The Cheese Stands Alone: Jim Inhofe's Donors Turn on Him; Oil Execs Agree to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

From http://jiminhotwater.blogspot.com/

It’s a good day for believers of catastrophic global warming, or those with any logic whatsoever, and a bad day for Sen. Jim Inhofe…

After years of fighting off any and all efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions, energy companies are finally starting to come around, according to today’s San Francisco Chronicle. As the article notes, “with growing public anxiety about climate change, major corporations are increasingly preparing for – and, in some cases, lobbying for – Congress to regulate emissions of heat-trapping gases.”

"The scientific evidence is real," said Betsy Moler, vice president for government and environmental affairs at Exelon Corp. of Chicago, an energy firm that supports a mandatory cap on carbon dioxide emissions. "When you have the likes of Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, a conservative Republican, and he says he has seen the changes in his lifetime in the Arctic, there is just no doubt that something has to happen."

This is a huge turn-around from an industry that traditionally supported the Bush administration and other allies (Jim Inhofe) in their staunch opposition to limits on carbon dioxide. You know it’s serious when the nation’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases join the effort to reduce their presence in the atmosphere.

The Boston Globe also noted this morning that “the movement to tackle climate change is finally growing large in this country, and at least part of it is beginning to get a little more outspoken.” And just a few days ago, as mentioned in the previous post, a new Zogby poll showed that nearly three out of four Americans are more convinced that global warming is in fact a reality than they were two years ago.

Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence that Americans want at least some progress on this issue, it has had no effect whatsoever on our favorite environment-hater Sen. James Inhofe. Yesterday, in a speech to Norman, OK businesses and government leaders, Inhofe hated on, well, everyone, but saved his best, as always, for global warming. Inhofe began with an assault on the Kyoto Treaty, a UN agreement that mandates cutbacks in emissions of greenhouse gases, arguing that it would lead to worldwide governance. He also added this gem: “Since 1999, science has refuted the concept” that greenhouse gases are causing global warming.

Really Senator? That’s probably why the leading industries that actually benefit from releasing these gases are agreeing to cap them, in an effort to reduce the effects of global warming. In fact, one of Inhofe’s top campaign contributors, BP, has been the industry leader in this effort, cutting its carbon emissions by 10 percent, according to the Chronicle article.

Will Inhofe call them Nazi propagandists too or is their money more important to him than that?