Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma flew to Denmark to attend the climate talks for three hours. Why did this notorious climate-denier even bother to make the trip? So he could proclaim to the international community that the U.S. Congress would never pass climate legislation. Oh, and that global warming does not exist.
In other words, just as 192 nations are working towards an agreement to address the biggest crisis of our time and help the world's most vulnerable people cope with climate change, Inhofe traveled to Copenhagen to be the voice of isolation, refusal, and doom.
His theatrics would be merely pitiful if they didn't signal a profoundly dangerous position--one that couple put hundreds of thousands of American soldiers in harm's way.
You see, a few weeks ago, Inhofe said that calling global warming a threat to national security "is the most ludicrous thing."
He made this claim despite the fact that the Pentagon, the National Intelligence Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Defense University have all named climate change as a real and present danger.
The National Intelligence Council, for instance, wrote in its assessment of climate change that the next two decades will be decisive. "We judge global climate change will have wide-ranging implications for U.S. national security interests over the next 20 years," said NIC chairman Thomas Fingar at a Congressional hearing.
Many military leaders have made similar statements. "We will pay for this one way or another," retired Marine Corps four-star General Anthony Zinni wrote in a 2007 report. "We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we'll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives. There will be a human toll."
He was referring to American service men and women--the brave people who risk their lives to protect our way of life. The ones who get called to clean up the mess when nations slide into civil unrest and become havens for extremists.
But instead of listening to these warnings, Inhofe dismissed them. He recently told the New York Times Magazine that the retired generals who testified before the Senate about climate security risks were simply craving "the limelight."
Flying across the Atlantic for a three-hour meeting in Copenhagen, meanwhile, is the model of humility.
Meanwhile, as Inhofe's disregards the danger of sending more troops into climate-fueled battles, his colleague back home, Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska is putting the icing on the cake by trying yet again to block the Environmental Protection Agency's finding that global warming pollution is a hazard to public health.
So we have senators refusing to acknowledge the danger abroad and the danger at home.
These Senators remind me of the proverbial three monkeys -- you know, see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil -- except the Senators are continuing to talk
Fortunately, stronger voices are prevailing. Though Inhofe arrived in Copenhagen essentially as a delegation of one, a much more robust delegation of American military veterans, many of whom served in Iraq and Afghanistan, also went to highlight the connection between national security and climate change.
These men and women are part of Operation Free, a coalition of veterans and security organizations dedicated to building a clean energy future. One of them, former U.S. Army Captain and Truman Project COO, Jonathan Powers, said:
"American and international military leaders know that climate change and dependence on dirty energy is a threat and they are taking action. It's time for Jim Inhofe to put our security before partisanship and take his cue from the men and women who have dedicated their lives to securing their country."
I'm glad someone is speaking the truth.