Never Underestimate the Power of the Padlocked Mind

The state government of Utah has overwhelmingly condemned climate science as "alarmist" and disputed any scientific theory of global warming. According to The Guardian, the Utah legislature so readily embraces the inbred that it counts among its ranks the likes of a representative who links climate science to abortion:

...the representative Mike Noel said environmentalists were part of a vast conspiracy to destroy the American way of life and control world population through forced sterilisation and abortion
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By the time the final version of the bill came to a vote, cooler heats apparently prevailed. The bill dropped the word "conspiracy", and described climate science as "questionable" rather than "flawed".

However, it insisted – against all evidence – that the hockey stick graph of changing temperatures was discredited. It also called on the federal government's Environmental Protection Agency to order an immediate halt in its moves to regulate greenhouse gas emissions "until a full and independent investigation of climate data and global warming science can be substantiated".

As Noel explained: "Sometimes ... we need to have the courage to do nothing."

I can snicker and guffaw about cretins like state representative Noel but those of you 40 and under had better listen up. People just like this guy could create all sorts of problems for you in another couple of decades. If you want to write off this guy and those like him as harmless buffoons, you may regret it.

Yes, global warming, is a "theory" in the sense that gravity and evolution are likewise just theories. If you want a really fascinating yet far less conclusive theory, there aren't many better than the concept of time. Several years ago I heard an interview on CBC Radio with a US Navy commander who was the head of the atomic clock at the Naval Observatory (from whence we all get our time today). This guy said he had to accept "time" as barely more than a theory. He just knew too much about it. Global warming, however, is far more certain than the theory of time and far closer to gravity and evolution. We have to be hardcore stupid to dismiss all this science as "theory."

BTW: If you want a powerful and compelling response to the far right's "Climategate" scam, read this: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/ipcc-errors-facts-and-spin/ Read that and you may just come away with a new perspective on living in the same world with these denialists.