BY GARY EDMONDSON
Just how ignorant is Oklahoma’s Sen. Jim Inhofe? Or how stupid does he think we are?
In his DC Digest for the July 21, the Tulsa World’s Randy Krehbiel reported: “U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe extolled the Trump administration’s environmental policies last week.
“‘This administration has proven that we don’t have to impose massive tax increases or regulatory burdens in order to reduce pollution,’ Inhofe said during a floor speech.
“Inhofe cited data showing major pollutants have declined 74% since 1970 and carbon dioxide emissions are down 14% since 2005.”
Krehbiel duly pointed out the obvious: “Critics say those reductions have been achieved largely because of regulations discontinued or targeted by the Trump administration.”
But in Inhofe’s world, “We have a White House dedicated to clean air, land, and water.”
Really? Does the science-denying Sen. Inhofe believe in alternate universes, or has he just wandered off into one? Is there a 25th Amendment for senators? Has Inhofe no friends to stage an intervention?
This month the Encouraging Pollution Agency of this White House “dedicated to clean air, land and water” refused to “ban a pesticide linked to brain damage in children, in defiance of a 2018 federal court ruling,” according to E.A. Crunden of ThinkProgress.
The chemical in question, Dow Chemical’s Chlorpyrifos, “is in the same family of chemicals as sarin gas, and studies have linked the pesticide to premature births, respiratory problems, and cancer.”
In May, ThinkProgress reported, “The [EPA] wants to raise the threshold for a chemical found in rocket fuel to triple the previous limit allowed in drinking water supplies.”
Last week Europe suffered under a record heat wave. Paris reached 107 degrees. Earlier this month Anchorage, AK, reached 90 degrees for the first time on record. And our president is “dedicated to clean air, land and water?”
In late June, Common Dreams noted: “As heat wave boils Europe, lackluster Bonn talks marred by U.S. and Saudi-led obstruction of climate science.”
Science is out of favor in this White House “dedicated to clean air, land and water.”
On July 13, the Daily Kos summarized the Wall Street Journal story that “State Department intelligence analyst Rod Schoonover drafted a critical report on U.S. security issues, only to see half of that report cut away by officials from the Trump White House – the half of the report that dealt with threats caused by the climate crisis.”
Our military has been aware of the dangers inherent in global warming for years – including mass displacements of starving people. But Greed’s Own Party, dedicated to fossil fuel profits, just doesn’t want to hear about it.
For Inhofe, whose snowball brain appears to be melting, to credit the Trump White House for nearly 50 years of science-based progress that this administration is trying to unravel sets a new high bar for ignorance. To expect Oklahomans to believe such nonsense is ludicrous. In the future, those completely deluded and impermeable to facts will be known as Inhofely [four syllables] ignorant.
