters Using Lies As Their Primary Marketing Tactic!

Background:
Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe Takes A Know Nothing Approach To Climate Change (& Facts!) 

How Much Will Tar Sands Oil Add to Global Warming? To constrain climate change, such unconventional oil use needs to be stopped, according to scientists

Koch company declared 'substantial interest' in Keystone XL pipeline: Document filed with Canada's Energy Board appears to cast doubt on claims by Koch Industries that it has no interest in the controversial pipeline.

Video: Republicans push Keystone XL
The new Republican majority in Congress makes the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline Project a top priority. Ed Schultz and Sen. Bernie Sanders discuss.

Obama: ‘Lead the global effort against climate change’
Congressional Republicans fight to pass the environmentally damaging Keystone XL Pipeline immediately following a historic agreement between the U.S. and China to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Ed Schultz and Sen. John Hoeven discuss.

Interesting:

ON this Keystone XL site the fact the almost all the jobs created by Keystone Pipeline are short-term jobs & will be gone in two years is left out on the website! ... and Fox "News" does the same thing! (probably applies to Fox "Business" as - well more like, "pay us to support your business using our ratings to help you advertise. Lies no problem.").

Experts: Keystone XL May Create Fewer Jobs Than Most Expect
A vast majority of Americans believe the Keystone XL pipeline will create a 'significant number of jobs' – far more than the State Department has predicted.

An independent review by the agency, made public Jan. 31, found that while the project would create about 2,000 short-term construction jobs over two years (or 3,900 if construction took only a year), actually running the pipeline would provide just 50 long-term positions. It also would support another 40,000 "indirect" or "induced" jobs across the country during construction, ranging from canteen cars serving food along the pipeline route to factories manufacturing construction equipment for the project. 

“That’s a similar amount of construction work to what’s necessary to build a medium-size mall, and after it’s built, far fewer permanent positions,” says Anthony Swift, staff attorney for the National Resources Defense Council, which has vocally opposed the pipeline. “Keystone XL has been pushed as this national jobs creator. It’s not.”

Further Cementing My Argument ThatJoe Is A "Conservative" Posing As A Liberal (and the Koch Brothers "influence" has spread allot further than we tend to think);

Fact Check Pipeline Primer -  The Keystone XL project: We examine the facts about jobs, spills, climate change and gasoline prices.

After more than five years of claims and counter-claims about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, President Obama is expected to make his final decision soon. So we thought it was a good time to sift through the disinformation and lay out some basic facts.

• Building the pipeline will create jobs in the U.S., but not as many as supporters have claimed, and only for a year or two. The U.S. State Department estimates that 42,100 jobs would be added during construction, but that only 50 workers would be required to operate the pipeline.
• Oil from Canadian bitumen deposits — which the Keystone would carry from Alberta to the U.S. for refining — results in 14 percent to 20 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than oil typically consumed in the U.S. at present.
• But that doesn’t mean that stopping the pipeline would prevent Canadians from extracting their crude and getting it to market to be burned, either in the U.S. or other countries. “Such a change is not likely to occur,” State concluded.
• In fact, much of that oil is reaching the U.S. already — by rail — and more tank-car capacity is being added quickly. Canadians also are proposing two other pipelines to tanker ports on the Pacific coast, and a third project to nearly double the effective capacity of an existing line to the U.S.
• Pipelines are dangerous, but tanker cars are more so. Rail accidents spilled more oil in the U.S. last year than in all the previous years on record combined. And in Canada, 47 people died in one fiery tanker-train disaster in Quebec last year.

Citizens don't want their property destroyed:
"See the land owners and citizens of Nebraska as they voice thier concerns about the Trans Canada XL Pipeline which could affect the protected Sandhills and drinking water supply"... 

Note that the Keystone Pipeline isn't built yet and the above are some of the spills it's caused. It makes more sense tofortify the rail cars for better rail transport for oil (as we switch to alternative fuels) than it does to build this pipeline and ADD to the risks.

An Introduction To The Koch Brothers by the Daily Show:

 The Koch Brothers become The Daily Show's latest sponsor, prompting Jon to welcome them with some minor adjustments to their advertisement. (4:12):

From Mediate: Stewart loved the imagery of people “working in a smile factory” and surmised that the Koch brothers are just trying to reach “our audience of not-yet-dying-off voters.” He mockingly asked, “If they were evil, would a baby agree to appear in one of their advertisements?”

