I should like to enter my paper for this. The title and abstract are as follows:

E PUR SI MUOVE! AND YET IT MOVES....

“Affective and cognitive behaviours in the US government concerning the emotional resonances of global climate change display a fascinating blend of Galilean and Ozymandian memes. It becomes daily more evident that, far from being the spatial location for any form of recognised objective rationality, global-climate-change-as-governance is become the final frontier of primordial identity politics, in an era previously presumed by social scientists to be post-identitarian – a final frontier, moreover, beyond which the Republican party in particular is resolved to boldly go.  

The Galilean resides in an increasingly frenzied atmosphere of fear that the very concept of global climate change appears to represent to the juxtaposition of American exceptionalism and MFN-G (Most Favoured Nation – God). Redolent of the fervent costumed eroticism of the inquisitorial bacchanalia of 19th century Spain, the metaphorical blood of climate change scientists is daily offered up in acts of frenziedly sexual priapism over the symbolic, proto-Marian white virginal purity of the House of Representatives and the Senate, even as the mounting evidence from the independent, existential context is swamped, faux-Fox, by increasingly desperate protestations of faith.

The Ozymandian locates the juddering praxis of poignant techno-ideological faith in the simplicity and cleanliness of US technical superiority, set against the counter-religious, technophobic expectations and harmonies of reliance on the deity. In this reading, the charred certainty of multiple houses destroyed in Tornado Alley elides gratingly with the whimsical gyroscopic jubilation of a drone armed with Maverick missiles; the gentle susurrus of the Mississippi passing through your lounge whines annoyingly at the gentle green effulgence of a Wilcox Night vision helmet mount on a Navy SEAL.” 


I shall be basing my paper mainly on the evidence presented below:


Republican-Controlled Committee Legislates That Climate Change Does Not Exist, Sean Pool, 16/3/11, Science Progress (http://www.care2.com/causes/global-warming/blog/republican-controlled-committee-legislates-that-climate-change-does-not-exist/)

House Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee demonstrated their commitment to science denial Wednesday by unanimously voting down three separate amendments offered by Democrats to reaffirm basic facts about climate science. They then unanimously voted to pass the Upton-Inhofe bill to repeal the Environmental Protection Agency's scientific endangerment finding on greenhouse pollution.

Let's be clear. Congress should not attempt to make scientific decisions. The role of Congress is to take the best science and use it to make the best possible policy. The three amendments rejected unanimously by committee Republicans each lays out a fairly basic statement about generally accepted climate science.

    * Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado offered an amendment that simply reaffirmed what EPA scientists stated, that "'the scientific evidence is compelling' that elevated concentrations of greenhouse gases resulting from anthropogenic emissions 'are the root cause of recently observed climate change.'" That amendment was rejected in a party-line vote with all Republicans voting no.
    * Rep. Jay Inslee of Washington state offered an amendment, again quoting the EPA, which stated "the public health of current generations is endangered and the threat to public health for both current and future generations will likely mount over time as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere and result in ever greater rates of climate change." This, too, was rejected in a party-line vote with all Republicans voting no.
    * The last amendment, offered by Rep. Henry Waxman of southern California, asserted even more unassailable scientific findings. His amendment stated simply that "Congress accepts the scientific finding of the Environmental Protection Agency that warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level." It was also unanimously rejected in a party-line vote with all Republicans voting no.

This is really getting ridiculous. In countries around the world, political parties on the left and right are debating how to deal with climate change. But by continuing to debate whether the world is even warming -- an objective, empirical, verifiable, scientific fact -- our great nation is demonstrating to the rest of the world that we are still in the Stone Age on this issue.

Let's keep in mind that virtually every credible climate scientist and science organization, including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, has declared climate change a "settled fact." Here is another quote from the academy which reaffirms all three of the rejected amendments:

    Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities ... and in many cases is already affecting a broad range of human and natural systems.

The National Academy of Sciences might be thought of like the Supreme Court for science, so what they say matters a lot. But then again, even the U.S. Supreme Court itself has decided that the EPA should have the authority to regulate carbon pollution in the 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA decision.

Notwithstanding the advice of every U.S. science agency and the opinions of virtually every credibly international science organization, the committee voted 34-19 to pass the Upton-Inhofe dirty air bill, H.R. 910, which eliminates the ability of the federal government to regulate planet-warming carbon pollution. The Project on Climate Science summed it up nicely:

    Through this antiscience legislation, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is substituting ideology for the intensive, comprehensive, peer-reviewed analysis of thousands of scientists, including the scientists at the EPA.

Comically, as Joe Romm noted yesterday, one of the committee members voting against the amendments John Shimkus (R-IL), cites the Bible as his reason for rejecting climate science. "God said the earth would not be destroyed in a flood." Another, Michael Burgess (R-TX), cited an online public opinion poll (in and of itself an unscientific way of sampling opinion data) as reason for rejecting the science of global warming. Making matters worse, it turns out the particular poll was targeted by well-known climate science denial website Watt's Up With That in a campaign to skew the results.

