The Republicans not only refuse to look at the evidence for polar ice loss, they seem determined to make sure there isn’t any for anyone else to look at. This article is the best summary yet of how they are going about this by sabotaging the satellite program currently in place to monitor the polar sea ice.

A replacement satellite was ready for launch, but the decision was made, not only to not launch it to replace the ailing birds currently in orbit, but to “save money” on storage costs by dismantling it.

During a House Armed Services Committee hearing on acquisition reform in January 2016, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., a climate change denier who chairs the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee, which oversees military satellites, called the program a waste of money, citing the Air Force’s alleged mismanagement of the space weather program.

“We could have saved the Air Force and Congress a lot of aggravation if we put half a billion dollars in a parking lot and burned it,” he asserted, citing the Air Force’s prior indecision on when to launch F-20, leading to greater storage costs.

Congress provided no funding for DMSP in its 2016 fiscal year omnibus spending bill, and also denied the $120 million needed to launch F-20 around 2018, effectively ending the program. According to Gallaher, no one in the U.S. legislature came to the program’s aid.

“We spent $500 million that could have been used to support national security. Instead, [the satellite is] going in the trash. I presume it’s going to be made into razor blades,” Rogers underlined.

Last November, the government began dismantling the $518 million satellite and wrapped up at the end of March – ironically at the same time Arctic sea ice extent was hitting a record low.

“I can’t think of anything stupider,” says Gallaher. “And now, NASA has a new contract to build a new $700 million satellite when we already had one in the box and ready to go.”

Mike Rogers’ office could not be reached for further comment.

Its inevitable that this sort of thing will be pointed out as another example of “how stupid Congress” is, but I don’t think this is stupid at all. I think it is a clever and very deliberate attempt to carry out a policy which is disastrous to the nation simply because it fits in nicely with the business plans of major Republican campaign contributors and lobbyists. Its not the first time. Think: the war on Obamacare, the gun lobby, the hamstringing of regulation on the banking and financial industry, private financing of political campaigns…I could go on. One gets the impression these guys have just convinced themselves everything is going down the tubes anyway, and they just want to have as much stashed away as possible for when it finally hits the fan. They have determined that if you’ve got enough money you can protect yourself from high medical costs, gun violence and crime, financial collapse, and the loss of our democracy. And maybe they’re right. I guess they’ve bet that whatever problems are visited on us by climate change, the wealthy will probably be the last, and least, to suffer.

Well, look on the bright side. When the final, current, now-past-its-design-life satellite finally breaks down, you’ll be spared those annoying little graphs I post here every month.