The Final Word On Climate : "Texans Just Aren't Wrong" Says Ag. Commissioner , Dismissing Warming

[hatrack]

In a fiery speech in Austin today, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas blasted the Waxman-Markey climate-change and energy bill, which narrowly passed the United States House of Representatives in June and awaits debate in the Senate. Mr. Perry assailed the bill, which would create a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, as a “legislative monstrosity” that would do grave damage to the Texas economy.

EDIT

“This misguided piece of legislation would essentially be the single largest tax in the history of our nation,” Mr. Perry said. “These energy taxes will cause every product that uses energy to become more expensive." Yet while Mr. Perry repeatedly cited the potential negative economic consequences of climate change legislation, at no point in his remarks did he mention the potential costs of unmitigated climate change, which many scientists believe will be severe.

The Texas agriculture commissioner, Todd Staples, who spoke immediately after Mr. Perry, echoed the governor’s disdain for federal efforts to limit carbon emissions. “These guys just don’t get it,” Mr. Staples said. “The impacts of this legislation will be devastating.”

Mr. Staples appeared to mock scientists’ warnings that uncontrolled emissions of greenhouse gases could lead to catastrophic environmental effects, including runaway warming and the melting of the polar ice caps, comparing them to those who warned of imminent food and natural resource shortages in the 1970s and 1980s that never materialized. “Either they’re wrong or Texans are wrong, and we all know that Texans just aren’t wrong,” Mr. Staples said.

EDIT

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/texan-sees-economic-disaster-in-climate-bill/

Fine. Let them burn and drown. Fuck them.

[frebrd]

1. OK, guys.......

We'll talk about it again when Galveston is under water!

:banghead:

[damntexdem]

3. But all those Texans still won't be wrong ...

just drowned.

;-)

[appamado amata padam]

2. Oh, teh stupid grows big and tall. nt

[damntexdem]

4. Hey, padna, everything is big in Texas.

And all of the tales are tall, too.

[appamado amata padam]

5. I grew up in Tennessee,

which is a "long" state. :-)

[Javaman]

6. Remember, no one has ever accused perry of being even mildly smart.

[happyslug]

7. Remember the Texas Agriculture Position is an ELECTED position

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Department_of_Agriculture
http://www.agr.state.tx.us/agr/index/0,1911,1848_0_0_0,00.html

The last election was in 2006 and he up for re-election in 2010.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Staples#Most_recent_election

Having said that, when I lived in Texas in the early 1980s the then Commissioners of the Department of Agriculture, Reagan V. Brown once told a set of farmers who came to his office about his policies that they were more blacks on a Houston Street Corner then they were farmers in the state (Paraphrased, the exact quote I can not find on line, but I do not think he used the term "blacks" in the actual statement and this is from memory from the early 1980s).

Now the thrust of the Comment was simple, as a holder of a state wide elected position he viewed voters as more important then farmers. Technically farmers are voters, but even in the 1980s more people lived in urban areas in Texas then in Rural areas and even most people in rural areas were NOT technically farmers any longer (and Reagan V. Brown was worried about being re-elected, this turned out to be a valid concern for he lost out to Jim Hightower in 1982).

I bring this up for that political reality, that state wide elected officials are more worried about being elected then actually doing what they were elected to do is still a factor when it comes to the elected head of the Texas Department of Agriculture. Thus, while farmers may be worried about global temperatures, the head of the Texas Department of Agriculture is more worried about people who donate to his re-election campaign and thus this stupid statement from a person who should now better.

[Nihil]

8. And in the spirit of a broken clock being right twice a day ...

> "These guys just don't get it," Mr. Staples said.
> "Either <scientists> are wrong or Texans are wrong ..."

So true, so true ... just not for the "guys" that Staples was meaning ...
:banghead:

[Canuckistanian]

9. There were wanrings of imminent food shortages in the 70s and 80s?

I don't think so.

[jpak]

10. Not all Texans are as stupid and as wrong as this asshole

dumbass

[roguevalley]

11. what a joke this is. what a f**king joke. ANd I thought Palin was a

donkey's ass.