Climate, Weather, and Weirdness

by Jim DiPeso, REP vice president for policy and communications, February 21, 2010 in The New York Times. 

It’s morning in Saudi Arabia, indeed.

The House of Saud has long opposed limits on carbon pollution. No surprise there. That government’s agenda is to keep us hooked on oil and avoiding uppity notions about energy diversification. That may serve Saudi Arabia’s long-term interests, but it doesn’t serve ours.

If we push forward with an energy policy that perpetuates oil dependence, the United States will be more vulnerable to OPEC’s manipulators than ever. Our high demand would put upward pressure on oil prices, enriching malefactors who spread violent extremism and seek the spread of nuclear weapons in the world’s most unstable region.

The cartel’s potentates can do the math, even if Senator James M. Inhofe and their other enablers in this country cannot.

Unfortunately, climate change denialists seem only too happy to play patsy to the oil pushers so the cartel can keep us happily hooked on the sauce — as complacent and vulnerable as we want to be.