Congressjerks Threaten To Bomb Paris Climate Talks With Snowballs, Derp

Negotiations on an international climate deal are scheduled for December, and a couple of the Republicans' top climate change deniers in Congress aren't going to let Barack Obama and a bunch of scientists ruin America. Not on their watch.

Sen. James Inhofe, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, warns that he may have to go to Paris to save the world's oil companies from all this "science" nonsense. It is not yet known whether he saved any snowballs from last winter's storms in Washington to take with him, or whether he's counting on local snow to be available to prove that global warming is a myth.

[contextly_sidebar id="XfHlMbgBDrL7LKf7axHr9xRRKxJZyyEW"]Inhofe -- notorious for his simple, commonsense debunking of global warming by pointing out that 1) it still snows in the wintertime, and 2) the Bible says it can't happen -- explained in an interview published Monday that he may have to get across the ocean and talk some sense into those foreigns:

“I don’t know if I’ll repeat what I’ve done several times before, which is to go over and be the bad guy, the one-man truth squad, and tell the truth, that they’re going to be lied to by the Obama administration,” Inhofe said.

Inhofe, a vocal climate change skeptic, has bragged that he traveled to the Copenhagen talks in 2009 and served as a “one-man truth squad” to derail the deal.

Inhofe was joined in his clever plan by Rep. Ed Whitfield of Kentucky (R-Coal), who chairs the energy and power sub-panel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Whitfield believes the rest of the world will think twice about trying to do something about global warming if a couple of American Republicans point out Barack Obama doesn't have the power to set American energy policy all by himself:

“We may send a group over to Paris, just to let them know that there’s another branch of government, in addition to the executive branch, on these issues,” he said.

[contextly_sidebar id="vFeRJyDBEG9gZrkV2KkiKnHhecs145Rp"]That should be every bit as successful as the Republicans' bid to stop the Iran nuclear deal by sending a letter to Iranian leaders explaining the Constitution. Remember how well that worked? 

It's possible that Inhofe and Whitfield aren't really expecting to change any minds by visiting the axis of Europeans and Scientists by barking that global warming is nothing but a hoax. Maybe their true goal is a variation on Richard Nixon's old Madman Theory:  keep the rest of the world from actually accomplishing anything by making it clear that America is run by crazy people.

Rather than making enemies fear that a maniac has his finger on the nuclear button, Inhofe and the Republican anti-science crowd will be satisfied if the rest of the world knows America is committed to burning every possible ounce of coal and oil buried beneath the North American continent, so there's no point in calling for solar power or carbon taxes. We're America, damn it, and we'll take the rest of the large mammals on the planet down with us if we want to.

[ The Hill / TPM / New York Magazine ]