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Giving credit where credit is due is, to me, a quite pleasurable task. 

Lou Grinzo’s Inhofe Scale captures the delusional nature of the Senator from Exxon. 

The Inhofe Scale will be used to measure statements (but most definitely not the speakers who make them) that exhibit a noticeable and willing detachment from reality. The scale is calibrated so that 100 equals the detachment seen in Senator Inhofe’s  “greatest hoax”, polar bear, and Mars quotations, seen above. Extra consideration is given to positions espoused with an excessively cavalier attitude or downright meanness, and those from people or organizations that have a obligation to get it right.

The report issued yesterday merits something in the range of an Inhofe 90 (after all, the people cited are, as far as I’m aware, actually alive).   A speech that Inhofe gave back in September, however, pushes the max on the scale, getting into the range of global warming is “”the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”  In essence, Global Warming is the latest Black Helicopter craze of UN conspiracy to take over the United States (and the globe).

Bruce Wilson’s reporting on and deconstruction of this speech is worth the read, thus here are only a few tidbits from it:

• “in 1970 the United Nations came up with something called the IPCC, the International Plant Panel for Climate Control [ ed: the correct name is “The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change”. The IPCC was established in 1988 ]”
• “the idea of this is that the, the, the climate is changing, it’s going up, and it’s due not to actual causes but due to the release of CO2 and what they call anthropogenic gasses. Man made gasses. The motive of this is to try to shut down this machine called America, stop building,”  Yes, every single measurement, every fact is being skewed because the objective is to shut down the United States.
• “if you look at some of the extremists – uh, pull out the this, when, chart here… Uh, are you aware that in these environmentalists, these extremists, that the number one domestic terrorists on the FBI list are the animal rights people, people who are advocating the murder of people who use, uh, animals for, for medical research?”  Yes, the threat to the nation is principally from environmentalists. And, those who are discussing Global Warming are, evidently, indistinguishable from PETA and more violent animal rights activists.  Those ‘libruls’ …
• “your favorite Frenchman Jacques Chirac – he said Kyoto is not about, uh, climate change, it represents the first component of an authentic ga, ga uh, global governance.”  Watch out Freedom-fries lovers, the Frogs are coming …

Yes, all Global Warming data, all scientific effort is part of this global conspiracy to put down the United States and stifle our economic activity.

• Hmmm … does James want to get into a discussion of how important over a billion dollars per day of oil strengthens the US economy? 
• Does he want to talk about how energy efficiency measures would strengthen the economy?

Because, these are two things that those who are concerned about Global Warming seek to address. Evidently, according to James Inhofe, working to reduce America’s oil imports (to end our “addiction to oil”, as per George W Bush) and to reduce wasteful energy practices is actually aimed at weakening America.

This is even before getting into a discussion of consciously putting one’s head in the sand to ignore reality.