[Senate Hearing 109-1077]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 109-1077
EXAMINING CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE MEDIA
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 6, 2006
__________
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COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma, Chairman
JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia JAMES M. JEFFORDS, Vermont
CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri MAX BAUCUS, Montana
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island BARBARA BOXER, California
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
JOHN THUNE, South Dakota HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York
JIM DeMINT, South Carolina FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia BARACK OBAMA, Illinois
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
Andrew Wheeler, Majority Staff Director
Ken Connolly, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
DECEMBER 6, 2006
OPENING STATEMENTS
Bond, Hon. Christopher S., U.S. Senator from the State of
Missouri....................................................... 15
Boxer, Hon. Barbara, U.S. Senator from the State of California... 10
Inhofe, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma... 1
Jeffords, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont.. 5
Lautenberg, Hon. Frank R., U.S. Senator from the State of New
Jersey......................................................... 13
Voinovich, Hon. George V., U.S. Senator from the State of Ohio... 11
WITNESSES
Carter, R.M., Ph.D., Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook
University, Australia.......................................... 20
Prepared statement........................................... 74
Deming, David, Ph.D., University of Oklahoma, College of Earth
and Energy..................................................... 17
Prepared statement........................................... 54
Gainor, Dan, The Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow, director,
Business & Media Institute..................................... 24
Prepared statement........................................... 85
Oreskes, Naomi, professor, Department of History and Program in
Science Studies, University of California, San Diego........... 22
Prepared statement........................................... 83
Schrag, Daniel, Ph.D., Laboratory for Geochemical Oceanography,
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University. 18
Prepared statement........................................... 66
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Articles:
Ancient Lessons for Our Future Climate, Daniel P. Schrag and
Richard B. Alley........................................... 72
A New York Times-line, Business & Media Institute............ 87
Climate Warming in North America: Analysis of Borehold
Temperatures, David Deming, Science, Vol. 268, June 16,
1995....................................................... 55
Charts:
Carbon Dioxide Concentrations from an Antarctic Ice Core..... 68
Northern Hemisphere Ice Coverage............................. 70
Map, Southeastern U.S. Coastlines and Coastlines if Half of the
Greeland Ice Sheet Melted...................................... 71
Photographs of the Quelccaya Ice Cap Between 1977 and 2002... 69
Report, Fire and Ice, Business & Media Institute................. 88
EXAMINING CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE MEDIA
----------
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2006
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m. in room
406, Senate Dirksen Building, the Hon. James M. Inhofe
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Inhofe, Isakson, Bond, Voinovich, Boxer,
Thune, Jeffords, Lautenberg.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA
Senator Inhofe. The hearing today is the fourth global
warming hearing that I have held as Committee Chairman. This
time, we are going to examine the media's role in presenting
the science of climate change.
I have to say, Senator Boxer, that we had decided to have
this fourth hearing before the Republicans lost the majority on
that fateful Tuesday. So we are going to go ahead and have
this, and I am sure that we will have an opportunity to explore
this much more under your chairmanship.
Poorly conceived policy decisions may result from the
media's over-hyped reporting. Much of the mainstream media has
subverted its role as an objective source of information on
climate change into a role of an advocate. We have seen
examples of this overwhelmingly one-sided reporting by 60
Minutes reporter Scott Pelley, ABC's Bill Blakemore, CNN's
Miles O'Brien, who I believe is here with us today or will be,
Time Magazine, the Associated Press, Reuters, just to name a
few.
There are three types of climate research: first, the hard
science of global warming by climate scientists; second, the
computer modelers; and finally, the researchers who study the
impacts.
Rather than focus on the hard science of global warming,
the media has instead becomes advocates of hyping
scientifically unfounded climate alarmism. I am not the only
one who believes that. Here are just a few examples of
believers. Now these are people who believe, well, first of all
let us clarify what the issue is.
I think all of us know that we are going through cycles,
and we have throughout recorded history where it gets warmer
and gets cooler. We are going through a warmer cycle now, and I
have contended, as many scientists have, that this is due to
natural causes. But if you don't believe that and believe that
it is due to anthropogenic gases or manmade gases or methane or
CO2, then you are in that camp. So, some of the
people who believe that still believe the media is wrong in the
way they have been reporting it.
