This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

As I listened to Mitt Romney deliver his energy plan for America and read the Republican Party platform, I was struck by parallels to a book about the atrocious medical care given to President James Garfield after he was shot on July 2, 1881.

Garfield would have survived the bullet, but died weeks later from infection after gross medical malpractice. Most American doctors of the time dismissed the "germ theory" pioneered by non-American scientists, such as British doctor Joseph Lister.

The arrogance of American physicians and their disrespect of the work of foreign scientists resulted in their rejection of modern surgical sterile techniques well-established in Europe. It was an early edition of the prejudice of "American exceptionalism," the belief that America was inherently superior, even divinely exalted.

Because they couldn't see them, American doctors ridiculed belief in bacteria, comparing it to the silly, contemporary belief in fairies. Doctors even took pride in their filth, carrying blood, pus, and dirt from one patient to the next. In 1881 American country doctors were still applying hot cow manure to open wounds. Doctors treating Garfield routinely performed surgery without changing their clothes or washing their hands and held instruments in their teeth for convenience.

Much like the Garfield assassination attempt, fossil fuels burned by industrialized civilization have gravely "wounded" the ecosystems necessary for human survival.

Our current response to the "fever" and "infection" spreading through our own habitat is to allow the most ignorant and disingenuous of us to bully the rest of us to inaction. The level of scientific sophistication Romney and congressional Republicans are applying to the task is on a par with Garfield's doctors in 1881. You can't see CO2, therefore it must not be a problem. CO2 is natural, just like bacteria. Therefore, linking it to a climate crisis must be a hoax.

Catastrophic weather events, blistering heat, devastating drought, crop losses, and disappearing water sources have led to a sharp rise in the percentage of Americans who believe that the climate crisis is a serious and growing threat to their well-being. Every day, more scientists, including the few skeptic holdouts of years past, are sounding the alarm. The planetary temperature extremes, droughts and floods are accelerating much faster than predictions of even a few years ago.

Romney's energy plan is a stunning repudiation of every branch of science, economic research, common sense and the aesthetic values shared by us all. Romney even opposes the new Obama auto fuel-efficiency standards set to double the mileage of domestic vehicles.

As strictly a jobs program this plan is a disaster, as if the only jobs that count are jobs in fossil fuels, never mind the economic and job losses from the collateral damage of drilling, spilling, pumping, leaking and burning all those fossil fuels. It's repugnant, as if the doctors in 1881 acknowledged the germ theory but refused to wash their hands because of all the mortician jobs lost by cleaning up.

The embrace of American exceptionalism has only grown since Garfield's time, permeating our culture and politics. American superiority is the flag being waved by Romney in 2012, and the idea that America is not bound by either the laws of nature or conciliation with other nations is in full bloom in his energy plan. Dancing to the tune of his oil-billionaire backers, Romney panders to our basest, most selfish instincts, luring us to utterly surrender our air, water, soil, climate and future to fossil fuels.

Republicans wail that our financial survival demands budget austerity. But our scientists are now warning that our literal survival demands "fossil fuel austerity," the exact opposite of the Romney plan. A balanced budget will offer little refuge on a hostile planet with a suffocating climate.

As with the arrogant and ignorant doctors in 1881, Romney is committing malpractice in the extreme, as primitive, as scientifically offensive, and ultimately as lethal as putting hot cow manure on our open wounds.

Brian Moench is president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment and a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists.