For many in the world, the following might be simply incomprehensible -- that there are elected leaders as detached from reality ... Just so we are clear, we are talking about the US Senator. US Senator who called Global Warming "the second-largest hoax ever played on the American people, after the separation of church and state."

Senator James Inhofe (R-Exxon) played a "gotcha" moment with Al Gore as part of his rambling opening statement when Al Gore testified this past Wednesday. Pontechango's excellent discussion at Daily Kos, Inhofe's Devious Pledge, opened with this screen shot of the Pledge:

The pledge plays to the smear campaign about Gore's home energy use. This pledge -- which is shooting around the denialist community -- is faulty on so many levels. And, not surprisingly, Inhofe staff are crowing about Gore's absolutely reasonable to refuse to pledge himself to an unreasonable pledge ...

Attacking the media and scientists for reporting to Americans that their CO2 emmissions are changing the climate, the Republicans on the James Inhofe lead US Senate Committee on Environment and Public works issued a press release today citing the usual handful of climate skeptics/deniers.

Below, I quote then refute each claim made in the press release.  The blockquoted portions are from the "Majority Press Release" linked above. 

The AP also chose to ignore Gore's reliance on the now-discredited "hockey stick" by Dr. Michael Mann, which claims that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere remained relatively stable over 900 years, then spiked upward in the 20th century, and that the 1990's were the warmest decade in at least 1000 years. Last week's National Academy of Sciences report dispelled Mann's often cited claims by reaffirming the existence of both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. See Senator Inhofe's statement on the broken "Hockey Stick."