Members of the Senate have gone on record on the topic of whether or not climate change is occurring as the result of human activity. As Wired‘s Victoria Tang observed, “United States Senators stood up for what they believed in today – the results aren’t pretty.” What she meant was that of the folks to whom we have entrusted  the leadership of what is arguably the most powerful nation in the world, almost fully half made it clear that, in Tang’s words, they “think climate change is some other species’ problem”:

The Senate, by a 50-49 vote with 60 required, rejected the amendment to a Republican bill approving TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL oil pipeline. Republicans control the Senate 54-46.

The amendment, offered by Senator Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat, would have deemed that “climate change is real” and that “human activity significantly contributes” to it.

It’s no big surprise, I’m sure, that Missouri Republican Senator Roy Blunt is on the list of those voting against the amendment that affirmed the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is man made. As long as the fossil fuel industry shows him an adequate amount of love, he will always love them right back. Besides, doesn’t he stand up with the GOPers who claim they can’t legitimately have such an opinion because they’re not scientists? And unlike our President who has made it clear that he understands what goes into creating a scientific consensus, he’s part of that group of policy makers who want us to think that their lack of credentials excuses them from listening to any inconvenient scientific facts. As David Shiffman argues in Slate:

When politicians say “I’m not a scientist,” it is an exasperating evasion. It’s a cowardly way to avoid answering basic and important policy questions. This response raises lots of other important questions about their decision-making processes. Do they have opinions on how to best maintain our nation’s highways, bridges, and tunnels-or do they not because they’re not civil engineers? Do they refuse to talk about agriculture policy on the grounds that they’re not farmers? How do they think we should be addressing the threat of ISIS? They wouldn’t know, of course; they’re not military generals.

I’d like to hear Roy Blunt answer those questions.

Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, on the other hand, voted with the “yeas.” She accepts the scientific verdict about anthropogenic climate change although, to judge by her past performance, she also thinks that it’s okay to ignore inconvenient facts. Or maybe, do you think, the fact that she went on the record this week might prompt more responsible action in the future? After all, McCaskill is one of those folks who goes on interminably about the rather iffy threat posed to our children by our federal debt. Maybe she’s finally getting equally worked up over the incontrovertible threat to their future well-being posed by climate change?

This is not to say that there’s not been progress on the topic. The Senators did vote 59-1 to affirm that climate change is not a hoax. We can take comfort from the fact that it’s now so obviously ridiculous to deny the fact of climate change that all but one of the Senate’s highly-motivated Republican fossil fuel champions would have been embarrassed to affirm support that position in a public vote.

ADDENDUM:  Digby explains why the vote to affirm the fact of a changing climate was a total joke. Hint: “The leaders of the free world are cretinous imbeciles.”

*1st sentence edited slightly for clarity.

Previously:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): Sesame Street is too complicated (November 18, 2014)

Uh, there’s a difference between weather and climate. [….]

A lot of people noticed:

Glenn Greenwald ‏@ggreenwald

How does the obvious stupidity of this not embarrass people? RT @RepHartzler Global warming strikes America! Brrrr! 7:48 AM – 18 Nov 2014

And a sample of the comments in reply to Representative Hartzler (r):

Glic ‏@Glic

.@RepHartzler <— Another elected official who doesn’t understand the difference between weather and climate.#science 7:22 AM – 18 Nov 2014

lawhawk ‏@lawhawk

.@RepHartzler .@BuzzFeedAndrew you do realize that global warming is more than the temp in your corner of the US? Global temps keep rising 7:25 AM – 18 Nov 2014

Hesster56 ‏@hesster56

@RepHartzler Your lack of knowledge is an embarrassment in an elected official. 7:27 AM – 18 Nov 2014

Bart ‏@bart_smith

These morons are at it again. – RT @RepHartzler: Global warming strikes America! Brrrr! 7:27 AM – 18 Nov 2014

Somite ‏@toxicpath

.@RepHartzler global warming isn’t real because it is cold where you are right now * sigh * @BuzzFeedAndrew 7:27 AM – 18 Nov 2014

Eve Zhurbinskiy ‏@gillibranded

Funny how I’m in DC too but yet possess the knowledge that it’s cold in late fall RT “@RepHartzler: Global warming strikes America! Brrrr!” 7:27 AM – 18 Nov 2014

