In an interview with the Texas Tribune, Ted Cruz had the audacity to compare himself to Galileo and equate climate-change believers to those who believed the earth was flat. The idea would be laughable if it weren’t so serious.
First of all, global warming is not some spurious belief based on assumption but a real and tangible phenomenon based on factual scientific evidence. For example, the average global temperature increased by 1 degree Celsius over the course of the twentieth-century. What’s more, the U.S., a country that contains only 5 percent of the world’s population, outputs 22 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.
Yet Cruz chooses to ignore the overwhelming mountain of scientific evidence compiled in recent decades showing a steady rise in the overall temperature of the earth’s atmosphere and base his opinion on a single flimsy Newsweek report from the 1970s showing a temporary decrease in temperature. His position could be analogous to someone who notices a lull in the storm and concludes it is safe to go outside. It is a cherry-picking tactic common in conservative political circles.
Cruz may have been trying to come off as erudite by showing off his knowledge of history when he made the Galileo comparison, but what he ended up doing was showing just how spurious his knowledge of medieval history was. The fact of the matter is that Galileo was not persecuted by the Catholic Church for claiming that the earth was round–something that had already been established years earlier–but for claiming that the earth revolved around the sun.
Leaving that aside, though, it is more than ironic that Cruz would be appointed to head the congressional subcommittee that oversees NASA, the agency that has been at the forefront of compiling and assessing scientific data supporting global warming. In fact, NASA has stated categorically that the evidence points to man as the current warming trend.
Now, if anyone would be in a position to assess the impact man’s actions have on the earth on a global scale it would be NASA. The agency has for a long time used satellites high in orbit around the earth to gather and compile scientific information to arrive at an educated conclusion, not politically-inspired guess work, or cherry-picking of outdated studies.
Cruz’s latest assault on intellectualism appears to be in response to liberalism in general and Obama in particular. In a speech last year announcing new environmental regulations for coal-fired power plants, Obama dubbed deniers of global warming as ?The flat earth society,? a jab that probably did not go over very well with conservative Republicans.
The sheer obstinacy displayed by conservatives when it comes to global warming and the ease with which Democrats are able to digest the science behind global warming must be perplexing to people in other parts of the world watching the debate. Here you have expert after expert explaining in the simplest terms possible how carbon dioxide molecules trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere, causing it to warm precipitously. Yet some, like Cruz, choose to ignore the science and believe that man can continue to dump tons of carbon dioxide gas into earth’s atmosphere without any repercussions.
Actually, man may already be witnessing the consequences of his actions in the form of more violent storms, as tornadoes in the Midwest and other places seem to be on the uptick. In recent years, Oklahoma has seemed like a magnet for bigger and more powerful storms, increasing the likelihood of casualties.
In addition, and just as frightening, is the verifiable evidence that the polar icecaps are melting at an alarming rate. Left unchecked, the melting ice could cause ocean levels to rise, losing some 150 to 250 cubic kilometers (36 to 60 cubic miles) of ice per year between 2002 and 2006 and threatening low-lying coastal areas, like Florida, with catastrophic flooding. Conservatives like Cruz should know that events like these are not something you can reverse once the floodgates open. Once the tides of catastrophes begin to roll in, it may be too late.
It may be that conservatives like Cruz really know better, but choose for political reasons to pander to their highly-fundamentalist, science-averse base. Yet, although this tactic may go a long way in helping him secure the Republican nomination, he will have to become a little more progressive in his ideals if he were to win the general election.
