The Year Without a Winter, and Just How Many Republican Voters Does It Take to Pick a Kook?

So as we slide down the (snow-free) hill that is the rest of February 2012—usually the coldest month here in central Pennsylvania, temperatures usually below freezing, and often in the single digits at night—I think we should (un)officially start dubbing this one The Year Without a Winter. Our temperatures here have been over 40 for most of the last month, almost unheard of in this neck of the woods. It’s weird. The only thing I’m glad for: lower heating oil bills. But climate-change deniers be damned, this is a sign of things to come. And although the deniers are over-represented in the media—in this country, unfortunately—mostly I ignore them, except when I can’t: Joe Nocera recently had a pro-Keystone XL pipeline op-ed in the NY Times, here:

What isn’t mentioned: Nocera was a former editor at Texas Monthly, and his “Texas rich,” business-is-good attitude is effecting his myopia here. Yes, in the short term the pipeline would mean more money and business (for Texas and other states), but in the long run, as many have pointed out, the exploitation of these tar sands will likely spell our doom, and some have pointed out Texas may be greatly affected by drought, as it was last summer. But the political good ole boys in Texas (my home state, which I love, and know many intelligent people there who are embarrassed by its politicians) don’t believe in climate change at all, or simply want the money now, to hell their children’s future. Take this little gem about the water commission report, which doesn’t mention fracking or climate change at all:
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/02/16/426122/water-gate-texas-state-drought-never-mentions-climate-change/
Lastly, it’s no secret that the Republican party is basing its Know-Nothing identity on “questioning the science” (read: taking Big Oil payoffs) of Climate Change, and Timothy Egan in the NY Times has an eye-opening column about just how few people are actually voting in all of these wacky Republican primaries, favoring one nut job (Santorum) over another (Gingrich), alternating them on a weekly basis, in a desperate attempt not to nominate the front-runner Romney.

Here’s also a good piece in the Climate Progress blog refuting Nocera: http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/02/09/420143/joe-nocera-joins-the-climate-ignorati/
And actually, the wacky Republicans could (or perhaps “should”) all be extras in this wacky movie: