This is why I'm so adamant about making sure Senator Brian Schatz (D. HI) beats Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D. HI-01) in the primary and is elected to a full term next year:
http://www.slate.com/...
"These people have to be ridiculed," said Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz. "They have to be run out of town rhetorically."
The freshman senator, appointed upon the death of Hawaii's statesman Dan Inouye, was talking about skeptics of climate change. The issue earned a Saturday morning panel at Netroots Nation, anchored by Rep. Henry Waxman, who had moved the 2009 cap and trade bill through the Democratic House only to 1) watch it whimper and die in the Senate and 2) watch many Democrats who'd backed it get attacked as "energy taxers" and lose.
Waxman and Schatz agreed that climate change legislation was a dead letter in the current Congress, because Republicans didn't fear it. How to change that? Ridicule. "When you make fun of people—here's an example," said Waxman. "In Indiana last year, a conservative candidate lost the Senate race because he said something stupid about rape." If denying climate change becomes as dangerous to talk about as abortion, voila, they can start tripping up the other side. - Slate, 6/22/13
Schatz believes that by ridiculing climate change deniers, it will greatly discredit them and their crack pot theories:
http://blog.seattlepi.com/...
“The power of ridicule should be deployed here,” said Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii. “You have to get to the point where a major candidate for public office is disqualified when he or she denies climate science.” Schatz was speaking to the annual Netroots Nation conference of progressive bloggers.
Jon Carson, head of Organizing for Action — the group formed as an issue-based successor to the Obama presidential campaign — put it this way: “When a Republican or a Democrat says something crazy on climate, we should be ready to hold them accountable as progressives did on human biology.”
The “War on Women” became a great 2012 selling point for Obama and the Democrats, helped in no part by Republican politicians’ intemperate remarks about rape.
Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., blew away his Senate candidacy by discoursing on “legitimate rape” and how a woman’s body can “shut down pregnancy.” Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock argued that a pregnancy caused by rape was “something that God intended to happen.” Washington’s U.S. House hopeful John Koster discoursed about “the rape thing” and an acquaintance who bore a rapist’s child.
By contrast, Republican presidential candidates in 2012 made all manner of unsubstantiated, often off-the-wall statements about climate. The national media greeted such hot talk with glacial indifference, and has treated alarming climate news in the same fashion.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry has responded to heat waves and droughts with calls to prayer . . . while describing global warming as “a contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight.” He charged in New Hampshire (offering no evidence) that scientists have “manipulated data so that they will have money rolling into their projects.”
Rep. Michele Bachmann rolled out a theological argument, attacking Democrats’ House leader. “Nancy Pelosi is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said she’s just rying to save the planet,” Bachmann declared. “We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago. The Lord saved the planet — We didn’t need Nancy Pelosi to do that.”
Scientists recently disclosed that carbon dioxide has reached a level of 400 parts per million in the atmosphere, “a level we have not reached in three million years,” in the words of Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon. The International Energy Agency has warned of global temperature increases on the order of 6 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit.
Yet, House Speaker John Boehner has argued that “the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical.”
Trees are teetering in “drunken forests” as Alaska’s permafrost melts, and the Arctic icepack receded to a record low last September, yet Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, has declared: “I think this is the biggest scam since Teapot Dome.”
Obama is likely to unveil a national plan to reduce carbon pollution, concentrating on cutting carbon emissions from power plants. Coal-burning power plants are America’s largest source of greenhouse gas releases into the atmosphere. The President will use his executive authority under the Clean Air Act.
“The President doesn’t just have the authority to regulate carbon under the Clean Air Act, he is required to,” said Sen. Schatz. - Seattle Pi, 6/23/13
I think Schatz and OFA have the right idea here. People like Bachmann and Perry need to be made the faces of climate change denial just like Todd Akin was the face of the War On Women. By associating these lunatics to those who doubt climate change is a hand made crisis might make people who are on the fence about this issue thin twice. Schatz isn't alone on this argument. British politician Ed Davey has also been labeling climate change deniers as “crackpots and conspiracy theorists”:
http://guardianlv.com/...