And then Stewart aired a response ad to air a fuller story of the Kochs, with choice lines like “if there’s a way to monetize your thoughts, we’ll do it” and “Koch Industries: bending the democratic process to our will since 1980.”

Related:

EXPOSED: Koch Industries and Cancer Risk 

Sioux tribe sees act of war in Keystone XL Pipeline incursion
Aldo Seoane, member of Wica Agli Tribal Nations in South Dakota, talks with Rachel Maddow about what it means that the Sioux would consider it an act of war if the Keystone XL pipeline is built on their territory.

This is right in line with GOP administrations treatment towards Native Americans:

Billions Missing From U.S. Indian Trust Fund  In his testimony before Congress, John Echohawk, director of Native American Rights Fund, called it "yet another serious and continuing breach in a long history of dishonorable treatment of Indian tribes and individual Indians by the United States government." Arizona Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, bluntly called it "theft from Indian people." These men were describing the single largest and longest-lasting financial scandal in history involving the federal government of the United States. With no other recourse left at their disposal, NARF, along with other attorneys, filed a class action lawsuit in federal district court on June 10 on behalf of more than 300,000 American Indians. The suit charges Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, Assistant Interior Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs Ada Deer and Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin with illegal conduct in regard to the management of Indian money held in trust accounts and managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. If the lawsuit's claims are correct, and there's an overwhelming body of evidence that suggests they are, then the federal government has lost, misappropriated or, in some cases, stolen billions of dollars from some of its poorest citizens.

Highlights from the Senate Keystone XL pipeline debate
Watch a mix of some key moments from the U.S. Senate floor as lawmakers debated the Keystone XL pipeline Tuesday. 

Prediction: The GOP House & Congress will pass the Keystone Bill. They have a tendency to back oil whatever the cost.

Drill Pickle - The heart of our democratic government is compromise and polling, so the Democrats blink and pass a bill allowing offshore drilling. (3:09): 

The Keystone pipeline seems to possibly be a gift from the Politicians &their Media... to the Koch Brothers! Money is one area where the rights of the few take precedent over the rights of the many. Welcome to Modern America!

The Daily Show: Democalypse 2014 - America Remembers It Forgot to Vote: Money vs. Ideas - Jason Jones and Samantha Bee report from the headquarters of the winner and loser of the midterm elections. (4:14) 

All the GOP is going to do is what it did last time... call it's non-ideas, "ideas". GOP will get 25% support no matter what and they can bully to push through the rest of the way. Thier media echo chamber will help, of course.

Background:

Post: Ebola; The Perfect Example Of How The GOP Is Reacting Out Of Fear Rather Than Through Reason & Science (GOP Are Basically The Anti -Science Party!)

News: Survey finds 97% of climate science papers agree warming is man-made

News Introduction:

The top Republican climate change denier just got a whole lot more powerful
Chris Hayes looks at a future where climate change denier Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) is the chair of the Senate Committee of Environment and Public Works.

Colbert Report Introduction: The Republicans' Inspiring Message on Climate Change
Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe gears up to chair the Senate Environmental Committee despite literally writing the book on global warming denial. (4:41)

Rather than giving climate change deniers the normal; 3% of airtime they are creating false equivalency that the climate change debate is at 50-50 when it's really 97-3

In the following interview Steven Johnson says something interesting, that maybe climate scientists deniers simply don't want to deal with change...

Steven Johnson
"How We Got To Now" author Steven Johnson discusses the tremendous impact of six innovations, from clean drinking water to air conditioning. (5:44)

It's a politicians job to serve the community by helping them cope with problems USING FACTS. So, we elected a crackpot, Jim Inhofe, to office. Now what? He has written a whole book (or more likely, had it ghost written by Bill O Reilly's writer) in which he claims that everything about Climate Change is a hoax. 

In other words, Jim is claiming that 97% of scientist have gotten together to fool the American People. Fine. Normally when people talk of conspiracies they talk of events that can't be proven. In this case, climate scientists are easy to find and love to talk so we should hold hearings and call as many scientists as we can find who study climate change and interrogate them for ourselves on TV. Not like this false equivalency thing the media seems to be doing...

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Climate Change Debate (HBO) 

What "Republicans" such as Jim seem to be counting on is their news echo chamber, created and pretty much run, by them.

Bogus story exposes risks of conservative ‘invented news’ - Rachel Maddow shows the right-wing hypocrisy on prostitution scandals when the political advantage is in their favor, and points out the danger of the conservative movement’s preference of their own version of news instead of real news.

