Schaper: How Inhofe Schooled Whitehouse on Climate Change

Arthur Christopher Schaper

US Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) returns as chairman of the US Senate Environmental Committee for the 114th Congress. A vocal opponent of climate alarmism, the senior statesman, entering his eighth decade of life and third decade in Congress, outlined the unsettled science around global warming, or “climate change”. Leftist blog Think Progress mocked the newly-installed chairman for purportedly continuing to deny the obvious.

In light of what Chairman Inhofe recently accomplished, left-leaning global warming militants may rethink their snide attacks against serious policymakers, who dispute the seriousness of slightly increasing temperatures in limited cases around the word. Last week, during the Senate Amendment process for Senate Bill One, authorization of the Keystone Pipeline, Inhofe the “climate change denier” joined with polar opposite US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) to cosponsor Amendment 29, which read as follows:

To express the sense of the Senate that climate change is real and not a hoax.

Did the conservative Republican from Oklahoma finally buckle under the heat and drink the climate change koolaid? Not at all. In what NewsMax described as “Sen. Jim Inhofe Outfoxes Dems on Climate Change in Keystone Vote”, the Senator slyly removed the language from the amendment which identified climate change as a dangerous phenomenon created by man, and therefore they would have to do something about it.

Inhofe issued the following tweet on his co-sponsorship:

Senators - join me in voting YES on Whitehouse's amdmnt saying climate change is a hoax, bc it is. I'll address my vote in floor speech soon

— Jim Inhofe (@jiminhofe) January 21, 2015

So, the amendment actually affirms that climate change is a hoax? What’s going on, Senator?

In his remarks on the floor of the US Senate, the Oklahoma representative explained:

Mr. President: The climate is changing. The climate has always changed, and will always be. There is archeological evidence of that. There’s Biblical evidence of that. There’s historic evidence of that. It will always change. The hoax is that there are some people who are so arrogant to think that they are so powerful, that they can change climate. I ask for my colleagues to vote for the Whitehouse-Inhofe amendment.

The Senate approved the Amendment, 98-1. Roger Wicker (R-MS) voted “Nay”, and Senator Reid was “necessarily absent” following a brutal slip and fall while jogging on the icy, cold Nevada streets.

After the vote, Inhofe took further efforts to explain his cosponsorship and vote. First, he denounced Cap-and-Trade, dressed up as a carbon tax to protect the environment, but in reality a Wall Street scam which will enrich the few at the expense of the many, while creating more pollution. He then cited the Wharton School, which denounced the carbon-reduction program, having figured that such a tax would cost the average American family $3,000 a year more in taxes.

He slammed the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He listed the numbers of scientists who called him to challenge global warming, or climate alarmism, including Richard Lindzen of MIT. He provided charts documenting long periods of fluctuation in the global climate. Where Inhofe presented facts, Whitehouse delivers rhetoric: “Time to Wake Up!” Zzzzz.

By the way, recent research confirms that conservatives are smarter in general, and more scientifically researched/well-read than their illiberal counterparts. Inhofe radiantly provided this point.

Inhofe addressed prior administrators (President Clinton, Vice President AL Gore), then referenced to the same medium, Time Magazine, followed by the weekly magazine’s frequent shift of position on climatic, climactic cataclysms: “The World is Freezing!” followed thirty years later by “The World is Warming Up!” From the science, to the scientific consensus, to opinions of local climatologists (including weather forecasters), Inhofe outlined the startling lack of agreement on the subject of climate change, and particularly whether the United States should care about it, or pass laws to control it.

Now, the fact that Inhofe faced the liberal Whitehouse’s argument head on is commendable. Analyzing this political power play further, Republicans in Congress, and conservatives in general, can adopt and expand their game to other issues. Consider the following: Why are we talking about climate change instead of global warming? The hazy language of the Left has permitted climate change alarmists to push their reasoned opponents into a corner. Anyone who says “I don’t believe in climate change” is evidently wrong, precisely because the climate is changing. Yet liberal politicians looking to enshrine the bureaucratic dream of carbon control have subverted the terms to refer to catastrophic global distortions.

Like Inhofe, conservatives can subvert Leftist rhetoric, restore the words’ proper meaning, and deflate the entire argument. “Of course I believe in climate change. Why are you worried about it?” Carry this political logic to abortion. “I support a woman’s right to choose, and many of them choose to support reasonable restrictions on abortion.” What about gun control? “I support gun control. Let’s keep them out of the criminals’ hands!” Equal pay for equal work? Duh!

While Whitehouse pretended to have gained the upper hand, Republican Senate staffers mocked the Democrats for wasting the chamber’s time. The political climate is changing on climate change, and savvy Senate conservatives like Inhofe are winning.

Arthur Christopher Schaper is a writer, blogger, and political commentator on topics both timeless and timely; political, cultural, and eternal. A life-long Southern California resident, Arthur currently lives in Torrance.

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