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Sadly, we’re not talking some third-rate B- movie to be released only on DVDs nor is this some Zombie Walk flash mob action. Sadly, its reality.  Come January, Climate Zombies will dominate the majority party in the House of Representatives and have more seats in the most exclusive club on the planet (e.g., the U.S. Senate). Brad Johnson, in The Climate Zombie Caucus Of The 112th Congress, highlights that

In January, 2011, the 112th Congress will open session, with a huge contingent of Republicans who have explicitly rejected the threat of manmade global warming pollution. These climate zombies express the classic variants of global warming denial: that it is not warming, that cold weather refutes concerns about global warming, that man’s influence is unclear, that climate scientists are engaged in a hoax, scam, or corrupt conspiracy, and that limiting greenhouse pollution would have no impact on global temperatures. Of special note are the conspiracy theorists who argue that hacked emails from climate scientists prove corruption, calling for kangaroo trials against practicing researchers.

Well over half (55 percent) of the incoming Republican caucus are climate zombies. Thirty-five of the 46 (76 percent) Republicans in the U.S. Senate next year publicly question the science of global warming. Of the 240 Republicans elected to the House of Representatives, 125 (52 percent) publicly question the science.

Of the freshmen Republicans, 36 of 85 in the House and 11 of 13 in the Senate have publicly questioned the science. There are no freshmen Republicans, in the House or Senate, who publicly accept the scientific consensus that greenhouse pollution is an immediate threat.

Not a single freshman Republican member of Congress openly acknowledges a Scientific Theory?

There are even Republicans dismayed by this.

In today’s Washington Post, Republican Sherwood Boehlart (who served in Congress from 1983 through 2007) decries his party’s abandonment of science:

Watching the raft of newly elected GOP lawmakers converge on Washington, I couldn’t help thinking about an issue I hope our party will better address. I call on my fellow Republicans to open their minds to rethinking what has largely become our party’s line: denying that climate change and global warming are occurring and that they are largely due to human activities. …

GOP Senate challengers declared that the science of climate change is either inconclusive or flat-out wrong. Many newly elected Republican House members take that position. It is a stance that defies the findings of our country’s National Academy of Sciences, national scientific academies from around the world and 97 percent of the world’s climate scientists.

Why do so many Republican senators and representatives think they are right and the world’s top scientific academies and scientists are wrong? I would like to be able to chalk it up to lack of information or misinformation.

While Boehlart glazes over how anti-science (promoting “sound science” isn’t a ‘pro-science’ stance) the Republican Party has been for too long, he rightly points out that the real debate should not be over the science but over what to do about the science. He asserts that, ‘over the long term’, the Republican Party will suffer due to its anti-science ideology. While Boehlart might (and should) be right, the question is whether any remaining chance to avoid catastrophic climate chaos can wait for that reaction to the Republican anti-science syndrome ideology.

Note: John Broder of The New York Times came up with a new word today, “Leftier,” in its discussion of the Wonkroom report, The Night of the Living Congress People. Broder points to the Zombie invasion’s implications for protecting Americans’ health and prosperity.

President Obama entered office promising to take swift and aggressive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including an economy-wide cap and trade system to reduce emissions and create a market in pollution permits. That effort foundered in the Senate, and Mr. Obama has acknowledged that the next Congress is unlikely to take it up again.

It is more likely that the new Congress will take steps to derail the Environmental Protection Agency’s planned program to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, starting with the biggest sources, including power plants, cement factories and oil refineries.

Instead of providing a path to reduce the over $100 billion per year that burning fossil fuels costs the US economy due to health impacts, expect Republicans to push measures that will create more asthma in our children, foster higher cancer rates, decrease future IQs, and otherwise weaken American security and prosperity.

Some related posts:

• Anti-Science SyndromE Sufferers threaten lives
• Stupid Goes Viral: Deep in the Heart of Climate Zombieland
• Stupid Goes Viral: The Climate Zombies of the New GOP