March Madness Hits U.S. Congress (Sort of…)
March 21st, 2011 by Important Media Cross-Post
You can’t blame it on March or NCAA basketball, but our Congressional leaders are definitely mad, and they’re showing it this month. Congress has attacked science to an unprecedented degree this March….
While some of the world’s leading climate scientists have taken time out of their busy, important schedules to explain to Congress how they have confirmed that climate change is happening and is human-caused, Republicans (and even some Democrats) have said, “Mhm, sorry, we don’t care.”
Michael Tomasky of the Guardian, commenting on the ridiculousness of this pro-pollution Republican herd, notes:
liberals should remember that Barack Obama isn’t the reason common-sense reforms can’t happen in this country. We have a situation in which 95% of the scientific community thinks A, and roughly two-thirds of Americans agree about A. Then we have a small but tenacious faction that has disproportionate power in Washington and that insists A is a socialistic plot. It’s that last bunch that is the real problem.
A pointed response from Skeptical Science may be even better:
Republicans have decided that they can repeal the laws of physics with the laws of the USA…. we have politicians attempting to overturn a scientific finding whose purpose is to protect public health and welfare, for purely political reasons. This is a rather disturbing turn of events from a scientific standpoint. We cannot disregard a scientific finding, particularly one which has major consequences for public health and welfare, just because we don’t want to believe it, or because doing so would be politically advantageous.
A couple of leading Congressmen on the other side of the aisle added sharper remarks to the conservative attack on science that is currently taking place:
“It apparently no longer matters in Congress what health experts and scientists think. All that seems to matter is what Koch Industries think,” Henry Waxman (D-CA) stated.
“Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to a bill that overturns the scientific finding that pollution is harming our people and our planet,” Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) said. “However, I won’t physically rise, because I’m worried that Republicans will overturn the law of gravity, sending us floating about the room.” Going on in this manner, he said:
I won’t call for the sunlight of additional hearings, for fear that Republicans might excommunicate the finding that the Earth revolves around the sun.
Instead, I’ll embody Newton’s third law of motion and be an equal and opposing force against this attack on science and on laws that will reduce America’s importation of foreign oil.
This bill will live in the House while simultaneously being dead in the Senate. It will be a legislative Schrodinger’s cat killed by the quantum mechanics of the legislative process!
Arbitrary rejection of scientific fact will not cause us to rise from our seats today. But with this bill, pollution levels will rise. Oil imports will rise. Temperatures will rise.
And with that, I yield back the balance of my time. That is, unless a rejection of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity is somewhere in the chair’s amendment pile.
For more on this and how Republicans are torturing logic regarding high gas prices, check out: March Madness in Congress
I wish this were only due to March Madness… unfortunately, it looks like this is going to be an all-year or multi-year thing.
Related: Science Under Attack [VIDEOS]
Photo via The J Train
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Important Media Cross-Post -- CleanTechnica is one of 18 blogs in the Important Media blog network. With a bit of overlap in coverage, we sometimes repost some of the great content published by our sister sites.
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