Peg ‏@IowaPeg

.@RepHartzler Aww, are you upset that Joni has stolen your crazy-thunder and are trying to one up her on the batshit scale? Keep trying. 7:27 AM – 18 Nov 2014

Weather Moose ‏@WXMoose

@bart_smith @RepHartzler hey how about we stop using short-term, regional synoptic events for arguments for/against climate change 7:28 AM – 18 Nov 2014

Daniel Aubry ‏@Aubs89

@RepHartzler pray for brains dear. 7:29 AM – 18 Nov 2014

Adam Brown ‏@AdamTilted

Let me guess, you’re “not a scientist.” “@RepHartzler: Global warming strikes America! Brrrr!” 7:29 AM – 18 Nov 2014

Adam Weinstein ‏@AdamWeinstein

You wouldn’t know “global” even if it threatened to get gay-married on your lawn RT @RepHartzler: Global warming strikes America! Brrrr! 7:30 AM – 18 Nov 2014

Turkey Slaying Curt ‏@Curt_Ames

@RepHartzler @toxicpath In other news, the American educational system continues to produce vapid, smugly ignorant citizens. 7:39 AM – 18 Nov 2014

Financial Ownalyst ‏@Cyrus_T_Virus

I am horrified by the notion that you make decisions that affect my well-being RT @RepHartzler: Global warming strikes America! Brrrr! 7:40 AM – 18 Nov 2014

Christy Kilgore ‏@ckilgore

@RepHartzler You know science doesn’t work like that, right? 7:41 AM – 18 Nov 2014

michael hoffman ‏@chelicerata

Like people complaining the Sun is gone at night. RT @RepHartzler: Global warming strikes America! Brrrr! 7:41 AM – 18 Nov 2014

And that’s some of the printable responses.

In the Washington Post:

Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler wonders why it’s so cold if global warming exists. Here’s the answer.

By Philip Bump November 18 at 1:42 PM

It is that time of year when the weather gets cold – even unexpectedly cold – and online humorists and armchair scientists rise up as one to ask a question: “What happened to ‘global warming’???” It’s a good gag, see, because it’s cold and global warming implies that it will be warm. If you don’t get it, please e-mail me and I will explain further.

[….]

There are two options for what Hartzler, a Republican who represents Missouri’s 4th District, hopes to accomplish here. The first is that she’s making a joke about a serious environmental issue that has scientists around the world concerned about how mankind will fare under warmer conditions. We assume a member of Congress wouldn’t make such a joke.

[….]

But heat is just one effect, according to the climate report mentioned above.

Direct effects will include increased heat stress, flooding, drought, and late spring freezes. Climate change also alters pests and disease prevalence, competition from non-native or opportunistic native species, ecosystem disturbances, land-use change, landscape fragmentation, atmospheric and watershed pollutants, and economic shocks such as crop failures, reduced yields, or toxic blooms of algae due to extreme weather events.

That’s what the Midwest can expect.

[….]

The people in Missouri’s 4th Congressional District know what they can expect.

Uh, there’s a difference between weather and climate.

You know, the Sesame [Children’s Television] Workshop teaches critical thinking skills:

One of These Things (Is Not Like The Others)

One of these things is not like the others,

One of these things just doesn’t belong,

Can you tell which thing is not like the others

By the time I finish my song?

Today, via Twitter:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler ‏@RepHartzler

Global warming strikes America! Brrrr! 6:44 AM – 18 Nov 2014

A response:

Ed Smith ‏@esmith326

@RepHartzler I am not hungry, therefore, nobody on this planet is hungry. #samelogic… 7:11 AM – 18 Nov 2014

In the news:

Earth has warmest October on record as ocean temperatures top charts

Multiple datasets have confirmed it was the warmest October on record for the globe, keeping the planet on a course towards its toastiest year.

[….]

Last month, NOAA published a chart…indicating the global temperature for the remaining three months of the year need only average among the top 10 warmest for 2014 to be the warmest year on record.  Considering the October results in so far, a record warm year almost seems inevitable unless temperatures radically tank in November and December.

[….]

That’s global temperatures, not just in rural Cass County, Missouri. There is a difference when it comes to assessing the facts and determining policy, don’t you think?

