190: James Inhofe

If not the densest, Oklahoma senator James Inhofe is at least among the most ignorant and dangerous US Senators, primarily for being perhaps the most vocal (and dishonest) global warming skeptic in the US Congress (he also supports a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage – and he campaigned for his Senate seat in 1994 using the phrase "God, guns, and gays"; see also this). Inhofe's statements on AGW have been reputiated even by the handful of contrarian scientists Inhofe constantly cites.

In his own words, climate science "kind of reminds ... I could use the Third Reich, the Big Lie ...” He has also pulled a Delay and compared the United States Environmental Agency to the Gestapo and compared EPA Administrator Carol Browner to Tokyo Rose. I think this quote is revealing: According to Inhofe AGW is "the second-largest hoax ever played on the American people, after the separation of church and state." In fact, the UN cooked it up to destroy America. His evidence? The Oregon Petition, at least.

He is constantly caught lying, but persists in saying that there is a scientific consensus that climate is getting cooler. In general, he has pretty much declared war on science, although he doesn’t seem to have a clue to what it is. His most famous stunt was compiling a list of “high-profile scientists” (such as Chris Allen) who oppose AGW, a list overlapping with the Discovery Institute rooster and known HIV denialists, plus several climate scientists who explicitly accept AGW (here, here, and here; the point doesn’t seem to have been honesty anyway). After massive criticism Inhofe changed the list to “scientists whose research undermines AGW” – despite the complaints from the scientists that their research did no such thing.

His stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict is firm, and he appears to think that the only legitimate guideline is – the Bible (more here, and some curious tidbits here).

If you are wondering where people like Inhofe are coming from (apart from Oklahoma), you may look at this rather disconcerting discussion.

Diagnosis: Confirmation bias incarnate; blindly flailing fanatic who is unable to separate facts from political opinions or evidence from Stalin-strength ideology. Extremely dangerous.