Nov. 17, 2010:
Rep. Joe Barton (R, TX) Receives Majority Recommendation for Chair of House Energy and Commerce Committee
-- (The Who, "Won't Get Fooled Again")
As Conservatives celebrate the rapidly-approaching Reagan-esque "morning in America again" next year when the Republican Party takes a majority in the U.S. Senate, it appears that not much will be changing in the House of Representatives.
Yesterday, Representative Michael Burgess (R, TX), along with such peers as Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R, TN) and Steven Scalise (R, LA), sent a letter to their colleagues lending their support for incoming Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to Rep. Joe Barton (a position which he holds in the present 111th Congress).
It will be recalled that, during hearings on climate-change adaptation by the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment in March of 2009, Rep. Barton lent his support to an argument by his colleague Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) that global warming is a product of "natural variations" and that a significant reduction of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere might "take plant food away" because our planet is "carbon-starved".
Only weeks before those hearings, Rep. Barton deftly demonstrated either his flamboyant and colorful imagination, appalling lack of scientific knowledge or, perhaps, simply his office's severe staffing need for fact-checkers when he said:
Wind is God's way of balancing heat. Wind is the way you shift heat from areas where it's hotter to areas where it's cooler. That's what wind is. Wouldn't it be ironic if in the interest of global warming we mandated massive switches to an energy [wind], which is a finite resource, which slows the winds down and causes the temperature to go up? Now, I'm not saying that's going to happen, Mr. Chairman, but that is definitely something on the massive scale. I mean, it does make some sense. You stop something, you can't transfer that heat, and the heat goes up. It's just something to think about.
(Supressing my immediate impulse to launch into a litany of "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" jokes) like many of Barton's utterings, the above seems to lend some legitimacy to an argument which suggests that the 62% home-schooling (K-12) and 55% high school drop-out rates of the largest county in Barton's home 6th District and Barton's election by popular vote in the first place are facts that are not entirely unrelated (along with the fact that 80+% of scientists are registered Democrats...).
Also troubling are major donations to Barton's campaign coffers and the Barton Family Foundation (Executive Director: Amy Barton -- Rep. Joe Barton's daughter-in-law) by energy producing corporations such as Chicago's nuclear power producer, Exelon Corp.
In the broader view, Barton's somewhat illogical arguments are not helped by the "reinforcement" provided by his political colleagues and the Republican Party's rather "unscientific" choices when opportunities arise to present speakers ("experts") from time to time in hearings on various environmentally-related subjects...
Most notably, during the March climate-change adaptation hearings, when invited to call experts to speak, rather than draw from the global pool of those employed in the environmental sciences, the GOP chose to select those distinctly lacking in these disciplines.
One such speaker was E. Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, whose logic -- even as regards theologically-related subjects -- appears to be severely flawed.
Mr. Beisner argued that, because the Bibical world-view sees "the world and its ecosystems as the work of a wise God", the actions of humankind cannot possibly have cataclysmic repercussions.
If extended to a logical conclusion, his hypothesis would appear to cast serious doubts upon the veracity of the story of Noah and the Flood (perhaps, even upon the Bible itself).
For, if (as the Bible asserts) the Great Deluge was unleashed by God in response to His perception of an increasing "wickness" in the hearts, minds and actions of mankind, then it MUST be conceded that human actions can indeed cause profound and cataclysmic climactic changes by the very nature of their influence upon God's reactions ("negative reactions", certainly and -- although not documented in the Bible -- hopefully "positive reactions", as well) in response to those actions.
Least one come away with the perception that the clergy in its entirety suffers from a distinct lack of scientific understanding or sense of responsibility for the impact of human-generated pollution on world climates, in contrast, the Democrat-invited Bishop Callon Holloway of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, speaking on behalf of the National Council of Churches at the hearing, emphasized the twin values of "stewardship and justice" in both protecting the Earth from harm and a sense of responsibilty for the well-being of the large percentage of the population who are not wealthy enough to hold controlling interests in energy-generating corporations.
The (at minimum, "questionable") selection of Mr. Beisner by the GOP to give testimony was not mitigated by some of its other choices:
Another GOP-called speaker with an apparent complete lack of environmental science background was Lord Christopher Monckton (former advisor to Margaret Thatcher and presently chief policy adviser to the Science & Public Policy Institute, group with a history demonstrating huge amounts of skepticism toward human-generated global warming theory).
Without one iota of documented proof, Lord Monckton alluded to a "mass exodus" from the State of California (ostensibly due to its more stringent environmental restrictions on businesses than those of other states) despite actual figures showing California's continued growth and the fact that the number of residents leaving the state each year only very SLIGHTLY exceeds the number coming into it.
The increasing influence of Christian fundamentalism upon the Republican Party -- combined with a tendency on the part of American voters to misidentify the actual sources of unpopular political and governmental practices -- is a cause for concern. Present circumstances call for moderates and liberals alike to maintain an increasingly observant and cautionary posture in regard to environmental issues and other concerns traditionally associated with their interests.
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