Colorado GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck, like his endorser Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), believes “global warming is the greatest hoax that has been perpetrated.” Brad Johnson has the story:
Buck is part of the Tea Party army storming the U.S. Congress this November that believes the overwhelming scientific consensus about the threat of fossil fuel pollution is a conspiracy. On Wednesday, Buck toured the state with Inhofe, whom he celebrated as “the most conservative senator in the U.S. Senate.” Meeting with supporters, Buck said the “evidence just keeps supporting” Inhofe’s senseless conspiracy theory:
Sen. Inhofe was the first person to stand up and say this global warming is the greatest hoax that has been perpetrated. The evidence just keeps supporting his view, and more and more people’s view, of what’s going on.
In reality, the year 2010 is in the course of becoming the hottest year in recorded history, with Zambia the 18th nation this year to reach an all-time record high.
In their joint appearance in Longmont, CO, Inhofe explained whom he and Buck will be fighting for “” corporate lobbyists:
I never dreamed that we would end up with someone in the White House with a huge majority that would attack every institution that made America great. Right before we broke for this recess I had in my office five groups of people. One was a group that was the insurance industry, one was the fiscal industry, one was the military “” the defense contractors “” one was the energy industry, and of course, the health care industry. Each one of those groups thought they were being targeted.
Watch it:
“I came out here because I’m lonely,” Inhofe said. “Ranked the most conservative senator? That’s right. But we’ve got a lot more coming in, more than any other election in the history of this country.”
The League of Conservation Voters has released an ad hitting Ken Buck for his oil-fueled global warming denial here.
— Brad Johnson, in a ThinkProgress cross-post.
JR: Ironically, Colorado State University issued a news release today:
FORT COLLINS — Colorado State University is a hub of climate change research and is now home to one of eight U.S. Department of the Interior Climate Science Centers, announced today by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. The CSU-led consortium of nine universities and other affiliated national laboratories was selected to host a regional Climate Science Center. The center is designed to put science to work to help federal, state, local, private and non-profit natural resource managers understand current and future impacts of climate change on critical natural, cultural, wildlife and agricultural resources.
The new North Central Climate Science Center will eventually host as many as eight federal scientists and several post-doctoral fellows who will provide regional land, water, fish and wildlife, and cultural heritage resource managers with the scientific tools and information to strategically adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change. The center is expected to be up and running in early 2011….
“The members of the consortium headed by Colorado State University can provide us with great expertise in the major climate-related challenges facing the North Central region — including diminishing water supplies, the spread of invasive species, outbreaks of pests and diseases, changing fire regimes, decreased crop and livestock production, and loss of habitat for critical fish and wildlife species,” said Salazar. “Selected through an open competition, these universities represent the full array of landscapes in the Rocky Mountains, Intermountain West and Great Plains.”
…
In addition to premiere research universities, the state of Colorado is home to one of the most respected climate science communities in the world with many prominent institutions specializing in climate science including the National Center for Atmospheric Research, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth Science Research Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Western Water Assessment Regional Integrated Science and Assessments program, Agriculture Research Service, National Ecological Observation Network among many others. The North Central consortium will tap these and other institutions as they address regional climate science.
Oh, this is one vast conspiracy. The release states:
Dennis Ojima, professor in CSU’s Department of Forest, Rangelands and Watershed Stewardship and senior research scientist at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory in CSU’s Warner College of Natural Resources, will lead the consortium.
“CSU has world-class expertise in climate, and we are leaders in engaging the public and policy makers in rendering our science and discoveries into practical solutions. Those strengths will be critical as the North Central Climate Science Center engages the research community and then ultimately translates that science to the decision-making community,” Ojima said.
I’m not sure exactly when the science is going to translate to the decision-making community, but I’m pretty sure that whenever it does, Ken Buck will have his fingers in his ears while he yells, “La, la, la, I can’t hear you.”
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