When I last looked, Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill was still very carefully trying to say nothing at all about the EPA’s proposed new emission standards which are designed to reduce carbon emissions in the United States 30% by 2030. Which is actually pretty much in line with her past behavior; McCaskill has long been a disappointment to her constituents when it comes to showing leadership on the issue of climate change. She has been very careful to avoid even the appearance of pulling out the rug from under dirty coal, the producers and consumers of which are a powerful force in Missouri which currently gets 80% of its energy from fossil fuels.

McCaskill’s past arguments for rejecting stronger regulation of carbon emissions from coal-fired energy plants have revolved around: (1) the supposed potential for economic hardship for “Missouri’s families,” and, (2) the assertion that the costs would be born disproportionately by the U.S. She has noted that “it’s not going to do us any good to clean up our act as it relates to the atmosphere. It’s the same atmosphere that China shares and Japan shares and India shares. Some very big industrial countries.”

The first argument, which McCaskill shares with most Republican apologists for fossil fuels, should, by now, occasion the great hilarity that is due arguments that pit relatively minor, short-term concerns against long-term, global survival. After all, while it’s questionable that efforts to reduce carbon emissions will seriously harm those Missouri families she is so fond of citing, doing nothing about climate change is going to really hurt Missourians over the next thirty years, particularly those dependent on agriculture. A recent report stipulates that “higher temperatures will reduce Midwest crop yields by 19 percent by midcentury and by 63 percent by the year 2100.” McCaskill’s position also ignores the hidden costs of fossil fuel dependence, such as the personal and economic aspects of its effect on public health.  

A new report, the 2014 Low Carbon Economy Index (LCEI), demonstrates the emptiness of McCaskill’s international rationale for delaying action on carbon emisions. According to the LCEI:

… . China could be viewed as the poster child for developing countries, with a 2013 national decarbonisation rate of 4%. China improved its energy intensity by 3% in 2013, the third highest amongst the G20, and has a flourishing renewable energy sector 2. China also launched seven regional emissions trading schemes over the last year, although these are unlikely to have a dramatic impact on emissions in the short term. …

And:

While coal use in China rose by 3.7% in 2013, it is at a much slower rate than in previous years. China has made public efforts to curb coal use to manage its air pollution problems, for example a limit on coal use to 65% of its energy mix, and more recently a proposed ban on coal-fired power in Beijing by 2020. …  

China lowered its carbon emissions by 3.5%, a full percentage point more than the US where:

A revival of coal […], driven by a combination of falling coal prices and rising gas prices, has also been a major factor in the low US position in the G20 decarbonisation league table. Coal in the US has regained some market share from natural gas in the generation mix  ince its low in April 2012, causing an increase in emissions, and dispelling the myth that a shale gas revolution will necessarily result in emissions reductions. …

Don’t these numbers make it clear that we can no longer allow our politicans to point to the other guy in order to excuse inaction on carbon emissions? Certainly we should not allow Senator McCaskill to do so when the time comes when she will have to make her position on the new EPA regulations known. While the reduction in carbon emissions that these regulations would achieve is still not enough to stop potentially catastrophic global warming, they would still move us significantly forward in that direction:

If the rule goes forward as it is currently conceived, this proposal, combined with the reductions to date and those that will be driven by prior executive actions addressing the transportation sector, would, in approximate terms, put the US on a path to achieve Obama’s 17% by 2020 pledge. However, putting the proposed rule in context of the global de-carbonization challenge, it will achieve a small portion of the reductions required to stay within 2°C carbon budget. The EPA estimates it will result in reductions from the business as usual case of 545 MM tonnes of CO2 in 2030*. This plan would contribute a cumulative 5.9% reduction in US carbon intensity or an average annual additional intensity reduction of 0.39%

.

Isn’t it time for the US to start to play the leadership role when it comes to climate change that those advocates of “American exceptionalism” expect us to play when the question involves military action? Let’s ask Senator McCaskill why China should have to do all the heavy lifting – particularly since it’s clear that no nation can do it alone. And while we’re at it, let’s ask the Senator why she can’t manage to play more of a leadership role when it comes to helping our state make the transition from dirty energy sources – surely she can manage to stop concentrating on keeping her balance on the center line that runs down that rightward veering highway she’s been traveling in order to help determine the outcome of what will probably be the defining issue of our time.

