In<\/font> an interview with the New York Times Magazine<\/a>, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), the ranking member of the Senate environment committee, argued that McGinn and other generals who are advocating for clean energy reform (like Wesley Clark, Stephen Cheney, Brent Scowcroft, etc) are simply doing so because they crave \u201cthe limelight\u201d:<\/font><\/p>\n NYT: Senator Boxer is chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee,on which you are the ranking Republican. She and her fellow Democrats have lately suggested that global warming could be a threat to national security by destabilizing developing countries. <\/font><\/p>\n INHOFE: That\u2019s the most ludicrous thing. They looked around and they found, I think, five generals to testify before the committee. Well, that\u2019s 5 generals out of 4,000 retired generals that say that. There are a lot of generals who don\u2019t like to be out of the limelight. They\u2019d like to get back in.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n Despite Inhofe\u2019s desire to trash the motivations of military generals who have a different view than he does about the impending climate crisis, the national security implications of climate change cannot be so easily dismissed. For at least the past two years, \u201cmilitary and intelligence experts have been issuing studies warning that<\/font> climate change could put American military personnel and national security at risk<\/a>. Increasingly violent storms, pandemics, drought and large-scale refugee problems, they say, will destabilize regions and encourage terrorism. And American dependence on foreign energy sources will only exacerbate the threats and increase the likelihood of military action.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n It\u2019s not just military generals who are making this argument. Inhofe\u2019s former colleague, John Warner (who Inhofe acknowledged has had \u201c<\/font>a long and distinguished career<\/a> in the military\u201d), also<\/font> understands<\/a> the security implications of global warming:<\/font><\/p>\n WARNER: Leading military, intelligence, and security experts have publically spoken out that if left unchecked, global warming could increase instability and lead to conflict in already fragile regions of the world.<\/span> If we ignore these facts, we do so at the peril of our national security and increase the risk to those in uniform who serve our nation. It is for this reason that I firmly believe the U.S. must take a leadership role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions\u2026 [emphasis original<\/em>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Inserted from <Think Progress<\/a>><\/p>\n I wonder if Inhofe has considered just how big a fool he will make of himself while preaching his pseudo-science at Copenhagen to grab attention.<\/p>\n The article did miss another key point about national security. How much has it cost the US in precious lives, valuable treasure, and priceless reputation to pursue wars of aggression for oil? And if we had invested sufficient effort into developing green technology that we did not need to rely on imported oil,would not we be far more secure?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Few Republicans are bigger attention hounds than James Inhofe. Therefore this level of hypocrisy would be amusing were the subject not so critical. In testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, retired Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn articulated a national security argument for passing clean energy legislation. \u201cContinued over reliance on fossil fuels, or […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"wingnut\"](\"http:\/\/s217.photobucket.com\/albums\/cc83\/TomCat1948or2\/Blog%202009\/InhofeCallstheKettleBlack_194C\/wingnut.jpg\" "\\"wingnut\\"")
<\/a> In<\/font> testimony<\/a> before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, retired Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn articulated a national security argument for passing clean energy legislation. \u201cContinued over reliance on fossil fuels, or small, incremental steps, simply<\/font> will not create the kind of future security and prosperity<\/a> that the American people and our great Nation deserve,\u201d McGinn warned.<\/font><\/p>\n