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A Cape Cod Notebook can be heard every Tuesday morning at 8:45am and afternoon at 5:45pm.It's commentary on the unique people, wildlife, and environment of our coastal region.A Cape Cod Notebook commentators include:Robert Finch, a nature writer living in Wellfleet who created, 'A Cape Cod Notebook.' It won the 2006 New England Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Radio Writing.

On Arrogance, Absolution, and Human Impact on the Weather

LJ Hopkinson / flickr

So - Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the new Republican chairman of the Senate’s Committee on the Environment, recently said – and I quote - “humans are arrogant to believe anyone but God can affect the climate.”

Well, what a relief.  Finally, someone has had the courage to stand up and say what all good Americans want to believe: that we’re not responsible for global warming.  It’s a statement worthy of Senator Inhofe’s spiritual predecessor James Watt. You may remember Watt - Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior – who back in the 1980s famously said that we needn’t worry about environmental problems since the Apocalypse was just around the corner.  Now Senator Inhofe says in any case we’re not powerful enough to create climate change, nor, presumably, any other kind of serious environmental damage – only the Almighty is - and therefore all environmental rules and regulations are pointless and only hurt the economy.

I couldn’t agree more. It’s arrogant to believe we can affect the weather. It’s as arrogant as believing we could create a hole in the ozone layer, allowing harmful radiation to penetrate our atmosphere.  Or thinking that we could turn God’s rain into low-level acid through sulphur emissions from coal plants. It’s arrogant to believe that we could decimate the cod population of the Grand Banks, once the richest fishing grounds in the world, or that we could destroy 70 % of the world’s coral reefs through pollution and warming of the ocean. Just because nine out of the last ten years have been the warmest on record, that glaciers world-wide are disappearing at record rates, and that the earth’s species are going extinct at 500 times the historic rate – do we honestly think any of this has anything to do with our human behavior? What arrogance! Who do we think we are, anyway? 

Thank God we have brave politicians like Senator Inhofe to expose the environmental “alarmists” who would have us believe “job killing regulations” are necessary to keep us from laying waste the earth. Bah – humbug! Thank God we have a man who describes himself as “a one man truth squad” to point the finger at the real source of these “environmental frauds” As the intrepid Senator recently put it, “We know the United Nations is behind this whole thing.”  Of course – the United Nations – that all-powerful, regimenting, international-conspiracy-hatching, America-hating organization that has been so successful in imposing its socialist agenda on the world.

Or wait – maybe it isn’t really the United Nations. Maybe, as the estimable Senator recently told Mother Jones Magazine, the real source of the “global warming conspiracy” is none other than – Barbara Streisand.  That’s right – Streisand, that notorious Hollywood agitator, shameless performer of such socialistic anthems as “People Who Need People.” Streisand, who, shaken by the revelation of her perfidy, replied, “God help us!”  God help us indeed, Barbara, because as Senator Inhofe reminds us, we can’t possibly help ourselves.

So during this season of giving, let us be thankful to James Inhofe for the gift of absolution, for letting us off the environmental hook, for reminding us that we are just feeble, ineffectual creatures who could not possibly have any significant effect on God’s creation. Let us rejoice in the knowledge that we can continue to burn our fossil fuels, release toxins into the atmosphere, strip mountain tops, cut down rain forests, pollute our oceans, overfish and overpopulate this beautiful planet with a clear conscience, knowing that we are in no way responsible for any unfortunate environmental consequences that might follow.  Or as Senator Inhofe himself might put it:

Bills are passed by fools like me,

But only God can warm the sea.       

Robert Finch is a nature writer living in Wellfleet. 'A Cape Cod Notebook' won the 2006 New England Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Radio Writing.