World With End, Amen: GOP Senator Quotes "The King's Speech" To "Disprove" Warming

[hatrack]

EDIT

Those types of questions, however, did not dominate Wednesday’s meeting of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which held a hearing to question EPA Acting Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation Janet McCabe about the agency’s proposed regulations limiting carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. Instead, many of the questions took the form of statements focused on the reality of human-caused climate change, and whether it was worthwhile to tackle the problem.

Perhaps the most notable statement came from Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), who began his questioning by casting doubt on data from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showing 2014 to be the hottest year on record. Citing a scene from the (mostly) fictional movie “The King’s Speech,” Wicker said that the data should not necessarily be trusted.

“The speech therapist Lionel Logue is talking to King George, and one of the things Lionel says is, ‘You’ve got to quit smoking.’ And King George says, ‘My doctors told me smoke relaxes the throat,” Wicker said. “I would just observe that these were the smartest people in Britain at the time, and they were giving the King of England the exactly the wrong advice about what he should be doing with regard to smoking. It is possibly conceivable that the smartest people of our time might be wrong and that the very learned and educated contrarians on the issue of climate change will turn out to be vindicated in the end.”

EDIT

It was not just Republican lawmakers who made general statements about climate change instead of questioning McCabe about the Clean Power Plan. Outspoken climate hawk Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), for example, asked no questions, but said he supported the rule and lambasted his colleagues for rejecting climate science. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-DE) used his time to explain why tackling climate change is important, asking McCabe whether an average global temperature rise above 2 degrees Celsius is “something we should be concerned about.” McCabe’s response: “Absolutely.”

EDIT

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/02/11/3621780/what-is-a-climate-even/

[DetlefK]

1. Science is trial and error. => You cannot trust science. Ever.

And this neverending believe that the outcast, the righteous rebel holds the ultimate truth and is destined to be vindicated in his fight against the big, bad... everything.

Guess what? Nowadays scientists have the combined work of a few million forerunners from a few hundred years under their belt. I dare say, we are beyond the days of bloodletting, mercury-injections, brushing your teeth with sugar and treating mental illness by strapping the patient into a huge centrifuge.

[jwirr]

2. The idiot must never heard "no more water, fire next time".

[pscot]

3. Because kings know all about global warming and stuff.

[MisterP]

4. wasn't this the party that the Tobacco Institute took over? alternate headline: "Wicker admits

scientists right when they say cigarettes not good for lungs!"