When championing Iraq War, Republicans disregarded issue of evidence of WMDs because national security was at stake. But they opposed climate legislation because there was insufficient evidence of global warming. How does the GOP reconcile support for war without evidence, with rejecting climate legislation, which is supported by scientific evidence? Isn't global warming a greater threat to national security?

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The defeat of climate legislation in the 111th Congress fits into the GOP's circumscribed conception of national security, which places military threats and "foreign enemies" above all dangers including, and perhaps most unbelievably, global warming. Tragically, this narrow focus, informed by a range of factors--not least the "Military Industrial Complex"--assures a perpetual state of war, and undermines the very survival of the planet.    

As the U.S is battered by ferocious winter storms and the planet endures historic weather volatility, the question of global climate change predictably comes up. Opinion makers on the right assert vindication and invoke the harsh winter to discredit global warming. Climate experts warn of a possible connection, but based on mounting historical data and statistical analysis, not singular weather events.      

The conservative Fox News Channel--an appendage of corporate interests invested in denial--exemplifies the practice of citing isolated weather episodes to refute climate change. In 2010, Sean Hannity, Fox's pugnacious host, used a heavy northeasterly storm to mock Al Gore's "hysterical global warming theories." Hannity's radio and television shows are a favored platform for skeptics who deem global warming a "liberal conspiracy"--what the host dismisses as the "biggest scientific fraud in our lifetimes."  

Another Fox News commentator, Tucker Carlson, dismisses global warming as a religion, "one with particularly fervent believers." Like Hannity, Carlson gloats over winter storms as proof that climate change is a "liberal hoax."  

Underlying the denial of climate change is the claim that the evidence is inconclusive or nonexistent. Without scientific certainty, goes the warning, the U.S. should not commit to greenhouse gas reduction regimes that might impose a high cost on business and cripple the economy.  

Hypocrisy on national security--Exhibit A: The Iraq War  

The right's claimed fidelity to the rules of scientific evidence would be admirable and noble, except for the glaring hypocrisy and inconsistency.  

When pushing for war against Iraq, rightwing operatives such as Hannity and Carlson had little regard for evidence. In the months leading up to the war--on talk radio, television news programs, newspaper op-ed pieces--they were united in message and purpose: The U.S. cannot allow the "smoking gun" (Saddam's supposed nuclear program) to become a "mushroom cloud" (nuclear catastrophe). Although no evidence was ever presented, a Google search conveys the astonishing discipline with which the "mushroom cloud" scenario was invoked to sell the Iraq War.  

On September 8, 2002, then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice told CNN, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." A month later, President Bush warned before a cheering crowd in Cincinnati that the United Stated cannot wait for the "smoking gun" that could become a "mushroom cloud."                                                                                  

When Nathan Britton of California Peace Action appeared on Fox News on October 7, 2002, host Sean Hannity went straight for the ambush: "What if you're wrong and Saddam gets a nuke, and kills a lot of children with it?" The debate was effectively over as Britton--like subsequent liberal guests on Hannity's show--scrambled for the right response. In the following months, the pro-war camp would use this killer frame to bludgeon hapless opponents--all the way to "Shock and Awe."  

So, for pro-war advocates, Iraq was worth committing American blood and treasure, even with questionable evidence of WMD's, because the risk to national security, in their view, was unacceptable.  

Fast-forward to the current debate on climate change, and the sense of urgency about national security has vanished. Those who pushed for war as a national security imperative, with no proof of threats, now demand unimpeachable evidence of climate change before taking steps to prevent planetary catastrophe. Yet in 2010, a National Science Academy report implored Congress to "act now" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and affirmed global warming as anthropogenic (human-made) and affecting a "broad range of human and natural systems."  

We therefore must ask: If Iraq's alleged nuclear program was a looming "mushroom cloud" worth risking American lives to prevent, how is the potential for climate meltdown--the mother of all mushroom clouds--not an emergency worth worrying about?  

The American conservative movement has cast its lot with climate change denial. A survey by ThinkProgress found nearly all of the Republicans who ran for the 37 U.S. Senate seats in 2010 disputed the scientific consensus around global warming.  

Echoing Hannity and Carlson, Oklahoma's Senator James Inhofe, the most aggressive of deniers in the U.S. congress, charged that global warming was the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." In 2002, Frank Luntz, a conservative pollster and consultant, advised Republicans all they should do to prevent congressional action on climate change is to spread doubt about the "scientific consensus on global warming."  

Obviously when it suits their agenda (war making), rightwing ideologues have no problem discarding the rules of evidence, as they did during the push for war. And so it is, that the drumbeat for war against imagined threats was matched only by the zeal to stymie climate change legislation.  

Addressing a West Virginia Labor Day rally to gin up opposition to such legislative action, Sean Hannity charged that Barack Obama "hates the coal industry" and wants to destroy jobs. This is the same Hannity who championed the Iraq War supposedly out of concern for national security. For Hannity and his fellow travelers, invading Iraq, even under specious pretexts, was a national security imperative; but the prospect of catastrophic climate change, which is actually supported by evidence, is not.  

Another mystifying aspect to the willingness of conservative to take a risk on climate change is their disinterest in predictions of massive human dislocation if mitigating action is not taken. A 2005 report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change paints a sobering picture of millions of "climate refugees" created by ever-violent weather. In 2050, the report says, there will be 150 million climate refugees.  

One would think a conservative movement in convulsions over "illegal" immigration might be concerned about this particular dimension of the climate change problem. In Mexico, this year's winter storm brought snow to Chihuahua, where temperatures plunged to 9 degrees Fahrenheit--the coldest since 1951--and a state of emergency was declared.  

It is noteworthy and ironic that on two of their obsessions--war-making and climate change--conservatives take positions that aggravate yet another movement touchstone: illegal immigration. The right is oblivious to the paradox of crusading against immigration while ignoring how wars trigger human migrations. The Iraq War, for example, has dislocated over 5 million people, and the numbers continue to rise. Perhaps instead of scapegoating immigrants, conservatives might rethink their ideological precepts around war and climate change.    

Finally, setting aside the issue of evidence, why isn't the elimination of dangerous pollutants from our atmosphere not a good idea anyway? Why, we might ask, would a party that lays such claim to patriotism pursue a suicidal agenda for the country?   And what if--to paraphrase Hannity himself--they are wrong, and global warming kills a lot of people and imperils the planet?

Authors Bio:
James Thindwa is a Chicago resident and long time labor and community activist. He serves on the board of directors of, and writes for, In These Times magazine. Thindwa's work was featured on the Bill Moyers Journal on March 27, 2009.