This Week in Conejo Valley Politics, March 13, 2009

Police, not pork. Congressman Elton Gallegly voted against it, but Ventura County law enforcement agencies will be getting more than a million dollars from President Obama’s stimulus package.

Meanwhile, in a forceful response to the worst economic climate since the Great Depression, Rep. Gallegly sponsored a bill to create a commission to honor the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan.

Republican flip-flop. California State Senator Tony Strickland admitted to poor judgment in paying his wife with campaign contributions. He now wants to make the practice illegal–a misdemeanor.

Local nerds completely misunderstood the significance of the Magna Carta this weekend by dressing up like medieval knights and princesses at the Reagan Library, where the document is currently displayed.

Thousand Oaks is running out of money. Proving that that McMansions aren’t selling like they used to, the city will ask 20 employees to retire early.

San Francisco is screwed. Sea level will rise will cause about $100 billion in damage by the end of the century, according to the Pacific Institute. Most of this will be around the gay bay. Republicans will 
claim that this is the will of God.

Religion no longer dictates federally funded science. President Obama signed legislation this week allowing the use of stem-cell lines forbidden by the Bush administration.

Obama signed a $480 billion spending bill to keep the government going until September. It contained earmarks. Republicans publicly claim to oppose these, but are happy to insert their own earmarks, not vote for them, then brag about their ability to get the money. See, for example, Elton Gallegly.

George Wallace’s daughter joined an event commemorating the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, 44 years ago. The late governor, who ordered the beatings of the original marchers, would not have been happy.

Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, hastily prepared to be consigned to the dust bin of history this week. He kicked humanitarian groups out of the country after a warrant was issued for his arrest for war crimes.

McClintock Attacks Gore, Conservationists; Disputes Global Warming Science

In an October 12 speech to the Western Conservative Political Action Conference, California State Senator Tom McClintock mounted a persuasive, and yet poorly informed attack against Al Gore, conservation, and the most widely accepted scientific theory of global warming.

 

This is fortunate: McClintock’s comments have assured his well-deserved fate of political irrelevance and ignominy.

 

McClintock repeated well-worn Republican jokes about personal jets and Gore’s electricity bill. He mentioned several laughably out-of-date theories about the causes of recent climate change. He even proudly admits that his knowledge about climate change has its most profound roots in his grade school musings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If Tony Strickland, the Republican running for McClintock’s hotly contested District 19 seat, adopts these backward views, any Democrat running for the seat will receive a boost in popularity.

 

The entire text of McClintock’s speech was posted on his blog, Citizens for the California Republic.

 

What is discouraging is that so many loyal Republicans–petulant at the world’s recognition of Gore’s contribution to the fight against man-made climate change–are susceptible to the the alluring but factually erroneous arguments advanced by McClintock.

 

Contrary to what he asserts, McClintock’s arguments are advanced by only a slim minority of scientists, but they are enormously popular among Republicans.

 

This position is damaging to the Republican party and will cause it to lose votes in California and nationally.

 

Democrats, if we can brand ourselves as the party of responsible environmentalism, stand to gain enormously from such Republican foolishness.

 

I urge all Conejo Valley residents concerned about global warming to attend the Democratic Club of the Conejo Valley‘s meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, November 14, at the Goebel Senior Center in Thousand Oaks.

 

Speakers will include Perrin Pellegrin, Sustainability Manager at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Gayle Kaufman of the City of Thousand Oaks.

 

The night’s topic will be sustainability and how to be environmentally responsible.

 

The Goebel Senior Center is located at 1385 E. Janss Road. Click here for a map.

 

All those interested in countering McClintock’s failures of logic should do two things: (1) educate yourself about the facts of climate change and (2) post rebuttals to McClintock’s blog by visiting his post here.

 

Below appears my hastily dashed-off response to McClintock, which I posted on Saturday night:

 

Senator McClintock’s attack of Al Gore is crude and impolite.

His attack of global warming, although beguilingly laced with half-baked science, is incorrect. I quote the “Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change,” published one year ago by Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of the Government Economic Service for the United Kingdom: “The scientific evidence is now overwhelming: climate change is a serious global threat, and it demands an urgent global response.”

Furthermore, McClintock’s argument that limited man-made global warming is overly burdensome on the economy can be discarded, as Stern indicates:

“The world does not need to choose between averting climate change and promoting growth and development. Changes in energy technologies and in the structure of economies have created opportunities to decouple growth from greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, ignoring climate change will eventually damage economic growth.”

Shame on you, Senator McClintock, for your seemingly sagacious dissembling. I hope you will change your opinion on global warming and the feasibility of fighting it.

Elected officials should be advocating the best science, not placing obstacles in the way of the best science.