Mike Hulme, the director of the U.K.-based Tyndall Centre
for Climate Change Research, a group that believes humans are
the driving force behind global warming, chastised the media
and environmentalists last month for choosing to use ``the
language of fear and terror to scare people.''
Hulme noted that he has found himself ``increasingly
chastised by global warming activists because his public
statements have not satisfied the activists' thirst for
environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric.''
Second, a report in August 2006 from the U.K.'s Labor-
Leaning Institute for Public Policy Research also slammed the
media presentation of climate science as--this is what they
said; these are people who are believers in the other side of
this about manmade global warming--``a quasi-religious register
of doom, death, judgment, heaven and hell, using words such as
catastrophe, chaos, and havoc.''
The report also compared the media's coverage of global
warming to ``the unreality of Hollywood films.'' Now these are
the believers we are talking about.
In addition, NBC newsman, Tom Brokaw's one-sided 2006
Discovery Channel, his 1-hour program, a global warming
documentary, was criticized by a Bloomberg News TV review that
noted, ``You will find more dissent,'' referring to the
presentation that was made by Tom Brokaw, ``You will find more
dissent at a North Korean political rally than in this
program.''
The media often fails to distinguish between predictions
and what is actually being observed on the Earth today. We know
from an April 23, 2006 article, in the New York Times by Andrew
Revkin that ``Few scientists agree with the idea that the
recent spate of potential Hurricanes, European heat waves,
African droughts, and other weather extremes are, in essence,
our fault, a result of manmade emission. There is more than
enough natural variability in nature to match the difference.''
Again, we are talking about someone who generally would be on
the other side.
The New York Times is essentially saying no recent weather
events including Hurricane Katrina is because of manmade global
warming, yet most of the media fails to understand this
fundamental point and instead focuses on global warming
computer model projections of futures as if they were proven
fact. This is perhaps the easiest scientific area for the media
to exaggerate and serve as advocates for alarmism. Climate
modelers project all kinds of scary scenarios. This allows the
media to pick and choose which one they want to show and
demonstrate and characterize as being true. Hysteria sells, and
people are out there doing it.
Clearly, we cannot today somehow disprove catastrophic
predictions of our climate in the year 2100, but if the
observations of what is happening today are not consistent with
what global warming models predict should occur, then what we
do know is that our understanding of the globe is incomplete.
The fact is the biosphere is extremely complex, and startling
discoveries happen every year.
This point was driven home earlier this year when the
journal, Nature, reported that trees emit methane. Now this is
something that was brand new. They had not used the fact that
trees emit methane. Methane is a type of anthropogenic gas,
similar to CO2. If this does affect climate, it
would affect climate. Yet, the models didn't even have this.
This is a great discovery. Trees are everywhere, and we didn't
use this as a basic fact about our planet.
Some portions of this committee are focused on alarmism
rather than a responsible path forward on this issue. If your
goal is to limit emissions, whether for traditional pollution
or CO2, the only effective way to go about it is the
use of cleaner, more efficient technologies that will meet the
energy demands of this century and behind.
In the Bush administration, their Asia-Pacific Partnership
is on target for this type of an approach. It stresses the
sharing of new technology among member nations including three
of the world's top 10 emitters who are exempt from Kyoto. We
are talking about China, India, and South Korea. China, by the
end of 2009, will become the world's largest CO2
emitter.
What is disappointing is that the President's program gets
more positive press in other countries than it does here in the
United States.
So the alarmism is not just coming in the media, it is
advancing. They are becoming more desperate because former
supporters of their views are now changing their position.
Former advocates such as David Bellamy, Britain's famed
environmental campaigner, was one of the most vocal back in the
late 1990s on CO2 and manmade gases contributing to
climate change.
David Bellamy and also Claude Allegre, a French
geophysicist and a former Socialist Party leader in France. I
don't know anyone else who has this in their credentials. He is
a member of both the French and the United States Academies of
Science. Allegre now says the cause of warming remains unknown,
and alarmism ``has become a very lucrative business for some
people. In short, their motivation is money.''
I agree with Allegre, probably the only thing that I agree
with him on, that it is money.
