Thursday, September 15, 2011

The GOP is selling "crazy" on climate change

NYTs columnist Thomas Friedman - who IMHO misses the mark more often than not - hits it dead on in discussing climate change and "the crazy" being sold by the GOP's presidential hopefuls, as well as the best path to sustainable green energy and green jobs:

Every time I listen to Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota talk about how climate change is some fraud perpetrated by scientists trying to gin up money for research, I’m always reminded of one of my favorite movie lines that Jack Nicholson delivers to his needy neighbor who knocks on his door in the film “As Good As It Gets.” “Where do they teach you to talk like this?” asks Nicholson. “Sell crazy someplace else. We’re all stocked up here.”

Thanks Mr. Perry and Mrs. Bachmann, but we really are all stocked up on crazy right now. I mean, here is the Texas governor rejecting the science of climate change while his own state is on fire — after the worst droughts on record have propelled wildfires to devour an area the size of Connecticut. As a statement by the Texas Forest Service said last week: “No one on the face of this earth has ever fought fires in these extreme conditions.”