Last week, we experienced the joy of voting and, for many of us, complete depression at the results of those votes. Tuesday was certainly a sad day to be a Democrat.
Party affiliation aside, many worry that with Republican control of the House and Senate and a Democratic presidency, even less will get done. We should worry about this — but we should especially worry about this as it pertains to climate change initiatives, which will almost certainly be pushed to the back burner come January.
It is widely accepted that Senate committees are pretty much the most important gateway to legislative change, and, unfortunately, the makeup of these committees is determined by the party in power. Now that Republicans have control of the Senate, Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe stands to take over the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, currently chaired by Barbara Boxer. Inhofe is a climate change denier of the worst breed.
“Climategate” — the release of a report from Inhofe’s office describing leaked emails from climate change scientists as evidence of their “potential illegal behavior” — was only four years ago, and has been a major selling point for Inhofe in his effort to diminish the significance of global warming. As recently as 2012, Inhofe responded to climate change science by referencing the Bible. Inhofe also once compared the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the gestapo. He has even written a book, “The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future” — the title clearly speaks for itself.
So what does having a climate change denier as Chairman of the Committee mean? Scientific American argues this is “probably the end of climate change legislation.” If this is the case, we should be very concerned for the future of our environment. While the current legislature’s record is not laudable, we are about to move from a snail’s pace on addressing climate change to having no legislative fixes at all.
To deny climate change is to deny science, as Thomas Forman argued in a Cavalier Daily guest column last semester. But, regardless of one’s personal views on the matter, a majority of Americans believe in climate change, making this also an issue of ignoring popular will. According to a 2013 Pew Research Center survey, last year 67 percent of Americans believed there was solid evidence that global warming is occurring. In June 2014, ABC News and the Washington Post reported a poll that demonstrated seven in 10 Americans see global warming as a serious problem; that same month a Stanford University poll found that nearly 90 percent of Americans now favor some amount of government action to address climate change. While there are discrepancies in these polls, the overall trend is undeniable: a majority of Americans rightfully acknowledge climate change is occurring. This majority point of view will completely lose representation with Inhofe in charge.
It is one thing not to place climate change legislation high on the list of priorities, or to disagree about how to address it (or if it is the government’s role to do so). But placing a climate change denier in such a powerful position leaves us no room for debate, no room for compromise — and therefore no room for progress. Jonathan Alter at The Daily Beast argues that Inhofe will not simply be a lame duck Chairman who prevents policy from moving forward, but rather that Inhofe will actively try to diminish existing policies regarding climate change. He writes that Inhofe will “go after Obama and the EPA with a vengeance,” with a primary goal of preventing regulation on carbon emissions in coal-fired plants. This seems likely, as Inhofe has called for limitations on other EPA regulations in the past. These new policies would be in the immediate aftermath of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s report that soon significant numbers of the world population will not even be able to go outdoors for months out of the year due to how hot temperatures will be.
My fellow columnist John Connolly argued cogently last week that Republicans have reason to fear for their political security in 2016. His warnings are highly relevant, and inactivity on climate change will only exacerbate Republicans’ potential unpopularity. If we have any interest in both encouraging diplomacy between the parties and addressing this very real threat to our environment, the Republican Party should strongly consider a different Chairman than Inhofe.
Dani Bernstein is a Senior Associate Editor for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at d.bernstein@cavalierdaily.com.
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