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Tuesday, May 18th, 2021

Climate Deniers in the 117th Congress

Author:     Ari Drennen and Sally Hardin
Source:     Center for American Progress
Publication Date:     March 30, 2021, 5:00 am
 Link: Climate Deniers in the 117th Congress
Stephan:   I did two tours in Washington 1961-1964 as a National Geographic staffer and 1969-1975 as editor of Seapower Magazine and then Special Assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations. In both periods I had considerable interaction with members of Congress. My takeaway was how pedestrian and unimaginative they were as personalities, and how incompetent most of them were as legislators. There were exceptions to be sure, but not many. Mediocrity was the defining characteristic. And that sorry tradition seems to have continued, actually it has gotten worse. Greene, Jordan, Gaetz, Gohmert, Johnson stand out in that regard. Some years, particularly when there is a bright competent president, who appoints bright competent people the mediocrity of Congress is less important But other times, when major trends all point to crisis, this matters a lot. Today is such a time. At every turn we are seeing alarms go off about climate change and yet, 139 out of 535 United States members of Congress are climate deniers. Worse, they are political whores collecting $61,478,689 in dirty money.

According to new analysis from the Center for American Progress, there are still 139 elected officials in the 117th Congress, including 109 representatives and 30 senators, who refuse to acknowledge the scientific evidence of human-caused climate change. All 139 of these climate-denying elected officials have made recent statements casting doubt on the clear, established scientific consensus that the world is warming—and that human activity is to blame. These same 139 climate-denying members have received more than $61 million in lifetime contributions from the coal, oil, and gas industries.

While the number of climate deniers has shrunk by 11 members (from 150 to 139) since the CAP Action Fund’s analysis of the 116th Congress—largely in the face of growing and overwhelming public support for action on climate—their numbers still include the majority of the congressional Republican caucus.* These climate deniers comprise 52 percent of House Republicans; 60 percent of Senate Republicans; and more than one-quarter of the total number of elected officials in Congress. Furthermore, despite the decline in total overall deniers in Congress, a new concerning trend has emerged: Of the 69 […]

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2 Comments

  1. Bara on Tuesday, May 18, 2021 at 5:10 am

    I would love to know how many legislators are using antidepressants. As well as the side-effects thereof. It might explain their peculiar views.

    • Rev. Dean on Tuesday, May 18, 2021 at 1:05 pm

      I always thought they all used amphetamines or cocaine so they could speak faster so as to get their messages out quicker and the listeners would not really process what they were saying because they were speaking so fast. That is the way they could produce “false information” and make it seem real even though it would actually be anti-scientific. I had a boss like that when I lived down in Florida, and he was a great salesman; until he got caught bringing cocaine back from Mexico in his twin engine Lear-jet which he lost when he got busted, and our company went into “chapter-11” along with bankruptcy. I hated that man, and did not know about his addiction or I would not have worked for him. It was a shame. I could have had a better job if I had known.