Senator Jim Inhofe signs copies of “Greatest Hoax” book in Oklahoma City

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe of Tulsa is back in Oklahoma this weekend. Among other events, he was scheduled for a 4 p.m. book signing today (Friday, March 16) at Full Circle bookstore, 1900 Northwest Expressway in Oklahoma City.

Inhofe’s new book is “The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future,” (New York: WND Books, 305 pages with index, $25.95).

The book is a blistering attack on global warming orthodoxy.

Although by no means limited to the events of winter 2009-10, much of Inhofe’s narrative focuses on the shocking scandal that surrounded “Climategate.”

That was the term news reporters and others quickly assigned after the disclosure of thousands of emails centered around work done at or through England’s University East Anglia and the Climactic Research Unit. When the text of the emails circulated worldwide, analysis shattered widespread acceptance of the conclusions of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Readers can decide for themselves: 50 pages of Inhofe’s new book is devoted to reprinting emails in which leading scientists traded ideas on how to discredit other scientists who had questioned some or all of the evidence of a global warming trend attributable to human activity.

A Republican, Inhofe began his political career in the Oklahoma state Legislature, where he and a young Democrat named David Boren sat across the aisle from one another as “back-benchers” in the House of Representatives. When scandal racked the administration of Governor David Hall in the early 1970s, Inhofe and Boren ran for the chief executive’s office as reformers in their respective parties.

In historic upsets, each man was nominated for the state’s top job. In an era when Democrats still dominated state politics, Boren won easily, with analysts speculating that Inhofe would have done well against any other Democrat. After one term as governor, Boren went onto a long tenure in the U.S. Senate, then to the presidency of the University of Oklahoma.

Inhofe lost that 1974 governor’s race, but was not finished with public life. He went on to serve as mayor of Tulsa and a member of the U.S. House. In 1994, when Boren resigned from the Senate, Inhofe easily won the Republican nomination for the Senate seat, going on to defeat U.S. Rep. Dave McCurdy of Norman.

Inhofe has served in the Senate ever since, becoming a dominant figure in the Sooner State’s modern Republican party.

His new book has been assailed by some critics, has garnered effusive praise from former astronauts Tom Stafford and Harrison H. Schmitt, meterologist Richard Lindzen, Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast, President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, Professor Robert Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University and many others.

In a 2006 essay, the late Paul M. Weyrich, an architect of the modern conservative movement, described Inhofe as “a workhorse senator,” crediting him for both his ardent conservative policy views and his methodical work on flood control, transportation and other non-glamorous issues.