…fail to recognise human activity is to blame, nearly 27 years after scientists laid out man’s role…

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/22/us-senate-man-climate-change-global-warming-hoax

The Senate voted virtually unanimously that climate change is occurring and not, as some Republicans have said, a hoax – but it defeated two measures attributing its causes to human activity.

Only one Senator, Roger Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi, voted against a resolution declaring climate change was real and not – as his fellow Republican, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma once famous declared – a hoax. That measure passed 98 to one.

But the Senate voted down two measures that attributed climate change to human activity – and that is far more important.

Unless Senators are prepared to acknowledge the causes of climate change, it is likely they will remain unable and unwilling to do anything about it.

Democrats had planned the symbolic, “sense of the Senate” votes as a way of exposing the Republicans’ increasingly embarrassing climate change denial. Further climate votes will come up on Thursday.

Two were tacked on as Democratic amendments to a bill seeking to force approval of the contentious Keystone XL pipeline – despite a veto threat from Barack Obama.

The third, introduced by a Republican, affirmed climate change was real but expressed support for the Keystone XL pipeline.

The first vote, introduced by the Rhode Island Democrat, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, said only: “To express the sense of the Senate that climate change is real and not a hoax.”

But Republicans have grown canny about being called out as climate deniers. For the Republican party leadership the current preferred phrase now is: “I am not a scientist” – which casts doubt but avoids outright denial. However, Obama made that line a butt of his jokes in the State of the Union address.