Republicans root against American technology and know how

LANSING – The recent snow storm has led to a rash of ridiculous right-wing jokes about global warming from global warming deniers, like Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-OK, who is making a dig deal out of his family building an igloo on the National Mall and calling it “Al Gore’s New Home.”

They should look up the difference between weather and climate, as well as that climate change means just that. It will lead to unstable and unusual weather occurrences and more severe weather, exactly what we are seeing. Scientists have been warning for decades that global warming would increase the severity of winter storms, and those in Washington, D.C. are seeing that.

But the reaction yesterday from a certain Michigan Senator, who shall remain nameless to protect me, on the Senate floor was perhaps the most outrageous. He was gleefully talking about the wind turbines in Minnesota freezing in place. Rightwing blogs and other climate change deniers have also been all over this.

“Oops, so much for electricity in Anoka, Chaska, and other communities in that part of Minnesota,” he said. “Eleven wind turbines frozen in place. Oops, so much for wind turbines versus coal-based electric generation. It all has to do with a media mandate. Renewable Portfolio Standard? Oops, no electricity.”

Unbelievable.

You will recall that a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) mandates that a certain amount of power be generated by a renewable source. There are lots of new energy sources out there, but they are all, at least for now, more expensive than pollution-filled fossil fuels. The purpose of an RPS is to create a demand for alternative fuel sources. In 2008 the Michigan Legislator adopted an RPS mandating that 7 percent of a power company's supply to consumers is generated from renewable fuel sources by 2015. It was so ridiculously low as to make it almost useless.

I’m just amazed at the short-sightedness of climate change deniers, despite the majority of the world’s scientists in agreement that global warming is occurring.

Even if they want to hang on to that debunked belief, what good will come from continuing to spew pollution into the air and water?

How about national security? We invaded a sovereign country over oil, and for the U.S. to remain a world power, we will need reliable fuel sources. Fossil fuels will disappear soon, or they will be too expensive to get out of the ground. Why let a Third World country with oil reserves hold us hostage?

I’m also appalled that a Michigan Senator thinks so little of American technology and know-how that he cheers for its failure. We put a man on the moon more than 40 years ago, but a Senator thinks we don’t have the technology to make the U.S. energy independent?

This is also a new industry. I guess he believes the Wright Brothers should have given up on powered flight because it only lasted for only 12 seconds? Or that we should have given up on the space program when the Apollo 1 spacecraft caught fire and burned, killing the crew of three during a training exercise on the launch pad in 1967? That’s a lot more serious than a wind turbine freezing, but the future of alternative is even more important to the long-term health of the U.S. than putting a man on the moon.

The only regret I have is that the majority of wind turbines are being made in China and not the U.S., which may surpass us as a superpower based on their work and research on alternative and renewable fuel sources.