[The prepared statement of Senator Inhofe follows:]
Statement of Hon. James M. Inhofe, U.S. Senator from the
State of Oklahoma
Today's hearing is the fourth global warming hearing I have held as
committee chairman. We will examine the media's role in presenting the
science of climate change. Poorly conceived policy decisions may result
from the media's over-hyped reporting. Much of the mainstream media has
subverted its role as an objective source of information on climate
change into the role of an advocate. We have seen examples of this
overwhelmingly one sided reporting by ``60 Minutes'' reporter Scott
Pelley, ABC News's Bill Blakemore, CNN's Miles O'Brien, Time Magazine,
the Associated Press and Reuters, to name just a very few outlets.
There are three types of climate research: first, the hard science
of global warming by climate scientists, second, the computer modelers,
and finally the researchers who study the impacts. Rather than focus on
the hard science of global warming, the media has instead become
advocates for hyping scientifically unfounded climate alarmism--and I'm
not the only one who believes this. Here are just two examples of
believers in man-made global warming who have been critical of the
media.
First, Mike Hulme, the Director of the U.K. based Tyndall Centre
for Climate Change Research--a group that believes humans are the
driving force of global warming--chastised the media and
environmentalists last month for choosing to use the ``language of fear
and terror'' to scare the public. Hulme noted that he has found himself
``increasingly chastised'' by global warming activists because his
pubic statements ``have not satisfied [the activist] thirst for
environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric.''
Second, a report in August 2006 from the UK's Labour-leaning
Institute for Public Policy Research also slammed the media
presentation of climate science as--and I am quoting again here--``a
quasi-religious register of doom, death, judgment, heaven and hell,
using words such as `catastrophe', `chaos' and `havoc.' '' The report
also compared the media's coverage of global warming to ``the unreality
of Hollywood films.''
In addition, former NBC Newsman Tom Brokaw's one sided 2006
Discovery Channel global warming documentary was criticized by a
Bloomberg News TV review that noted ``You'll find more dissent at a
North Korean political rally than in this program'' because of its lack
of scientific objectivity.
The media often fails to distinguish between predictions and what
is actually being observed on the Earth today. We know from an April
23, 2006 article in the New York Times by Andrew Revkin, that ``few
scientists agree with the idea that the recent spate of potent
Hurricanes, European heat waves, African drought and other weather
extremes are, in essence, our fault (a result of manmade emissions.)
There is more than enough natural variability in nature to mask a
direct connection, [scientists] say.''
The New York Times is essentially saying, no recent weather
events--including Hurricane Katrina--is because of manmade global
warming. Yet most of the media fails to understand this fundamental
point and instead focus on global warming computer model projections of
the future as if they were proven fact. This is perhaps the easiest
scientific area for the media to exaggerate and serve as advocates for
alarmism. Climate modelers project all kinds of scary scenarios of the
future and the media then erroneously presents these scenarios as a
scientifically based. But these computer models are not hard science.
Clearly, we cannot today somehow disprove catastrophic predictions
of our climate in the year 2100. But if the observations of what is
happening today are not consistent with what global warming models
predict should occur, than what we do know is that our understanding of
the globe is incomplete. The fact is, the biosphere is extremely
complex and startling discoveries happen every year. This point was
driven home earlier this year when the Journal Nature reported that
trees emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Trees are everywhere, yet
we didn't even know this most basic fact about our planet.
It is unfortunate that so many are focused on alarmism rather than
a responsible path forward on this issue. If your goal is to limit
emissions, whether of traditional pollution or CO2, the only
effective way to go about it is the use of cleaner, more efficient
technologies that will meet the energy demands of this century and
beyond.
The Bush administration's Asia-Pacific Partnership is the right
type of approach--it stresses the sharing of new technology among
member nations including three of the world's top 10 emitters who are
exempt from Kyoto--India, South Korea, and China, which in 2009 will
become the world's largest CO2 emitter. What is
disappointing is that the President's program gets more positive press
in other countries than it does here.
So the alarmism not just continuing in the media, it's advancing.
They are becoming more desperate because former supporters of their
views are now changing their position. Former advocates such as David
Bellamy, Britain's famed environmental campaigner, and Claude Allegre,
a French geophysicist and former Socialist Party Leader who is a member
of both the French and U.S. Academies of Science. Allegre now says the
cause of warming remains unknown and the alarmism ``has become a very
lucrative business for some people.'' In short, their motivation is
money. And he's right . . . its about money.
