A 77-year-old man from Oklahoma cannot deny human-caused climate change

Frank Balsinger is not impressed with the exegetical skills of science-rejecting Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe. The senator cites the book of Genesis to suggest that it would be impossible for humans to alter the climate.

Balsinger doesn’t claim to be an expert in biblical interpretation but he still easily demolishes Inhofe’s reading of the Bible and his weird attempt to apply that interpretation to climate science.

I’m just going to focus on the fact that Sen. Inhofe was born in 1934 and grew up in Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain.

And yet today Inhofe is saying things like this:

My point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.

Inhofe doesn’t just deny any human contribution to climate change, he denies that such a thing is even possible. He claims the Bible tells him it isn’t possible.

And yet for the past 26 years, Inhofe has represented the state of Oklahoma in Congress. Oklahoma was the heart of the Dust Bowl, one of the worst “anthropogenic” ecological disasters of all time.

The Dust Bowl proved that human activity is quite capable of altering the climate. It proved that Inhofe’s reading of Genesis is hogwash.

Humans plowed up the soil from fencepost to fencepost without worrying about soil conservation. That human activity changed the climate. That human activity meant that what would otherwise have been a nasty extended drought instead became this:

Perhaps you’ve heard about the Dust Bowl. It lasted for years, causing environmental refugees to flee Oklahoma. People have even written books about it.

But Sen. James Inhofe has apparently never heard of, or has completely forgotten about, the Dust Bowl.

A 77-year-old man from Oklahoma who insists that human beings are unable to alter the climate is an amnesiac, a complete idiot, or the disingenuous puppet of science-denying industries.

Inhofe seems determined to prove himself to be all three.