Fine column in today’s Sunday Providence Journal — Hot air moves in from Texas— courtesy of Edward Fitzpatrick. It seems that Texas Governor Rick Perry will have trouble finding support for his recent claim of growing skepticism in the scientific community regarding climate change. (ThinkProgress has a list of almost 40 climate scientists, including those from his own alma mater Texas A&M, who want it known they do not support Perry’s position. And this is just the Texans.)
Even more problematic, a President Perry would be in command of a navy that also seems to consider the matter pretty much settled. Fitzpatrick asked Senator Jack Reed for comment.
“If you don’t believe the scientists, ask the soldiers and the sailors,” said Reed, a West Point graduate and former Army Ranger who now heads the Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and the Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior and the Environment. “They are planning right now, for example, for the Arctic Ocean to be navigable for portions of the year beginning about 2020. That is a serious strategic issue.”
In November 2009, for example, the U.S. Navy issued an “Arctic Roadmap” that said, “The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe. While significant uncertainty exists in projections for Arctic ice extent, the current scientific consensus indicates the Arctic may experience nearly ice-free summers sometime in the 2030s.”
Meanwhile Texas has suffered for over a decade from killer droughts and record heatwaves while Perry prays to a god who has clearly tuned him out. Go ‘like’ the U.S. Navy Task Force Climate Change.