Climate of Fear

Lenar Whitney, a Louisiana state representative running for Congress, has a video up in which she declares "Global warming is a hoax." You can see it at this page where you can also see the Politifact people explain, point by point, why she's wrong.

You know, I used to take a view of Global Warming that went roughly like this: "I hope the scientists who say it's so are all wrong but I don't think we can afford to take that chance and we need to act as if it's true." I thought that was a good way to look at it. I was acknowledging that I'm not a climate scientist or anything of the sort but that I believed the consensus among such folks was so overwhelming that we had to assume it was so. Sometimes in discussions, I'd parenthetically add that a lot of things that have been proposed to combat Global Warming — mostly involving limiting pollutants — seem like good ideas anyway.

Well, no one else thought this was a good way to look it. The debate has gotten so polarized that you kind of have to say, "Yes, Global Warming is real" or "No, Global Warming is a hoax" and there's no room for nuance…so I've given up nuance. Yeah, I think it's real. And I haven't heard anyone who feels otherwise for a reason deeper than that they hate the notion that Al Gore and "The Liberals" might be right.