“Of course there will always be those with a vested interest in the status quo who seek to create doubt where there is certainty,” Mr. Davey said during a speech in Brussels, “and you will always get crackpots and conspiracy theorists who will deny they have a nose on their face if it suits them.” Davey was referring to those who remain unconvinced that global warming is real, even in the face of an overwhelming body of scientific evidence.
Davey went on to discuss the future ramifications of global climate change, issuing an ominous warning and saying that gambling on the issue is akin to negligence that should land someone in jail:
Climate change’s long-term impact on the global economy? Well, we can be sure it will make current economic troubles look mild in comparison. So if you meet in your boardrooms people who still doubt the evidence, ask them how they normally assess risk and how they normally act on the evidence and presence of risk. For on the basis of any normal risk assessment – weighing probability against impact, weighing the cost of acting against the costs of inaction – taking a gamble on climate change wouldn’t be just incredibly stupid, it would have you locked up in jail for corporate negligence.
His statements themselves actually have some science to back them. A study performed in Australia entitled “NASA faked the moon landing – Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science” found that people who deny global warming are also more likely to deny other scientifically proven facts, such as the link between HIV and A.I.D.S., the link between smoking and lung cancer, and other findings that are supported by a large body of peer-reviewed published evidence.
Deniers of global warming were also more likely to believe in conspiracy theories such as the moon landing being faked or Martin Luther King being killed by the government. But researchers say there’s a perfectly rational explanation for this this type of thinking, and it should come as no surprise that conspiracy theorists would reject scientific findings.
“Science is about weeding out bad ideas,” said head scientist Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, “With conspiracy theories, you start out with a theory and stick to it no matter what the evidence, so it is not that surprising that conspiracy theorists would not accept scientific propositions … If the scientific evidence is overwhelming and you don’t like the conclusion, you have to find a way to reject those findings.” - The Guardian Express, 6/23/13
Schatz has really hit the ground running since being appointed to the U.S. Senate in fighting climate change. He's also proven to be a great progressive on several issues like opposing the chained CPI and FISA and advocating GMO labels and Senator Elizabeth Warren's (D. MA) student loans plan. He's earned the support of major unions and environmental groups so it's clear he is the true blue progressive in this race. He deserves our help this year, especially since Hanabusa is going to be getting the help of Senator Daniel Inouye's (D. HI) people to help her win the nominee:
http://www.civilbeat.com/...
One of Hawaii’s most powerful operatives is throwing her considerable political heft behind U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa’s bid for a slot in the Senate.
Jennifer Sabas, the longtime chief of staff for the late U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, told Civil Beat she will work for the campaign in Hanabusa’s race against U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz. Given Sabas' profile, she is almost certain to play an influential role.
Inouye’s former deputy chief of staff and spokesman, Peter Boylan, has also signed on with the Hanabusa campaign.
Together Sabas and Boylan, who are working on the campaign pro bono, are hoping to bring the dying wish of their former boss to fruition.
Should Hanabusa defeat Schatz, she will owe her ascension largely to lingering affection for Inouye, the most powerful figure in the modern history. It would suggest that the late senator is so influential that he can win victories from beyond the grave.
But if Schatz prevails, it could signal the end of an era of a kingmaker in Hawaii politics, and the beginning of a less predictable period.
Since announcing her primary challenge to Schatz last month, Hanabusa has repeatedly invoked the senator’s name in her public statements.
But with Schatz securing support from an array of notable groups — particularly from Hawaii’s large pool of organized labor — the question is this: Can Hanabusa ride Inouye’s legacy well enough to unseat an incumbent senator?
“The senator continues to cast a shadow on Hawaii politics,” said John Hart, professor and chair of Hawaii Pacific University's Department of Communication. “If anyone thought it would just evaporate when he passed from the Earth, that’s a very questionable assumption.”
Inouye may be dead, but his one-time supporters are still very much alive, Hart said. If they come together they will be “exceedingly formidable.” - Honolulu Civil Beat, 6/24/13
If you would like to get involved or donate to Schatz's campaign, you can do so here:
http://www.brianschatz.com/