Update:  Via Washington Monthly’s Ed Kilgore, Paul Krugman writes today on false economic arguments of the fossil fuel advocates:

I’ve just been reading two new reports on the economics of fighting climate change: a big study by a blue-ribbon international group, the New Climate Economy Project, and a working paper from the International Monetary Fund. Both claim that strong measures to limit carbon emissions would have hardly any negative effect on economic growth, and might actually lead to faster growth. This may sound too good to be true, but it isn’t. These are serious, careful analyses.

But you know that such assessments will be met with claims that it’s impossible to break the link between economic growth and ever-rising emissions of greenhouse gases, a position I think of as “climate despair.” The most dangerous proponents of climate despair are on the anti-environmentalist right. But they receive aid and comfort from other groups, including some on the left, who have their own reasons for getting it wrong.

Their own reasons …. hmmm. Locally, could that be Peabody Coal? Along with all the voting Missourians who get all their information from Fox News? How do you balance them beans against climate apocalypse?

I’ve just returned from a lovely and isolated vacation in the Canadian Rockies and, lo and behold, as soon a I got back to Missouri I think that I may have seen one of those proverbial winged piggies flying just over the spot where Hell froze over. What I’m talking about is the response to President Obama’s proposed new carbon emission standards. Of course that flying piggy isn’t from Missouri’s Senate contingent, all of whom seem to be oinking along the same old muddy road.

Start with Republican Senator Roy Blunt who couldn’t wait to go to bat for the energy industry sugar daddies who love him so generously. Blunt  has promised a heroic battle against these standards. He says they will – what else – “kill jobs and raise electric rates.” This, of course, is what Blunt says about anything that emanates from the Democratic administration that saved us from the GOP engendered financial crisis of 2008. The only thing different is that this time he tried to put some numbers to his claims of economic hardship to come, numbers that could be double-checked, and lots of very public merriment – at poor Blunt’s expense – ensued when a journalist at Roll Call did just that. Of course, I noticed some yahoo quoting those same figures in a recent letter the editor published in a little local newspaper so I guess Blunt knows how to please his main audience.

Democratic Senator Claire Mcaskill, on the other hand, is trudging along in her same old rut as well – the one that runs down the middle of any controversial road and avoids veering in any meaningful direction. She’s “withholding judgement while she studies the proposal and gathers public input.” Even before the standards were made public, she’s was a busy little equivocator:

I believe that climate change is real, I believe that it is dangerous, I believe that it is the result of man-made activity, and I trust science.

“I’m not happy about this,” she added, “but Missouri is incredibly coal-dependent for its energy needs. Which means that any aggressive changes in the availability of coal-fired electricity will have a direct impact on whether or not people with fixed incomes and small businesses can afford their energy bills.”

Gee, what does the destruction of the Missouri agricultural ecosystem, not to mention the planet itself, matter if it adds a few dollars to the old utility bill. Since our Missouri politicians are more than willing to subsidize farmers right now, perhaps they could extend some energy subsidies to those who really need them – if I remember correctly, the cap-and-trade bill McCaskill voted against a few years ago proposed to do just that. (McCaskill shares her reluctance to deal with the true costs of coal-generated electricity with Rep. Billy Long (R-7) who also wails about the potential higher utility bills. That alone ought to persuade her to rethink her rhetoric.)

But apart from the question of subsidies, don’t you think that a politician as savvy as McCaskill might figure out that it’s not an all or nothing proposition, that there are ways to mitigate the difficulties inherent in reducing the indirect subsidies that prop up coal use – maybe it’s time for the McCaskills in our Congress, those nefarious Red State Democrats, to take a chance, take a real stand, do the right thing and get real abut renewables instead of hemming, hawing and, in the end, pandering to a destructive status quo. The European Union is now producing so much energy from renewables that it has to figure out how to deal with structural problems caused by oversupply. Why can’t that be Missouri’s problem?

No, the piggy that seems to be sprouting a tiny, feathery winglet or two is Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-7). Usually Vicky is a good little soldier who marches in lock-step with the radical right wing, anti-science base. However, she’s on the record saying that the proposed rules “aren’t as bad as once feared,” and, unlike Senator Blunt’s rhetorical overreach, actually seems to be willing to point out that the rules permit the states some flexibility that can be used to mitigate their impact.

