The state of Texas has jumped on the science-denial bandwagon currently gripping the right-wing. Texas has challenged the EPA findings that greenhouse gas emissions are classified as "dangerous," claiming that the findings are based on flawed science. This is of course a false and absurd claim coming from the leading greenhouse gas emitter of the U.S.
Al Armendariz, the EPA's regional director over Texas, said the agency is confident the finding will withstand any legal action. He also said the move isn't surprising considering Texas' pattern of opposition to the EPA.
"Texas, which contributes up to 35 percent of the greenhouse gases emitted by industrial sources in the United States, should be leading the way in this effort," he said. "Instead, Texas officials are attempting to slow progress with unnecessary litigation."
EPA spokesman Brendan Gilfillan said it's the first legal challenge by a state, though industry groups have also challenged it.
Texas says the EPA's research should be discounted because it was conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore in 2007 for its work on climate change but has since been embarrassed by errors and irregularities in its reports.
(Nobody ever successfully connected the so-called "Climategate" hacking incident, which I assume are the "errors & irregularities" mentioned, and the matter of the Greenhouse Gas Effect or the Climate Science findings as a whole in any way except political partisans with obvious Big Energy funding and absolutely no facts to back up the case they make.)
The guys and gals of The Great State of Denial, good ol' Texas, seem to hold different standards of The Scientific Method and Comparative Analysis. Maybe those words are just too big for Texas.
I see this as just a symptom of a much larger problem breeding under the surface: the praise of ignorance over knowledge; the willful destruction of critical thinking.
The "debate" over climate change can be settled in moments by the most simple process of comparing the credibility of the sources and the amount of raw data on both ends. There is not a debate going on in the scientific community, there is a consensus with a few skeptic holdouts that have almost all published debunked papers at some point or another, but within the political community and the business community they would like very much for this issue to be up for debate. But it's not, an overwhelming body of evidence exists in favor of Climate Science and skeptics fail to bring any new data ("Climategate" was the biggest joke on conservatives and their complete inability to rationally review data ever) so it's simply "denial" and nothing more from these Big Money influenced talking heads. The Deniers and the Consensus; Texas just put itself on the side of the Deniers.
What lies under the surface here is the desire to squelch all rational discussion and replace it with bumper-sticker sound bytes. If anyone dares speak out against these ridiculous claims circulating and tries to use facts instead of rhetoric, then you can bet they will start up the personal attacks and just making even more broad claims about more unproven garbage. If you are even perceived as "smart" then you must be a "elitist liberal" who will only "lie to confuse you." They are teaching people to hate intelligence and love stupidity in the once great state of Texas, all in the name of keeping their rich friends happy and scoring cheap political points while they are at it too.
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