Since there is no open thread, can I please get some help on calling out Greg Walden and the Bend Bulletin on SCHIP? The Bulletin's anti-SCHIP editorial needs to be challenged. The main points are outlined here: LINK to LO.

Since there is no open thread, can I please get some help on calling out Greg Walden and the Bend Bulletin on SCHIP? The Bulletin's anti-SCHIP editorial needs to be challenged.

It is a waste of time calling out Greg Walden. His mind, such as it is, is locked into the party program. I believe The (Bend) Bulletin printed a letter in opposition to its editorial. The Bulletin does a fair job of printing letters in opposition to their editorials, but they are like letters to the Oregonian criticizing David Reinhard. They have no effect.

Beware the ManBearPig! The greatest threat to our globe since Al Gore!

"Will it be an issue next year?"

Perhaps a better question would be "can we make it an issue next year?".

Whether it comes down to Jeff or Steve, Gordon's gonna have a hell of a time winning reelection if his opponent plays the "Green Card".

"In each of those votes, Smith voted opposite Oregon’s other U.S. Senator, Democrat Ron Wyden."

Slow down on your praise for Wyden as a global warming stalwart. Wyden and Smith both have yet to co-sponsor any of the comprehensive global warming bills. Oregon needs a voice of leadership on this issue and have yet to find it.

I agree that Ron Wyden has not been a shining light on global warming bills. He has also dangerously toyed with the idea that a carbon tax could be a substitute for a strong cap and trade. He has not co-sponsored any of the strong bills being considered - this is not helpful for moving the issue in DC. But at least on the one vote in Congress last session that mentioned mandatory emission limits, Wyden voted YES and Smith voted NO.

But as for a shining light in Oregon on this issue, I would suggest that Ted Kulongoski has been there.

oregonj wrote: "But as for a shining light in Oregon on this issue, I would suggest that Ted Kulongoski has been there."

As much as it pains me to praise a Democrat, I'll admit that one of the main reasons I actually kind of like the Big K is because of his leadership on the climate change issue. I even voted for him in the last election. The Dems are an order of magnitude better on most environmental issues than the anti-science, head-in-sand, flat earth Republicans. The one exception is the Dems' support of endless, uncontrolled population growth (i.e., mass immigration). But even most Big Business Republicans support that.

Message to Gordon Smith: Everything you need to know about the ecological sciences CANNOT be found in the Book of Mormon. Try cracking open a freaking science journal.

"The one exception is the Dems' support of endless, uncontrolled population growth (i.e., mass immigration)."

I forgot people don't actually count as people unless they are living within the borders the US...??? Maybe this is why it is so easy for republicans to support overseas wars that take so many lives...If uncontrolled population growth is so high on your radar then why the hell not be an ardent supporter of Abortion.

From Newsweek, 1975, on the near consensus about the threat of global cooling:

Here is the text of Newsweek’s 1975 story on the trend toward global cooling. It may look foolish today, but in fact world temperatures had been falling since about 1940. It was around 1979 that they reversed direction and resumed the general rise that had begun in the 1880s, bringing us today back to around 1940 levels. A PDF of the original is available here.

http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf

There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.

The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.

To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”

<hr/>