"Conservatives and Climate Change: The Devastating Irony" Huff Post

Conservatives and Climate Change: The Devastating Irony

by Scott Stenholm at the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-stenholm/conservatives-and-climate_b_1762101.html

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National interest in warming statistics has been overshadowed by more immediate concerns such as terrorism, war, and a poor economy. However this summer has marked the dawn of a new era where a poor economic climate will not only pale in comparison to, but will be exacerbated by, actual climate. Global warming is literally cooking our lakes, rivers and oceans as evident when it was recently reported that hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of fish have died as a result of water temperatures reaching as high as 100 degrees in Iowa and Illinois at an enormous cost to the fishing industry there. "Those fish have been in these rivers for thousands of thousands of years, and they're accustomed to all sorts of weather conditions," said Mark Flammang, a fisheries biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. "But sometimes, you have conditions occur that are outside their realm of tolerance." Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry has been a champion for deniers by claiming that man-made climate change is a hoax by scientists, all the while his state saw record losses to their agriculture, livestock and timber industries, and its decimation of cattle herds and cash crops which often causes a significant rise in costs for food, clothing and other items. Bottom line: the effects of climate change will only become more devastating to our local, national and global economies.

To little befuddlement, Mitt Romney has flipped-flopped on climate change numerous times. While Governor of Massachusetts he enacted restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions on power plants in his state. But while running for President, he has said the "idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us." He recently acknowledged that the globe is warming, but added, "we don't know what's causing climate change on this planet." This stance is equal to a man who has been diagnosed with cancer by 98% of the world's doctors but can't bring himself to accept such a diagnosis nor to take steps to heal his illness. And this is where the true irony enters, much of the states bearing the brunt of the global warming-induced droughts are deep red states such as Texas and Oklahoma. More rural, conservative areas of the country are expected to see the most immediate effects of climate change in the near future in the form of continued drought and other forms of extreme weather like heightened flooding and tornado outbreaks with increased viciousness.

While Democrats in Washington haven't been immune to dragging their feet in taking the necessary steps to address global warming, the partisanship line here is akin to that of tax cuts for the top 1% or gay marriage: it is the right side of the aisle that is consistently on the wrong side of this issue. Though to be fair, President Obama has yet to put the full force of the White House behind his past acknowledgements of the crisis, a campaign promise both in 2008 and as this year's incumbent, saying in April, "I will be very clear in voicing my belief that we're going to have to take further steps to deal with climate change in a serious way." Hopefully, we will see this come to fruition as the campaign heats up with the DNC Convention and the debates as platforms. It should be noted that the President recently pushed congress to pass a farm bill that would provide sweeping disaster relief to farmers effected by this summer's drought - something that deals with the effect, not the cause.

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