Meme-o-mania!

Another day, another set of climate change memes...

Memes for you to share!

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Will post more from time to time.  Hope you like them!

Inhofe?! I am officially incredulous.

In a cruel twist of the electoral knife, the Guardian reports that Senator Jim Inhofe (R) of Oklahoma is poised to become the head of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Senator James Inhofe

Want your hair curled by the story in another paper?  Check out the New Republic's piece from a couple of days ago.

So what does Senator Inhofe believe about climate change?  Here he is in 2003: “It's also important to question whether global warming is even a problem for human existence. Thus far no one has seriously demonstrated any scientific proof that increased global temperatures would lead to the catastrophes predicted by alarmists. In fact, it appears that just the opposite is true: that increases in global temperatures may have a beneficial effect on how we live our lives.”

And lest you think that 11 years is an ample sufficiency of time for him to have seen the light and changed his mind, here's something horrifying I found over at Right Wing Watch, from 2012!

"Well actually the Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that ‘as long as the earth remains there will be seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night,’ my point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous."

Other than just letting you know that's a thing that might happen, I really don't know what to say.

Well, except that I would point out to anyone who is listening that putting this unserious clown in charge of climate issues is like adding me (plump, sedentary and OLD) to the starting lineup of the Seattle Seahawks.  It makes just as much sense.

GOP Wave

There, I said it. Still sticks in my craw. But it happened, and there's nothing to be done but pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and resolve to work even HARDER.

Because hoo boy, we are going to need to.

Early prognostications point to the President looking for a climate win via the monstrosity that is the Keystone pipeline.  Senate Republicans now have enough votes to force that vote.

The ever-charming Reince Priebus says that Mr. Obama will be "boxed in" and have to sign the bill.

There's still time to take ACTION.  Check out the NRDC's page here.  350.org's site is here, and over here you can donate to Tar Sands Blockade.  And of course you can always sign a Pledge of Resistance!  Couldn't hurt, right?

What do we want? BIG OIL money OUT of the conversation.

If I were of the tinfoil-hat-wearing persuasion, I might be wondering if the confluence of recent GOP-backed bills to curb voting rights, coupled with the SCOTUS declaring that corporations are people, weren't just some giant conspiracy to hand control of the country over to the corporations, and render the people powerless to change the course of America's future with their quaint, mean-nothing little "votes."  After all, the fire hose of corporate and "dark" money into the election cycle recently has a lot of folks worried - very worried - and the folks who are worried know a lot more about all of this than little me.

And yes, I'm worried too.

So allow me to don my tinfoil hat, just for giggles.

How about this one?  It's a conspiracy to enrich the Koch brothers and the rest of their one-percenter ilk enough to build a giant off-world retreat where they can resettle once their incessant mining of carbon-based fuels has fattened their wallets enough to design, make, and buy that retreat and fund the ship to get them there (without the rest of us).

Or it might be

And so the conservative backlash begins.

GOP stalwarts across the nation are yelping that President Obama’s sensible new EPA rules will cost thousands upon thousands of jobs and cost millions upon millions of dollars.

I’d like to consider what the implications of that would be, if in fact they are correct (which they very decidedly are not).  What if these EPA rules will cost jobs?  What if they will cost money?  What if energy prices will go rocketing up for local consumers?

Well – what’s the alternative?

If the alternative is that we have NO regulations – that if the US doesn’t lead on climate change and make great strides towards reducing our emissions – then we will have unchecked, runaway climate change.  And the consequences will be catastrophic.  And that will cost us a LOT more money, as well as lives.

So if the GOP is right about this, and if the EPA regulations will take an economic toll, then we need to ask ourselves – will the economic toll from climate change be even worse?

I didn't have to watch Cosmos last night to know the answer.