Climate Lies, The Next Generation: Senate Hearings Provide A Preview Of What To Expect In Future

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Link to tweet

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As you can see from the tweet embedded at the top of this post, yesterday’s Senate hearing provided a forum for fossil fuel-backed Republicans like Wyoming’s John Barrasso to test out their kinder, gentler type of climate change denial—a type that focuses not on the existence of climate change, but what is necessary to solve it. Barrasso has historically denied the vast body of evidence showing climate change is real and caused by greenhouse gases. He now claims to be part of a good-faith, bipartisan effort to address the ongoing crisis.

Barrasso’s opening statement at yesterday’s hearing, however, showed that claim to be hot bullshit. It was a master class in oil industry-shaped strategic language that will allow the Republican Party to act like they’re concerned about climate change while still denying basic scientific reality: that fossil fuels are the primary climate problem, and must be significantly reduced to solve it.

Barrasso, of course, never said the words “reducing fossil fuels.” He said things like “Undermining America’s energy security” and “raising the cost of traditional energy sources.” Note his use of the word “energy,” as if fossil fuels are the only type of energy. Note his avoidance of what he’s actually talking about—Biden’s policies to reduce fossil fuel development and replace it with clean energy development—and his emphasis on what the oil industry says those policies would do. You don’t need to be a genius to read between the lines. When Barrasso says “Undermining America’s energy security will not solve climate change,” he’s actually saying “reducing the use of fossil fuels will not solve climate change.” That’s climate denial.

When Barrasso says “Instead of raising the cost of traditional energy sources, we should work to lower the cost of alternate technologies like carbon capture and advanced nuclear reactors,” he’s actually saying, “Instead of reducing emissions from fossil fuels, we should spend many years developing unproven new technologies to remove fossil fuel emissions from the air and create safer nuclear power. Then when that’s done—if it’s ever done—we should spend many more years bringing the cost of those technologies down to compete with fossil fuels, which will still be priced artificially low because I refuse to impose the actual cost of pollution on this industry, or take away its billions of dollars in federal subsidies.” That’s not climate denial, but it’s pretty stupid.

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https://heated.world/p/bring-in-the-climate-clowns