Bob Doyle, Columnist Cumberland Times-News, There are some important scientific issues covered by the media (both science magazines and widely circulated outlets such as newspapers, television, websites). Some key issues include evolution (especially new hominid fossil finds), new ways of regarding matter (dark energy, dark matter and superstring theory) and climate change.
An important difference between climate change and the other scientific issues is the effects of climate change on most humans and the global environment. climate change also involves huge amounts of money in two ways: we may change our energy sources in response to climate change (perhaps costing the world’s governments trillions of dollars) or we may ignore it, leaving future generations with a diminished number of species and altered environments that may make it impossible to supply adequate food to half of the world’s humans (resulting in mass starvation).
So climate change should be handled with great care and not subject to the usual political games, sarcasm and personal attacks.
As for Congress, each member is mainly looking out for his/her constituents, making sure that any changes will not take away jobs from their District or State. Since some states are heavily involved in fossil fuel extraction (such as Texas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Kentucky), it is unrealistic to expect that their House and Senate members would be favorable to regulations that would reduce extraction of coal and oil that might cut employment in their states.
SOURCE: http://times-news.com/columns/x993500650/Climate-change-must-be-handled-with-care
