A lot of old people in Georgia and Florida and all out throughout the southeast and the southwest are dependent on air conditioning just to live. And if their electricity bills go sky high, as the energy tax is gonna make it happen, if that ever passes there are a lot of people that can’t afford to run their air conditioning any more and a lot of people are gonna have a hard time with hyperthermia is what I call it – what we call it in medicine as a medical doctor – which means that their body temperature’s gonna go up, they’re gonna have dehydration, and people are gonna have a lot of problems. And it’s gonna have a greater impact on our health care system and people are gonna die because of that. But it’s gonna kill jobs too.

Update: This is the same Paul Broun, by the way, who is now trying to blame the 2008 financial industry bailout on Democrats– or at least on Republican Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who in Broun’s imagination was really a Democrat.

“I wanted to put some perspective on 2008, too. That’s when the President’s chief economic adviser — I guess the Treasury Secretary — told him that the sky was falling and that we needed to pass the Toxic Asset Relief Program, or TARP, which many Republicans voted against. I didn’t buy the Democratic Treasury Secretary under a Republican President because that’s exactly what Hank Paulson is.”

Hank Paulson a Democrat? In doctor-speak, this is what’s called bull shit.

As Steve Benen points out, the idea that Bush and Cheney would choose a Democratic Treasury Secretary is beyond absurd– in fact so absurd it’s brilliantly revealing in what it says about the bipartisan bowed and scraping approach to the finance industry.

Benen recalls the reality of the bailout nation:

The [TARP] bailout enjoyed support from the administration (Bush and Cheney), the House Republican leadership (Boehner, Cantor, and Blunt), the Senate Republican leadership (McConnell and Kyl), the Republican presidential ticket (McCain and Palin), and assorted, high-profile conservative voices (Mitt Romney and Glenn Beck).

Hat tip on the Broun video to Gawker.

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Marc Ambinder’s already done us the favor of a point-by-point takedown of her column — which comes to the forceful conclusion, “The president should boycott Copenhagen” — so I’ll limit my commentary to two quick additional thoughts.

First, the column uses the words “agenda” and “politicized” three times each (not to mention variants thereof) in describing the work of the world’s foremost environmental scientists. And the question that always enters my mind is, what exactly is their agenda? What could well-educated and respected scientists hope to gain from a massive conspiracy that, in Palin’s opinion, will unleash untold economic harm on the populace while providing no benefits in return? Do they hope for prestige? (If so, Palin would likely answer, it hasn’t worked, since they’ve brought their entire field to what she calls a “tipping point” — in a bad way.) Or perhaps jobs for their friends in the Chinese alternative energy industry? (A potentially more rational argument, except that I’ve never heard anyone draw these ties.) Seriously, I’m scratching my head.

And second, my favorite two lines of the column:

[W]e can’t say with assurance that man’s activities cause weather changes. We can say, however, that any potential benefits of proposed emissions reduction policies are far outweighed by their economic costs.

So it’s possible that anthropogenic climate change is real, but even so, the economic costs of doing something to stop it are much greater than the potential benefits. Even if these benefits include saving hundreds of millions of coast-dwelling people from the ravages of rising sea levels and protecting world civilization as we know it? Can those really be “far outweighed” by lower energy costs, even if we accept Republicans’ wildly inflated (and refuted) estimate that a cap-and-trade plan to reduce carbon emissions could set every American family back by $3,100 a year?

If you give her credit for nothing else, you can’t say Sarah Palin doesn’t have the power to spark a lively debate.

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Lamborn loves the oil shale. He brought a piece with him to D.C. and held it up on the floor of the House last month. “Oil shale!” “Look, here’s a piece!” Click on the photo to watch Lamborn deliver his oil shale pitch.

Oil shale, though, is no substitute for developing renewable energy industries and markets.

What’s more, the Heritage Foundation data being quoted in the fight against the cap and trade bill is matched by data produced elsewhere, by the Political Economy Research Institute and the Center for American Progress, for example, which reports Colorado could see a net increase of about $2.6 billion in investment revenue and 28,000 jobs as a result of the cap and trade policy. Spending on energy efficiency and renewable energy would create four times as many jobs as investing in oil, PERI reports.

The email Lamborn sent around today includes a survey, because this issue is all about credibility and he really wants to know what his supporter-constituents think.

“What will help businesses grow and create more jobs?” he asks. “Higher taxes” or “Lower taxes”?

It’s not a leading question. Really, it’s not. He wants to know.

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