As you watch the reasoning Buchanan uses here, remember, if just Greenland were to melt, the oceans would rise 35 feet.
What you see there is the TV pundit embodiment of Senator Daniel Inofe, America’s top elected climate change denier and certified nitwit, from Knuckle Drag, Oklahoma which is just a shot away from Dumbutt, Texas.
Pat Buchanan speaks for a growing number of Americans who believe they are smarter than scientists. I know this is a long held secret but I feel obligated to let the cat out of the bag. Stupid people don’t like smart people. In fact they even have special code names for smart people; elites, elitists, intellectuals, ivory tower academics, Yankees, New Yorkers, East Coast elites, Washington elites, Marxist university professors, evolutionists, atheists, agnostics and most anyone living outside their trailer park.
This interview with Buchanan helps us see the varied reasons for Climate Change denial.
1) The money. Denying Climate Change is big business funded by the energy, oil, chemical and mining industries. Buchanan’s reference to the The Heidelberg Appeal should be taken for what it is. It was a 1992 project funded by the tobacco and asbestos industries with oil, chemical and mining industries jumping on board later.
2) Stupid people just hate smart people no matter what they have to say.
3) Religious dogma. Evangelical Christianity which plays the same game with Climate Change as they do with Evolution. God and religious dogma trump science. God will take care of things, it’s what he does, and if he wants us all to die, so be it. He knows best.
4) Republican Idealism. Saving the planet will cost a nickle which would be better spend on tax breaks for the wealthy.
5) Right-wing Bigotry. Just as they so despise the United Nations, so too they hate the climate summits. These kind of people could care less about anyone outside their tribal boundaries, especially if they are less white than they.
6) Hating Obama. If a black president is for it then they must be against it.
Add it all up. A Beckian Palin World of Tea Baggers, Republicans, Christian Evangelicals, morons and billions of dollars funding it. It builds up into their being enough people and power to stop it or anything they wish to stop. In fact it is the big lesson of 2009, it takes only 40% to stop ALL PROGRESS.
Some things can be let go for the satisfaction of later saying "I told you so." But sadly in this case in which the Republicans so enjoy crapting in their own nest to save a buck as the Earth dies, the satisfaction will not be I told you so, but cries for help…