Senator Inhofe. Senator Jeffords, what we did was recess
the business meeting, at which time as soon as we have 10
people here, we will go back in it for our three nominations.
In the meantime, we have started this. We now have one, two,
three, four, five, six, seven. We have seven members.
If you would like to be recognized now for your opening
statement, feel free to do so.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Inhofe. Let me say this before you do. I liked you
equally when you were Republican as when you caucused with the
Democrats. In the years we served together in the House and in
the Senate and your chairmanship of this committee when I was
the Ranking Member, then my chairmanship when you are the
Ranking Member, equally enjoyable, and while we differ in our
philosophies and our views, you have always been fair. You have
been a good personal friend. I just appreciate so much the
service that you have rendered to your State and to the country
in both the House and the Senate.
Senator Jeffords. Well, thank you for those very kind
words, Mr. Chairman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. JEFFORDS, U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF VERMONT
I am going home. As my friend, Robert Frost, once said,
``Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have
to take you in.''
[Laughter.]
Senator Jeffords. My farm is on the west side of Killington
Peak in the small village of Shrewsbury, VT. The snow comes
early there. I filled the woodshed for the winter already. My
snowshoes are hanging on the hook in the shed. Hopefully, I
will get to see the birches covered in snow next week. I miss
my farm.
Before we part ways, I would like to recognize a few
people. Mr. Chairman, I thoroughly enjoyed working with you.
Incredibly, when we disagree, it has always been in good spirit
and our bond of friendship has carried us through these 5
years. You have been so kind to me in so many ways. Thank you.
You have a wonderful staff.
I have many friends on both sides of the dais. I wish you
all well. This is one of the best committees in Congress. I
hope the years ahead are as productive as I think they have
been.
I am happy now to know that Vermont will continue to be
represented on this wonderful committee. Senator Sanders will
easily fill the shoes of former Chairman Bob Stafford and me.
All of Vermont is proud to have him in the Senate.
I have been blessed to have an excellent staff serving me
through the years here on the committee. I can't list them all,
but there are a few here today. When I mention your names, will
you please stand up and wave your hand?
We already miss a few staff that have moved on including
Alison Taylor, Geoff Brown, and Malcolm Woolf.
Caroline Ahearn, David Sandretti, Nicole Parisi-Smith,
Amanda Fox, Rachel Winnik, and Eric Thu have served me
exceptionally well.
Carolyn Dupree, who came with me from the HELP Committee,
has been so committed to EPW and to me. She is one of the great
ones.
Jo-Ellen Darcy, Catharine Ransom, Margaret Wetherald, Chris
Miller, Michael Goo, Mary Frances Repko, and J.C. Sandberg have
all had legendary careers to date in the Senate, and I hope
they continue.
Cara Cookson from Cabot, VT, has served her home State with
great honor.
Diane Derby, another great Vermonter, has been an
outstanding spokesperson and advisor to me for many years. She
handled committee communications and my own press and was able
to make this plain-spoken Senator sound august and intelligent.
My hat is off to you, Diane.
Bill Kurtz, my Chief of Staff, my friend, my golf
companion, is simply one of the greatest people that has ever
served me and the State of Vermont.
Finally, I would like to thank my old pal, Ken Connolly.
[Applause.]
Senator Jeffords. Since 1993, he has been with me, and we
have had some amazing times together. When Ken started with me
those many years ago, he was single. He didn't have three
children, and he didn't have any gray hair. I think we can only
blame the Senate for the gray hair, not me. Ken helped me put
together the greatest EPW staff of all time, and I thank him
for that.
As for the topic at hand, global warming, I can only say
that I am sorry I was not able to do more to change the minds
of the skeptics that remain in our Nation. The climate is
warming. It is due to human activity, and only a change in
human behavior will ensure that my grandson, Patton Henry
Jeffords, will not suffer the consequences.
As I rise from this chair, I do so knowing that its future
occupant is a strong and courageous leader.
I salute you, Senator Boxer, for your tireless effort to
improve the lot of mankind. I will be watching from my quiet
mountain retreat and praying that under your leadership, the
committee will continue to be as great tomorrow as it has been
in the past.