Conservative media creates parallel universe
Rachel Maddow discusses how the conservative media has built a narrative based on what people want to hear, not on the facts, about President Obama’s nominee for Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

Here is an example of how Rupert Murdoch uses his paper to sell ideas that are contrary to normal established science. 

Guardian: Survey finds 97% of climate science papers agree warming is man-made

Rupert Murdoch Owned WSJ: The Myth of the Climate Change '97%'

Guardian:  The Wall Street Journal denies the 97% scientific consensus on human-caused global warming
The Rupert Murdoch media continues to deny the reality of human-caused global warming

Articles:
 
The Democrats' favorite denier

Bombshell: Koch-Funded Study Finds ‘Global Warming Is Real’, ‘On The High End’ And ‘Essentially All’ Due To Carbon Pollution

Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks
Anonymous billionaires donated $120m to more than 100 anti-climate groups working to discredit climate change science

BREAKING:

Perry Officials Censored Climate Change Report
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality doesn't want you to know that climate change is causing sea level rise in Galveston Bay.

What Texas is expected to look like in about 30 years (i.e. Not much of Texas left!);

Bill Moyers: Ending the Silence on Climate Change March 15, 2013

Remember climate change? The issue barely comes up with any substance in our current political dialogue. But bringing climate change back into our national conversation is as much a communications challenge as it is a scientific one. 

This week, in an encore broadcast, scientist Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, joins Bill to describe his efforts to galvanize communities over what’s arguably the greatest single threat facing humanity. Leiserowitz, who specializes in the psychology of risk perception, knows better than anyone if people are willing to change their behavior to make a difference.

“[A] pervasive sense up to now has been that climate change is distant — distant in time, and distant in space,” Leiserowitz tells Bill. “And what we’re now beginning to see is that it’s not so distant. I have a nine-year-old son — he’s going to be my age in the year 2050. I don’t want him to live in the world that we’re currently hurtling towards.”

Old Climate Change Information:

BBC News - Man-made climate change causes 'even more certain'

Amount of greenhouse gases in atmosphere reach record high, says UN agency

UN expert warns climate change causing loss now

Will We Ever be Prepared for Climate Change?

Climate change is a fundamental threat to sustainable development and the fight ...global warming, but save millions of lives says a new World Bank report.

Leaked IPCC report links climate change to global food scarcity

The world is starting to tackle climate change, according to a report compiled by the UK's official advisory body

UPDATE:

Polar Plunge - Skeptics of climate change gloat as a record-breaking cold snap envelops the U.S. (2:16)

These are people from an archaic age compared to ours who happen to be around because of advances in Medicine.  Simply because he believes that God would never hoist Climate Change upon him because the thought is terrifying doesn't make it so. I'm sure people thought the same about Pearl Harbour & World War 2. We don't deal with problems by avoiding them or hoping they will go away. That's for idealists to do. For religious people in a dark age to pray on. Not for citizens of an Industrial Economy.

A politicians job isn't to have beliefs based in conjecture but to prepare for the worst - to protect it';s constituents - and hope for the best. By creating an echo chamber of lies to tell  their constitutes AND THEN claiming to be doing their constitutes will is betrayal on the verge of treason. If not actual treason. Listening to priests is the job of religious people. Let the religious people hope for no climate change. If that fantasy happens, good for them. It's not a politicians job to hope for the best while ignoring science and doing nothing. 

Relevant Analogy for a degree rise in AVERAGE global temperature; 

The analogy here is that when you get a one degree fever, you are relatively OK to go to work. If you have a two degree fever, you are feeling sick and you have to take the day off. If your fever gets to 3 or 4 or 5 degrees then your brain begins to slip into a coma. IN the same way, as the average global temperature increases the earth begins to get a fever. If the temperature increases too much then the earth will go through convulsions. Some areas will get hotter, some may get cooler. But the fluctuations in weather will begin to get dangerous (more than the preliminary droughts and its resulting fires we are seeing - more than the floods we are seeing - kinda, there seems to be an international news block here in Oklahoma. I tried to get a proper international news channel - BBC UK - and ended up with BBC America which I have yet to see a news program on. So far they have been showing TV shows. Cancelled the cable package, of course). 

Here are links to research I did for my website Instant Stress Management.com while I still had access to international TV news:

• Natural Disaster Management
• Flood Management or Preparing for Floods
• Climate Change Debate Is Over