Of course, those may not be incipient wings on that pig, but just lipstick smears. Hartzler did make these statements at a panel discussion dominated by speakers from Missouri’s coal-dependent utilities who tried to sound reasonable and scientifically literate while doing their utmost to keep the renewable energy genie tightly under control lest it upend their their very profitable business models. As research into mechanisms that will store energy generated by renewable sources begins to show serious results, these folks don’t want to be left holding an empty bag. Among them are the same Ameren types who a few years ago proposed a surcharge for consumers who cut their energy use.

But still, it is something when righteous rightwing Vicky Hartzler, of all the politicians in the state, actually acts like she is aware of what the new regulations really propose to do – no matter whose bottom line she wants to protect. And unlike our Democratic Senator McCaskill, who seems to understand the issues even more fully, but who willfully ignores the call to action, Hartzler has struggled to give a coherent response, albeit one that befits an honest conservative. As Paul Krugman observes apropos the Republican reaction to the proposed regulations:

Claims that the effects will be devastating are, however, not just wrong but inconsistent with what conservatives claim to believe. Ask right-wingers how the U.S. economy will cope with limited supplies of raw materials, land, and other resources, and they respond with great optimism: the magic of the marketplace will lead us to solutions. But they abruptly lose their faith in market magic when someone proposes limits on pollution – limits that would largely be imposed in market-friendly ways like cap-and-trade systems. Suddenly, they insist that businesses will be unable to adjust, that there are no alternatives to doing everything energy-related exactly the way we do it now.

So maybe I was right. Maybe I did see a pig lift off, just a little bit. Perhaps Vicky Hartzler is more honest than I had thought. Given the clouds of lies and distortions  consistently rolling in from the rightward direction, that’s at least refreshing.

Via Think Progress we learn that Missouri is among the ten states that got the most disaster aid in 2011 and 2012. Lots of that aid was in response to events that reflect the increasing toll that human activity is taking on the climate:

There is new evidence that climate change played a role in the extreme weather events of 2012. A recently released analysis from the American Meteorological Society, for example, determined that:

Approximately half the analyses found some evidence that anthropogenically caused climate change was a contributing factor to the extreme event examined, though the effects of natural fluctuations of weather and climate on the evolution of many of the extreme events played key roles as well.

Think Progress notes the interesting fact that these states are responsible for many of the climate-science deniers in congress:

Interestingly, many of the states that received the most federal recovery aid to cope with climate-linked extreme weather have federal legislators who are climate-science deniers. The ten states that received the most federal recovery aid in FY 2011 and 2012 elected 47 climate-science deniers to the Senate and the House. Nearly two-thirds of the senators from these top 10 recipient states voted against granting federal emergency aid to New Jersey and New York after Superstorm Sandy.

As I have pointed out previously, you can count the Missouri GOP delegation among those 47 climate-science deniers in Congress. Think Progress also does well to note the hypocrisy involved – GOP Senator Roy Blunt, who voted against Superstorm Sandy aid, has been first in line demanding relief from the numerous climate disasters that have struck Missouri’s farmers over the past several years. Blunt was not alone – all the GOP members of the Missouri House delegation voted against Superstorm Sandy relief, while grubbing for every cent they can get for Missouri’s misfortunes. Part of the GOP resistance to Superstorm Sandy aid was based on the fact that it called for funds to rebuild in ways that could mitigate future damage from frequent repeats of the superstorm, implicitly endorsing the findings of climate scientists that predict increasingly violent weather events.

What can motivate individuals who join a political party that has for decades boasted of its fiscal conservatism to blindly persist in a spurious climate-science denialism that is proving increasingly costly to both their constituents, the welfare of their state, and to the nation as a whole? After all, it’s clear that playing mean when the disaster strikes New Jersey, New York or other states and throwing cash around liberally when it hits home won’t balance the books in the long run.

I’m sure that the answer to that question is complex, but there are some simple aspects involved and they have to do with Big Oil money and the struggle for partisan advantage that animates today’s GOP. Just consider that:

HSBC Securities’ analysis shows that oil companies will lose up to 60 percent of their value if a policy aiming for the internationally-recognised two-degree climate policy objective is implemented.

Then stop and think how much  Big Oil money goes into Republican coffers (see also here and here for some specifics). Makes that disaster aid seem kind of puny – for the time being at least.