As a University of Tennessee alumna and proud Volunteer, I have never been more disappointed in my University.

The UT Board of Regents wants to award Former Vice President Al Gore an honorary doctorate. They’re voting on it it today. According to the Knoxville News Sentinel:

The proposal was approved by the UT Board of Trustees Academic Affairs and Student Success Committee, but the proposal will go before the full board for final approval this afternoon. Trustees are on the UT Martin campus for their winter board meeting.

As a donor to the UT system, I pledge to NEVER give my alma mater another dime if this happens.

If you are just as outraged as me, call the Chancellor’s office at 865-974-3265. Tell the administration and the Trustees that this is not acceptable. Also join the Facebook Page.

Why does UT want to recognize someone who is currently in the spotlight for pushing questionable science? Regardless of how you feel about Climate Change, should you give such a high honor to someone who is possibly a flake? Al Gore should not be honored by the University. It’s even more sketchy since he endowed the department chair of the degree he would be getting. Can anyone pay to play to get an honorary degree?

Look at the situation.

The now infamous hockey stick graph that he used in an Inconvenient Truth has been debunked.

The IPCC is distancing themselves from Climate Change science.

Senator Inhofe is threatening to haul Gore before the Senate for a hearing on Climate Change.

There are calls for Al Gore to return his Nobel Prize, which is one of the reasons the UT Trustees want to recognize him. Per the KNS article:

Board vice chairman Jim Murphy encouraged trustees not to view the honorary degree as an endorsement of Gore’s advocacy areas or political beliefs but as a way to recognize Gore as an accomplished Tennessean who has received national acclaim. By shying away from awarding honorary degrees to people who are deemed too controversial, “more people would be disqualified from receiving honorary degrees,” Murphy said.

“Not many Tennesseans have received the Nobel Prize – that alone distinguishes Al Gore from many other folks,” Murphy said. “The area of his current advocacy is an area UT and Oak Ridge National Lab have a significant area of expertise, and it’s an area we need to promote that area across the globe. Nothing will do that more than (presenting the honorary degree to Gore).”

This can only bring disgrace and ridicule to the University of Tennessee. Why recognize someone this controversial? The earned media isn’t worth the reputation and potential loss in donation dollars. This is a bad move.

As the Center for a Just Society noted, Al Gore has not been very prominent in answering the recent challenges to Climate Change credibility:

In the face of the embarrassing Climategate scandal and an unprecedented winter season that has for the first time ever delivered measurable snowfall to all 50 states, Al Gore’s absence from the public stage has been conspicuous.  Perhaps he’s taken a page from Punxsutawney Phil’s playbook and is hibernating in hopes of a sunnier forecast come April.

Why is the University doing this now? In a time when corporations and scientists are distancing themselves from climate change research, this only makes UT look foolish and will hurt them in the future. Students at Penn State have protested the actions of Professor Michael Mann. Why does UT want to willingly walk into this controversy?

Also at Instapundit and Post Politics.

Last week during Snowmageddon, I missed posting the awesome igloo that Senator Inhofe and his family built in DC.

As a former constituent of Al Gore and one of the voters that helped protect the country from having that lunatic in the White House, I thoroughly enjoyed Senator Inhofe’s antic.

Climate change hasn’t gotten much coverage here simply because I’m not a scientist. I took a few climatology courses in college, so I’ve followed the issue of global warming closely. However, I’m not qualified to debate the nuances of this issue.

Why am I writing about it tonight then? Because it frightens me that the EPA is about to launch regulations similar to cap-and-trade.

Amidst Climategate and IPCC revelations that keep leaking out and weakening their “claims” that the earth is warming, should a regulatory agency radically change how energy is taxed and used in this country?

According to a Pajamas Media article, Senator Inhofe is once again drawing attention to the questionable science behind the policies regarding climate change. Last week, he gave a floor speech questioning the EPA:

Inhofe’s speech didn’t directly call for any particular action on the part of Congress, but it did point out that the Obama administration has asserted that if a cap and trade bill doesn’t pass, it could achieve similar effects by a simple finding by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that carbon dioxide is a pollutant — a finding the EPA actually made late last year. However, as Inhofe pointed out in his on-floor remarks, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson had testified to his committee that the CO2 finding was largely based on the IPCC reports.

Today, the New York Times mentioned the EPA in an article on Obama pondering the use of executive orders:

Mr. Obama has already decided to create a bipartisan budget commission under his own authority after Congress refused to do so. His administration has signaled that it plans to use its discretion to soften enforcement of the ban on openly gay men and lesbians serving in the military, even as Congress considers repealing the law. And the Environmental Protection Agency is moving forward with possible regulations on heat-trapping gases blamed for climate change, while a bill to cap such emissions languishes in the Senate.

Is anyone else bothered that a regulatory agency is about to change policies that could impact every single person in this country based on a politicized science?

Climate change is possible. I’m not one of those conservatives who turn a deaf ear towards environmental issues. I’m probably one of the greener conservatives out there.  As a Christian, I believe that it is our duty to take care of the earth and our environment. However, climate change enthusiasts have gone overboard on this issue.

We should not make any drastic changes to any U.S. policy without being 100% sure of the science that drives it. History shows that science of the moment is not always correct, yet anyone that has questioned the science of anthropogenic climate change has been nearly crucified. It’s eerily reminiscent of how the Catholic Church controlled science and persecuted Galileo and Copernicus when they questioned prevailing thought.

Perhaps I went to an old-fashioned high school, but I was taught that the scientific method questions every hypothesis until all other possible conclusions are ruled out. There are endless hypotheses that have not gotten much press or consideration in policy debates. Senator Inhofe is absolutely correct in questioning regulations and bills regarding climate change.

In light of the revelations of the East Anglia CRU and the IPCC coming clean time and time again, neither President Obama, Congress nor any regulatory agency should even consider acting on climate change. This entire issue should be tabled for a while and allow the science community to debate without politics or agenda.

It bothers me that we’re not even allowed to debate this issue. The science is questionable, yet believers expect us to blindly follow their views and radically change our lives. That is not acceptable. We should not be called stupid or ignorant because we dare question policy changes. If scientists and believers are so confident in their research and findings, they should welcome rigorous debate and questioning and not bully those of us who are cautious.

Michelle Malkin has a post up today about new revelations from the IPCC and East Anglia.