COULD $82 MILLION HELP EXPLAIN WHY THE US CONGRESS IS FULL OF CLIMATE-CHANGE DENIERS?

American author Upton Sinclair once quipped, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

Pump "salary" up to $82 million in contributions from the fossil fuel industry to climate-change deniers in the US Senate and House of Representatives, and you can start to understand why so many of the people we've elected to represent us spout so much nonsense about climate change.

$ 1 Million on display in Las Vegas

(multiply this by 82 and give to your favorite politicians)

Credit: mmarchin/CreativeCommons

According to Ryan Koronowsky at ThinkProgress, there are 180 climate deniers in the US Congress, not to mention the one in the oval office. Of those, 142 are in the House and 38 in the Senate. That represents a hefty 59 percent of the Republicans in the House, and a truly impressive 73 percent of the Republicans in the Senate. Remarkable figures given that the American public overwhelmingly recognizes that human-caused climate change is real and supports government action to mitigate it.

It appears that something is causing our senators and representatives to oppose not just the scientific consensus on climate change but the desires of their own constituents. It could be superior intelligence, greater knowledge or perhaps a more highly developed sense of responsibility and stewardship.

Or it could be money. Money that pays for the market research and ads that keep getting them elected.

What do you think?

Me, I'm betting on the money.

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Here's a list of who and how much.

You can read Koronowsky's detailed article, with maps and charts, here.

You can read an interesting piece about parallels between the Soviet embrace of Lysenkoism under Stalin and the Republican embrace of climate change denial here.

Note: To be fair, Democrats are probably just as likely to be "influenced" by contributions. This essay by Lauren McCauley at Common Dreams presents data showing that for a mere $100,000, the odds of a Democrat representative flipping on a key financial regulation issue rose by 14 percent. With millions or billions of dollars of profits at stake, political contributions are clearly a terrific investment.

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