Meanwhile, a recent Gallup poll (the scientific kind with random sampling, rather than self-selecting Internet sampling) indicates more than 50 percent of the public believe global warming is happening and is mostly due to human activities. But again, opinions -- even scientifically polled public opinions -- don't determine science. Just because 99.99 percent of the world public believed the sun revolved around the earth in the time of Galileo does not mean his theory of heliocentrism was wrong.

So, on the one hand we have virtually every credible government and nongovernmental science organization in the developed world reaffirming the fundamental science behind global warming is sound. On the other hand, you have an online poll that was co-opted by a well-known science denial blog. Who would you believe? Apparently the opinion poll, if you are a Republican member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

"The denial of science has taken deep root on the Committee," said Rep. Waxman (D-CA) in a recent talk he gave at the Center for American Progress. Even more troubling is the amount of money taken by Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans from major polluters with a stake in undermining the scientific consensus about climate change.

Certainly it is the duty of a congressional representative to represent constituents' opinions. But perhaps the representative needs to draw the line where those views directly contrast with reality. We need our leaders to understand the difference between opinion and science. More importantly, we need them to look past childish debates on scientific subjects about which they have no expertise. Instead they should concentrate on how our government can work to address great challenges science gives us the power to identify.

QUOTES

"With the possible exception of Tiger Woods, nothing has had a worse year than global warming. We have discovered that a good portion of the science used to justify "climate change" was a hoax perpetrated by leftist ideologues with an agenda." —Todd Young, new congressperson from Indiana

"I absolutely do not believe that the science of man-caused climate change is proven. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I think it’s far more likely that it’s just sunspot activity or something just in the geologic eons of time where we have changes in the climate." —Ron Johnson, new senator from Wisconsin

"I think we ought to take a look at whatever the group is that measures all this, the IPCC, they don't even believe the crap." —Steve Pearce, new congressperson from New Mexico

"It's a bigger issue, we need to watch 'em. Not only because it may or may not be true, but they're making up their facts to fit their conclusions. They've already caught 'em doing this." —Rand Paul, new senator from Kentucky

"There isn't any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth." —Roy Blunt, new senator from Missouri


Dr Jon Cloke
Lecturer/Research Associate
Geography Department
Loughborough University
Loughborough LE11 3TU

Office: 01509 228193
Mob: 07984 813681
________________________________________
From: A forum for critical and radical geographers [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Martin Dijst [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 10 June 2011 15:04
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: AAG call: Climate change and the geographies of behaviours

Association of American Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting, New York

February 24-28, 2012

Call for papers

*Climate change and the geographies of behaviours *

Organised by Martin Dijst (Utrecht University), Darren Scott (McMaster
University) and Petra Zimmermann (Ball State University)

Recent climate changes may alter the microclimate in cities and other
geographical contexts. This will change the weather conditions we
experience in daily life. As a consequence, we might expect changes in
their behavioural outcomes. Weather and climate seem to have
considerable influence on many aspects of everyday life, including the
way we dress, our decisions whether to go out or not, the use of media,
destination choices, our use of different transport modes, and even mood
and temperament. While the influence of weather on our daily life is
pervasive, there has been little interdisciplinary debate on how weather
may shape everyday life to date. We thus seek to organize a session (or
sessions) that address(es) the theme of behavioral outcomes of weather.
We invite papers that explore the impact of exposure to (changing) local
weather on people’s attitudes, emotions and spatial behaviours in a
diverse range of geographical and cultural contexts. We welcome
submissions that examine topics including but not limited to:

· Theoretical, conceptual and methodological issues in studies on weather

· Cognitive and affective aspects of weather

· Geographical contexts and weather conditions

· Differences in meanings of forecast and experienced weather

· Embodied practices of weather

· Changes in transport and mobilities

· The meaning of work place, home and garden under various weather
conditions

· Changes in the use of public places related to different weather
conditions

· Social interactions in time and space over the seasons

· Tourism and leisure activities across seasons

· Impact of precipitation and temperature on shopping behaviour

· Relationships between changing weather and changing transport modes

· Cultural and ethnic differences in the meanings of weather

· Gender and weather

· Policies related to weather

Please submit a title and a 250-word abstract to Martin Dijst
([log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>), Darren Scott
([log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>) or Petra Zimmermann
([log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>) by September 15,
2011. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Martin,
Darren or Petra.

--
Prof. Dr. Martin Dijst
Professor of Urban Development and Mobility
Chair of Urban Geography
Urban and Regional research center Utrecht (URU)
Faculty of Geosciences
Utrecht University
PO Box 80115
3508 TC Utrecht
The Netherlands
Phone: 0031 30 253 4442
Fax: 0031 30 253 2037
Visiting address: Willem C. van Unnik building, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS Utrecht
http://www.geo.uu.nl/mobilizingICT