In parting, I would like to cite one of Robert Frost's
refrains, my favorite man:
``Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the
village, though. He will not see me stopping here to watch his
woods fill up with snow.
``The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises
to keep. And miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before
I sleep.''
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Applause.]
[The prepared statement of Senator Jeffords follows:]
Statement of Hon. James M. Jeffords, U.S. Senator from the
State of Vermont
Mr. Chairman, I'm going home. As my friend Robert Frost
once said, ``Home is the place where, when you have to go
there, they have to take you in.''
My home is on the west side of Killington Peak in the small
village of Shrewsbury, Vermont. The snow comes early there.
I've filled the woodshed for the winter. My snowshoes hang on
the hook in the shed. Hopefully I'll get out to see the birches
covered in snow next week. I miss my home.
Before we part ways, I'd like to recognize a few people.
Mr. Chairman, I've thoroughly enjoyed working with you.
When we disagree, it's always been in good spirit, and our bond
of friendship has carried us through these 5 years. You've been
so kind to me in so many ways. Thank you. You have wonderful
staff.
I have many friends on both sides of this dais. I wish you
all well. This is one of the best committees in Congress. I
hope the years ahead are productive.
I am happy to know that Vermont will continue to be
represented on this wonderful committee. Senator-elect Sanders
will easily fill the shoes of former Chairman Bob Stafford and
me. All of Vermont is proud to have him in the Senate.
I've been blessed to have an excellent staff serving me
through the years here on the committee. I can't list them all,
but there are a few here today, and as I mention your name
please stand up or wave your hand.
We already miss a few staff members who have moved on,
including Alison Taylor, Geoff Brown, Erik Smulson and Malcolm
Woolf.
We have Caroline Ahearn, David Sandretti, Nicole Parisi-
Smith, Amanda Fox, Rachel Winnik and Eric Thu, who have served
me exceptionally well. Carolyn Dupree, who came with me from
the HELP Committee, has been so committed to EPW and to me,
she's one of the great ones. Jo-Ellen Darcy, Catharine Ransom,
Margaret Wetherald, Chris Miller, Michael Goo, Mary Francis
Repko, J.C. Sandberg have all had legendary careers to date in
the Senate, and I hope they continue. Cara Cookson, from Cabot,
Vermont, has served her home State with great honor. And Diane
Derby, another great Vermonter, has been an outstanding
spokesperson and advisor to me for many years. She handled
committee communications and my own press and was able to make
this plain-spoken Senator sound august and intelligent. My
hat's off to you, Diane.
Bill Kurtz, my Chief of Staff, my friend, my golf
companion, is simply one of the greatest people ever to serve
me and the State of Vermont.
Finally, I'd like to thank my old pal, Ken Connolly. Since
1993, he's been with me, and we've had some amazing times
together. When Ken started with me those many years ago he was
single, he didn't have three children and he didn't have gray
hair. I think we can only blame the Senate for the graying
hair. Ken helped me put together the greatest EPW staff of all
time, and I thank him for that.
As for the topic at hand, global warming, I can only say
that I am sorry that I was not able to do more to change the
minds of the few skeptics that remain in our Nation. The
climate is warming, it is due to human activity, and only a
change in human behavior will ensure that my grandson, Patton
Henry Jeffords, will not suffer the consequences.
As I rise from this chair, I do so knowing that its future
occupant is a strong and courageous leader. I salute you,
Senator Boxer, for your tireless efforts to improve the lot of
humankind. I will be watching from my quiet mountain retreat,
and praying that under your leadership this committee will
continue to be as great tomorrow as it has been in the past.
In parting, I would like to cite one last Robert Frost
refrain:
``Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep.''
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Jeffords. That was
beautiful.
When you were introducing your staff, it occurred to me
that so many people and probably the vast majority of the
people in this room don't realize how close we have been with
our staffs and how often we are in agreement. We went through
the Transportation Reauthorization Bill, a really long and
arduous thing, and the Water Bill which we unfortunately are
losing now. It is not due to this committee. We worked
together. Senator Boxer and Senator Jeffords and all of us on
this side worked tirelessly and tried to get it done, and our
staffs worked closely together.
I just hope people realize that while we do have some
subjects where we disagree, we have many more where we were in
total agreement during the years that we served together.
