Mark Hertsgaard is the author of the new book  “Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years.”

He cornered [James] Inhofe near a bank of members-only elevators at the Dirksen Senate Office Building to ask how he could remain the Senate’s most adamant climate change denier when every noted scientific organization agrees the planet and its inhabitants are destined for a world of hurt unless heat-trapping gases are tamed.

“Yeah, are you kidding?” he told SolveClimate News when asked if it was worth it to wait 85 minutes in a windowless Dirksen hallway until Inhofe emerged from a fourth-floor committee hearing room. “For my daughter’s sake I want to know why he thinks he can do that.”

“Hot,” the most recent of his six environmental tomes, is dedicated to his 5-year-old daughter Chiara. She has inspired the 54-year-old’s fatherly concern toward what he calls Generation Hot, the two billion youngsters worldwide now forced to cope with climate disruption. . . . . Tuesday’s event to confront “climate cranks” — coordinated by partners including the Sierra Club, 350.org, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and The Nation — offered a lesson to budding activists on staking out politicians and a chance for Hertsgaard to vent.

Throughout the day, the energetic author was trailed by four young local organizers, a couple of communications specialists and three videographers.  “I think he knows his lines,” Hertsgaard said about trying to push the envelope with Inhofe. “He should. He’s been saying the same thing for 20 years.”

Frustration with Media Coverage

On Tuesday, he confronted Inhofe on each of his points about the science being “mixed,” the dire impact of carbon controls on the economy and what little difference EPA action will have on global emissions.

“It’s important to say, ‘No senator, the science is not mixed.’ But a lot of mainstream reporters don’t argue back,” Hertsgaard said in an interview, adding that a sense of false balance can be attributed to a Washington press corps not familiar with environmental issues. “But virtually every science organization tells us climate change is real and very dangerous. It’s a matter of demonstrable science not opinion. To pretend otherwise borders on journalistic malpractice.”

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