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Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) on Wednesday explained that Al Gore and the United Nations get most of the blame for what he called a global warming "hoax," but filmmaker Michael Moore and billionaire George Soros deserved some credit too.

At a Environment and Public Works Committe on President Barack Obama's nomination of Gina McCarthy to be the next head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said that he wanted the agency to listen to scientists instead of climate change deniers like Inhofe and Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY).

"What Sen. Inhofe has written and talked about is his belief that global warming is one of the major hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people, that it's a hoax pushed by people like Al Gore, the United Nations and the Hollywood elite," Sanders told the committee.

"I think that is a fair quote from Sen. Inhofe. Is that roughly right, Sen. Inhofe?" Sanders asked the Oklahoma Republican.

"Yes," Inhofe agreed. "I'd add to that list MoveOn.org, George Soros, Michael Moore and a few others."

"That's exactly the issue," Sanders said, turning back to the committee. "Do we agree with Sen. Inhofe that global warming is a hoax and that we do not want the federal government, the EPA, the Department of Energy to address that issue? Because it is a -- quote -- unquote -- hoax, according to Sen. Inhofe and others? Or do we believe and agree with the overwhelming majority of scientists who tell us that global warming is the most serious planetary crisis that we face, and that we must act boldly and aggressively to protect the future of this planet? That is what the issue is."

(h/t: The Hill)

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Republican Texas Rep. Joe Barton on Wednesday dismissed concerns that the Keystone XL pipeline could contribute to climate change, citing the biblical flood myth described in the book of Genesis as evidence that climate change was not man made.

BuzzFeed's Andrew Kaczynski obtained video of Barton speaking to the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power in support of the Northern Route Approval Act, a bill that could allow Congress to override President Barack Obama if he refuses to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline extension.

"I don't think it's a secret that I'm a proponent and supporter of the Keystone pipeline," Barton explained.

In contrast to Barton's past insistence that global warming science is "pretty weak stuff," the Texas Republican took a different tack in Wednesday's hearing.

"I don't deny that the climate is changing," he said. "I think you can have an honest difference of opinion on what's causing that change without automatically being either all-in that it's all because of mankind or it's all just natural. I think there's a divergence of evidence."

"I would point out if you're a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change. And that certainly wasn't because mankind overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy."

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Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer recently lashed out at a reporter before her appearance at an energy conference, demanding to know "where in the hell" a question about climate change came from.

Prior to her Saturday night speech on energy at the Western Governors' Association, KTVK's Dennis Welch wanted to get Brewer's view on climate change because -- as the station noted -- it was "[i]ntertwined with the discussion of energy."

"Everybody has an opinion on it and I probably don’t believe that it’s man made," Brewer replied. “I believe, you know, that weather elements are controlled maybe by different things.”

But the Arizona governor may have not been aware that the cameras were still rolling when she approached Welch after the interview.

"Where in the hell did that come from?" she asked.

Only two of the 19 governors in the Western Governors' Association showed up to hear Brewer's three-minute keynote speech, according to KTVK.

"Since 2010, 12 renewable energy companies have relocated or expanded their operations here in Arizona, creating more than 1,900 new jobs and more than $1 billion in capital investment," she told the group.

In 2011, Brewer issued an executive order which made it clear that Arizona would no longer participate in the Western Climate Initiative, a multi-state attempt to limit greenhouse gasses.

Think Progress noted on Monday that Arizona had been "hit by three separate billion-dollar weather events since 2011 — raging wildfires, drought, and a heat wave."

(h/t: The Huffington Post)

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Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) says that the presidential election is now trending towards President Barack Obama because of Hurricane Sandy.

During a Sunday panel segment on State of the Union, CNN's Candy Crowley noted that the president had gotten a boost after New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his endorsement in the aftermath of the super storm.

"He said that he thinks President Obama is better on the issue of climate change," CNN Senior Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash explained. "And that the hurricane -- the super storm -- was a reminder from his perspective of what's going on with the climate."

"But that wasn't the best thing that happened to Barack Obama this week," Barbour noted. "The hurricane is what broke Romney's momentum. I don't think there's any question about it."

"Any day that the news media is not talking about jobs and the economy, taxes and spending, deficits and debt, Obamacare and energy is a good day for Barack Obama. You had a blackout -- you had a blackout on all of those issues that started about last Saturday and lasted until about yesterday. That was what was really good for Barack Obama."

Barbour added that Obama's proactive response to Hurricane Sandy didn't "help him a bit."

"What happened is that the news media absolutely blacked out any coverage of the issues that have been the issues of this campaign," the former governor insisted. "Nothing was stopping Romney's momentum. No matter what Obama did, he couldn't stop the momentum. This blackout -- and I'm not blaming the news media -- just all the news coverage was about everything but Obama's policies and the results of those policies."

Much of the nation is reeling from Superstorm Sandy. As families rebuild from Sandy’s destruction, our thoughts are with the victims of this horrific, fossil-fueled storm.

When Gov. Mitt Romney made climate change a punch line at the Republican National Convention, he mocked a real threat to the lives of Americans.

We can't let Mitt get away with his laughing dismissal of the threat of rising seas caused by the carbon polluters who fund his campaign. Share this ad with friends and family to tell Romney: climate change isn't a joke.

http://climatesilence.org/romneyjoke

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Stephen Colbert took a shot at North Carolina for considering a bill that "would require the government to ignore new reports of rising sea levels and predictions of ocean and climate scientists."

Sea Level Bill Would Allow North Carolina to Stick Its Head in the Sand

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Fox Business reporter Tracy Byrnes says that climate change is overblown because the temperature of the Earth "basically hasn't changed much since the Ice Age."

