Inhofe: Global-warming scientists, media "doomsayers" and tools of "hysterical Left"

It seems somewhat appropriate that a social dinosaur like Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) would find it hard to believe that the earth's climate has changed since the Jurassic Period, but there he was on the floor of the United States Senate earlier this week, like a crazy man on a street corner, decrying the focus these days on the effects of climate change -- or, as Inhofe calls it, "the most media-hyped environmental issue of all time."

Inhofe gave a speech on Monday to vent his frustration over what he believes is an overblown non-issue and to take the media to task for covering it.

"I want to challenge the news media to reverse course and report on the objective science of climate change, stop ignoring legitimate voices in this scientific debate, and stop being used by the hysterical left," said Inhofe. "Breaking the cycles of media hysteria will not be easy since hysteria sells and it is very profitable, but I really believe the issue is getting worn out."

The Oklahoma Republican also took a considerable amount of time to minimize former Vice President Al Gore's work on climate change and, in particular, to thoroughly ridicule Gore's new film, An Inconvenient Truth.

"In May, our nation was exposed to perhaps one of the slickest science propaganda films of all time -- former Vice President Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth,'" said Inhofe, who, in what typifies the twisted, GOP-led Congress, chairs the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee. "In addition to having the backing of Paramount Pictures to market this film, it had the full backing of the media, and leading the cheerleading charge was none other than the Associated Press, and of course they had the elitists, from Hollywood."

I won’t even bother to refute Inhofe's babbling by quoting Gore and the Climate Crisis web site extensively. After all, people like Inhofe will only sneer at Gore and the filmmakers saying things like "the vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, it’s already happening and that it is the result of our activities and not a natural occurrence." And having Al Gore cite facts such as the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes almost doubling in the last 30 years is just plain tiresome to a guy like Inhofe.

Instead, I'll go straight to the Bush Administration's own Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is clearly also in bed with Gore on this one. Apparently -- and obviously unbeknownst to the crack research team in Inhofe's legislative/climatological office -- the EPA's web site gives a description of global warming that could very well have come right out of one of Gore's books.