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Last week, MIT climate scientist and hurricane specialist Kerry Emanuel received email threats for his view on climate change. These were quickly and appropriately condemned by the progressive and environmental blogosphere—as they are condemned by me—but I want to go a bit further and contemplate why Emanuel’s views in particular appear so menacing to some elements of the conservative base today.

The answer may seem deceptively simple on the surface: Unlike most climate researchers, Kerry Emanuel describes himself as a long time Republican. And he’s been speaking out lately. The precise catalyst leading to the emails was a video posted by Climate Desk, capturing Emanuel at an event in New Hampshire organized by maverick Republicans who actually accept global warming and don’t like the way their party is headed. They want to turn it around (hey, good luck with that).

So Emanuel is presumably seen as a turncoat by some Republicans and conservatives—and you might just leave it at that. But I think it is deeper. It is the kind of Republicanism that Emanuel represents—merged with his identity as a scientist, and a premiere one at that—that really presents the biggest challenge.

You see, Emanuel is what you might call an “Enlightenment Republican.”

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Has the once-respected professor “gone emeritus”?

Richard Lindzen has long been the “skeptic” community’s scientific poster boy. In a world stuffed with deniers for hire such as S. Fred Singer and Tim Ball, who lecture on the topic of climate change regardless that they bring little or no relevant expertise to the subject, Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT and has served (many years ago) as a lead author on a chapter in the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

But increasingly, his trenchant denial that climate change is a concern is casting him further from the ranks of people who can be taken seriously - particularly as he shows increasing willingness to say things that are simply and demonstrably not true.

Take as an example this recent radio interview, in which Lindzen tells Australian commentator Chris Smith that his country’s effort to tackle climate change by implementing carbon tax is “a bit bizarre.”

Lindzen says a number of silly things (in more detail below), but he flat out lies about the state of polar ice in Greenland and Antarctica saying, “there is no evidence of any significant change.”

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You have to give it to John Boehner when it comes to looking out for his own interests. That would be $188,700 worth of interests in the form of campaign donations from coal, oil and gas lobbyists in 2008. It seems that to keep that K Street cash cow flowing, he’ll say just about anything.

The Democrats have put out a first draft of a plan that addresses energy security and climate change, The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES).

The energy component puts efficiency front and center. Efficiency, as in use less energy to get the same return. Efficiency, as in spend less money on energy because things are running more efficiently. Efficiency, as in let’s invest in a more efficient energy grid and more efficient cars instead of shipping money overseas to the tune of $700 billion a year in oil imports.

Efficiency, is good. Efficiency saves consumers and businesses money. Efficiency creates American jobs. According to a report released by American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, “energy efficiency initiatives that reward consumers and businesses for reducing electricity and gas usage could result in utility bill savings of $168.6 billion.” It could also result in 222,000 permanent, high quality American jobs in construction, manufacturing, and other fields. But John Boehner doesn’t seem to like efficiency. John Boehner would rob Americans of jobs and $168.6 billion. Why? Did I mention the $188,700 he gets from the corner fossil fuel pushers?

And then there’s the renewable energy component of the bill. At a time when coal rates are rising in the U.S.– by 6.9% in Virginia, 45% in Ohio and a whopping 50 – 100% in North Carolina, for example – experts recommend efficiency measures and increasing energy from natural, renewable sources (not nuclear) as the answer. But John Boehner doesn’t want us to move toward renewables, even if they are the answer. He doesn’t want to create American jobs, either – wind and solar are sources not just of clean energy but of good, American jobs. I guess he must have 188,700 reasons for being against that.

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As greenhouse-gas emissions continue to build in the atmosphere, nuclear power is emerging from the shadows in the struggle to curb climate change. More than a decade after a nuclear plant was completed in the U.S., the Bush administration now touts it as a possible solution and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change hasn’t ruled it out. And the U.S.’s leading nuclear research lab is working to render the controversial source a safe alternative to fossil fuels.

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American Electric Power, a major electric utility, is set to announce the largest demonstration yet of capturing carbon dioxide from a coal-fired power plant and pumping it deep underground. Experts consider the approach, known as sequestration, essential to reining in climate change by barring gas from the atmospheric blanket that promotes global warming.