During his Tuesday show on the Fox Business Network, habitual climate-change denier Stuart Varney pointed to an op-ed by Princeton Professor William Happer as evidence of another "nail in the coffin of global warming hysteria."

"CO2 is not a pollutant," Happer wrote. "Life on earth flourished for hundreds of millions of years at much higher CO2 levels than we see today. Increasing CO2 levels will be a net benefit because cultivated plants grow better and are more resistant to drought at higher CO2 levels, and because warming and other supposedly harmful effects of CO2 have been greatly exaggerated. Nations with affordable energy from fossil fuels are more prosperous and healthy than those without."

"We're not in global warming," Fox Business host David Asman agreed. "That has to be emphasized, screamed out at the top over everybody's lungs. That's why they changed the rhetoric from global warming to climate change. Because even the folks that advocated that we are in global warming realize that it hasn't been that way."

"The temperature basically hasn't changed much since the Ice Age," Byrnes announced. "But this notion that we're now getting to a point where carbon dioxide is bad, I mean, I think these guys have pretty much fallen over the cliff."

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Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Friday blasted rivals former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich for their past support of legislation to combat global warming, saying that politicians shouldn't change "when the climate changes."

"When the climate changed about man-made global warming in this country and everybody rushed to say we need to do something now about this huge problem, I didn't change," the former Pennsylvania proudly declared at an event at the USS Alabama Battleship Park. "This climate science of man-made global warming is not climate science, it was political science."

"I didn't sit on a couch with anybody," Santorum added, referring to an ad Gingrich had made with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) calling for mandatory carbon caps.

"I didn't go out and crow as Gov. Romney did when he was governor of Massachusetts about imposing the first CO2 cap, the first CO2 cap in the country," Santorum continued. "Both of them say, 'Yeah, we have to do something about man-made global warming.'"

"We don't need somebody who changes when the climate changes," the candidate remarked. "We need somebody who looks at science with a clear head and a level eye."

In their quest to woo GOP voters, both Gingrich and Romney have tempered their support for climate change legislation in the past year.

Late last year, Gingrich admitted that appearing in the ad with Pelosi was "the dumbest single thing I’ve done in the last few years."

In October, Romney told voters in Pittsburgh that "the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us."

Santorum, however, has said he never believed the global warming "hoax."

"I've never supported even the hoax of global warming," he insisted last month, adding that Gingrich and Romney "bought into the science of man-made global warming, and they bought into the remedy, both of which are bogus."

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Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Sunday denied that he was not questioning President Barack Obama's faith in Christianity when he said the president's theology was not "based on the Bible."

At a tea party rally in Columbus, Ohio on Saturday, the candidate had said Obama's agenda was "about some phony ideal, some phony theology."

"Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology," he added.

On Sunday, CBS host Bob Schieffer asked Santorum "what in the world" he was talking about.

"I was talking about the radical environmentalists," the former Pennsylvania senator explained. "This idea that man is here to serve the Earth as opposed to husband its resources and be good stewards of the Earth. I think that is a phony ideal."

"We're not here to serve the earth, the earth is not the objective, man is the objective. I think a lot of radical environmentalists have it upside down," he said.

"How does that translate into some sort of theology, that the president's theology is not based on the Bible?" Schieffer wondered. "I mean, that suggests he's not a Christian."

"I wasn't suggesting the president's not a Christian," Santorum laughed. "I accept the fact that the president's a Christian. I just said when you have world view that elevates the Earth above man and says that we can't take those resources because we're going to harm the Earth like things that are not scientifically proven like the politicization of the whole global warming debate."

"Do you wonder that might lead some people to suggest that you were questioning the president's faith?" Schieffer pressed.

"No, because I've repeatedly said I don't question the president's faith," Santorum insisted. "He says he's a Christian. But I am talking about his world view."

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Bill Nye "The Science Guy" found himself in the tough position Monday of explaining science to Fox Business guest host Charles Payne.

Payne began the Freedom Watch segment by pressing Nye to prove that Hurricane Irene was caused by global warming.

"I don't think the word proof is what you are looking for," Nye told Payne. "Evidence or result of? Yeah."

"Here's the thing though, Bill," Payne said. "Ever since Katrina, we heard that the hurricane season is going to be more devastating and it was apocalyptic and the end of the world. And the reality is we haven't seen that. So, how can Newsweek say this is a new normal? Is this irresponsible or is there any science behind that?"

"Well, there's a lot more science behind it than saying it's not," Nye flatly stated. "But that aside, that's only six years. In geologic times or in terms of climate events, that's not very long."

"The world is getting warmer, everybody. The world is getting warmer... Do we not agree the world is getting warmer?"

"I have no idea," Payne admitted. "Someone told me it's one degree in the last hundred years and I'll take their word for it."

The Fox Business host then changed the subject to Al Gore's suggestion that climate change deniers need to be confronted just as racists were confronted during the civil rights movement.

"[Gore is] very passionate about it," Nye explained. "As the world has become smaller -- this is to say that as communication has become better and better, and we get to know each other better, we all travel all over the world. It's routine to get on a plane and go to Asia and come back. As we get to know each other, we realize we are all one species; we are all the same human. But in tribal times, the importance of your tribe was so great that you were afraid of other tribes."

"If someone from New England has sex with someone from Papua, New Guinea, you get a human. You don't get anything else. So, racism is scientifically not especially compelling. If you learn the science of it, you let go of it. And when you learn the science of climate change, in my opinion, you will find it quite compelling and you will want to do something about it rather than pretend it doesn't happen."

"We brought you on because we knew you could connect the dots," Payne interrupted. "Although the route you've taken is still confusing some of the viewers."