Politics

Sen. Coburn: ‘I am a global warming denier’

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Michael Bastasch DCNF Managing Editor
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Despite the scorn of environmental activists, Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn admitted that he does not believe that human activity is causing the planet to warm.

“I am a global warming denier. I don’t deny that,” said Coburn, reports to the Tulsa World.

The Tulsa World reports: “The climate is changing, and has been as long as there has been a climate, he said. … As a physician and a man of science, Coburn said he thinks the evidence points that the Earth is moving into a ‘mini-ice age.'”

In the wake of Obama’s unveiling of his new plan to tackle global warming, liberal groups have been putting pressure on Republican politicians who have expressed skepticism of the theory that human activity — mainly from burning fossil fuels — is causing the planet to warm.

Recently, Organizing for Action activists handed out unicorn awards to 135 Republican members of Congress who have been labeled as global warming deniers by the group.

“These awards are as real as the scientific evidence saying climate change is happening,” said OFA social director Caleb Gardner. “The volunteers who are delivering them are hoping they will serve as a physical reminder that their constituents will hold these lawmakers accountable to their votes on climate issues.”

OFA quoted Coburn saying, “I’ve read the basic scientific studies, and a lot of it doesn’t add up for me.”

Coburn’s fellow Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe has also been heavily criticized by liberal groups for his global warming views.

Last year, the Center for Biological Diversity awarded Inhofe the Rubber Dodo Award for being one of Congress’ “staunchest deniers of climate change and stalwart human obstacle to federal action on this unprecedented global crisis.”

“As climate change ravages the world, Senator Inhofe insists that we deny the reality unfolding in front of us and choose instead to blunder headlong into chaos,” said Kierán Suckling, CBD’s executive director. “Senator Inhofe gets the 2012 Rubber Dodo Award for being at the vanguard of the retrograde climate-denier movement.”

However, heckling from left-wing activists hasn’t deterred Inhofe either.

“We all remember Richard Lindzen, the world renowned atmospheric physicist at MIT,” Inhofe said in a Senate hearing on global warming earlier this summer. “He said that regulating carbon is a ‘bureaucrat’s dream,’ because ‘if you control carbon, you control life.'”

“When you zoom out and consider this from a distance, it is the core tenant of liberalism and the President’s political philosophy,” Inhofe added. “He believes that government can make better decisions than the people, and regulating carbon dioxide will give him all he needs to make nearly every decision for the American people.”

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