Rational thinking has become a partisan issue.

The flaming wreckage of the Republican party, staggering to its feet with contemptible persistence, is continuing the full-fledged burglary of our country’s natural resources. Unsatisfied with the 8 year frat party Bush and friends had with the oil and gas giants, the Republicans may have been handed a victory in one of the most absurd partisan issues of the 2008 campaign: drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

Nevermind the fact that the negligible amount of oil isn’t going to reach the family car until your unborn children are in college, but pitting economic fears and right-wing hysterics against tangible research typically makes for a short-lived fight (spoilers: the idiots win).

Sadly, the epic battle over the Gulf, or even Alaska’s wildlife refuge are only small players when it comes to the self-destructive politics of global warming policy. In the next few months, Congress will begin discussing in earnest how to ram a long-term global warming policy down the throats of a country with the attention span of a gnat. To make matters worse, saving the planet has quite a few inconvenient strings attached.

First, it’s going to be expensive, and involves slicing into the profits of some of the most powerful (and lucrative) companies in the world. These same companies have been fighting the idea of global warming through shoddy science and a well-oiled PR machine for decades, and it’s worked extremely well.

To demonstrate just how powerful the anti-global warming lobby is, I’m going to borrow an example that Roger Ebert (the movie guy) once used to describe how preposterous the evolution “debate” is.  Say you are on the show Who Wants to be a Millionaire. You are doing really well, the crowd is cheering, and you are asked the million dollar question. It is:

The current global warming trend is being caused by:

A. Normal long-term planetary trends
B. Man made sources
C. The Moon
D. A recent supernova explosion

You sit there dumbfounded. Your pallet dries up. “Um, I want to eliminate two,” you wheeze through your tightening throat. The computer dutifully reduces your options to A and B. Your eyes dart between the two. “I want to  use my last lifeline…I want to ask the audience,” you say in a whisper. Astonishingly, it turns out the entire audience is packed with climate scientists. With one million dollars hanging in the balance, the votes start coming in.

3% say A is correct
97% say B is correct

That can’t be right. You clear your throat. “Global warming is being caused by normal long term planetary trends, so I’m picking A, final answer.”

“Sorry,” the host replies, “The correct answer was B.” Your head begins spinning. You are dumbfounded. But wait! You think to yourself, how can that be possible? That’s not what my neighbors think!

Our imaginary contestant is right to be confused. Despite the fact that 97% of all climate scientists think that human sources are to blame for global warming, only 41% of US voters agree, according to a Rasmussen poll from earlier this year. This chilling discrepancy is the result of a lot of powerful people, with a lot of money at stake, telling people what they want to hear.

Sadly, evidence does not swing back and forth on a partisan scale. There is either a correct answer, or a wrong answer. Given the astonishing amount of evidence on the table, and the consequences of inaction, I’m thinking maybe we should listen to the guys that do this for a living.

As this debate begins to spill onto zoo of 24 hour news networks, the pressure to castrate the legislation will be immense. Lets hope our president has the courage to make the dramatic changes the planet needs. And the Republicans stay the hell out of the way.