Republican frostiness toward modern science gathers pace

Republican Senator James Inhofe uses a snowball as a prop to argue against the science of climate change. Photo: C-SPAN

Washington: The winter has lingered on the American east coast, so much so that this month the new Republicanchairman of the Senate environment and public works dommittee, James Inhofe, of Oklahoma, was able to bring a dripping snowball onto the floor of the chamber and lob it underarm toward the chair as evidence against global warming.

Props aside, Mr Inhofe's position was of no surprise. He is the author of the bookThe Greatest Hoax How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future, which uses biblical arguments to support its case that there is a vast left-wing conspiracy behind the scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change. Only God can change the climate, he argues.

Mr Inhofe's views on climate change and scientific endeavour more broadly are not rare among Republicans who since sweeping midterm election victories have increased their control of crucial congressional committees.

In the last term one of Mr Inhofe's Republican colleagues on the House of Representative's science, space and technology committee, was Paul Broun, a medical doctor by training, who said at a speech in 2012, "All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell."

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Senator Ted Cruz, the Tea Party favourite and climate change sceptic gearing up for a presidential run, now heads the subcommittee controlling NASA's budget.

He recently appeared on a late night talk show and said, "I just came back from New Hampshire, where there's snow and ice everywhere." He went on to repeat the thoroughly refuted assertion that there has been a pause in global warming over recent years.

The Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio, who is also preparing for a presidential campaign, took over as chairman of the committee that oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has responsibility for monitoring the health of the oceans and atmosphere. "I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it," he said an interview last year.

Climate change has become a bitter point of political contention in Mr Rubio's home state. Politically, Florida is dominated by the conservative north of the state, while the more progressive southern areas are already being hit by sea level rises. Some groups in the south are even calling for secession from the north, while the Republican governor, Rick Scott, has ordered the state's Department of Environmental Protection to stop using the terms climate change or global warming in correspondence or during meetings.

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Republican frostiness toward modern science gathers pace