You don’t have to be a general to be head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, but if you don’t at least believe in the existence of a military, we’ve got a problem on our hands.
The country is about to face something similar in January, when the GOP takes control of the U.S. Senate and Oklahoma’s James Inhofe — Congress’s most vocal global warming denier — becomes chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Inhofe, who has called climate change “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” not only sniffs at what the overwhelming majority of climatologists know to be true, he actually tries to go toe to toe with them on the science. And that’s where he exposes how little he knows — and how wrong he is. The Science Cop explains.
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Write to Jeffrey Kluger at jeffrey.kluger@time.com