Senator Boxer. Mr. Chairman?
Senator Inhofe. Yes, Senator Boxer.
Senator Boxer. Can I have a point of personal privilege
just for a moment to respond to our friend's comments?
Senator Inhofe. Of course.
Senator Boxer. First of all, how touched we are with what
you said. I totally appreciate the fact that you mentioned how
wonderful our Chairman has been to you. He is a good man. I
think we have proven the fact that we don't have to agree on
everything in order to get along and to respect each other and
to work together. I think our Chairman pointed out actually
there are some issues in which we can work really closely, and
we will do that.
I just want to say you have set the tone for me. I really
have two goals for this committee, and I know you share them so
I am going to say what they are. One is to protect the health
of our families, our children, and the planet. The other is to
bring bipartisanship back to this committee in a way that we
really, truly reach out to each other because I know we can
find common ground. I know that I have found that common ground
with the Chairman. I have found that common ground with Senator
Thune on certain issues. No one expected we could team up, and
we did, and we will find it with others.
I know the members on our side, many new members who are
coming, are very excited about the traditions of this committee
and to really get things done for the people. We are so lucky
with the portfolio that we have. In many ways, yes, some
contentious things, but there are a lot of things that we need
to do to keep on growing in this country, and the public works
side of it certainly enables us to make a contribution.
But Senator Jeffords, you are loved; you are beloved. Your
staff has served you magnificently, and it has been my
privilege to work with them and with you. I will never forget
our friendship and your courage and your dedication.
Thank you.
Senator Inhofe. Just a moment, Senator Isakson, did you
have any comments to make along this line before we go to
Senator Lautenberg?
Senator Isakson. With regard to our distinguished colleague
from Vermont, I do have a comment. I think John and I are the
two, I won't say youngest but we are certainly the two newest
members of the Senate on this committee. I had the privilege of
being elected with John in 2004, and I had the privilege of
meeting and getting to know Senator Jeffords.
I just want to take this occasion to thank him for the many
kindnesses he extended to me as a new member of the Senate,
thank him for that which I have learned from him, and remind
him that Frost wrote a lot of great poems. One of my favorite
lines from Frost's work is ``Two roads diverged in a yellow
wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made
all the difference.''
If there is anybody on this committee who is emblematic of
taking a different road and making a difference, it certainly
is you, and I commend you on your contribution to the
committee, your contribution to the Senate, and I wish you a
lot of luck in those snowshoes and fireplaces in Vermont.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Isakson.
Senator Lautenberg.
Senator Lautenberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have a special feeling for Vermont and Vermonters since I
have owned a little place up there since 1968. My kids and I
love the mountains, the Green Mountains, and the people who
inhabit them. They are a particular breed, and they are not
unlike the actual character of Vermont: hardy, tough,
beautiful, attractive.
Jim Jeffords comes with a line of distinguished Senators
who have served here from Vermont on this committee. Bob
Stafford and I were good friends. The fact that we are going to
be having Senator Sanders with us, that gives me some
encouragement that the Vermont influence will not diminish
here, and I look at Pat Leahy. The Vermonters have a way of
being direct without being offensive.
Fairness has always been a cornerstone of Senator Jeffords'
being. We are good pals. We are going to miss the heck out of
you. But Jim, if I come up to Vermont, it is not snowshoes; I
still like skiing. I hope that we will be able to cross paths
along the way. God bless and thank you for the wonderful
service you have given to this committee and this country.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Lautenberg.
Senator Voinovich.
Senator Voinovich. I echo the comments of your other
colleagues, Jim. You and I have been working together for 8
years. This is my 8th year on the committee. I must say that
even though we have had some major differences of opinion, our
relationship has been on the highest level, and I want you to
know that I respect you for your integrity and for your
advocacy on those things that you really believe in and feel
are important to your State and to our country.
I think that one of the things that impresses me with this
body is that we have people like you who speak from the heart
and really care about making a difference. I want you to know
that we are going to miss your presence on this committee. I
hope you enjoy your retirement and as you look in on this
committee's work this year, that you not become too frustrated.
Thank you so much for everything you have done for your
State and for our country and for your friendship with me.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Voinovich.
Senator Thune.
Senator Thune. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I too want to express my appreciation to Senator Jeffords
for his service.
You wouldn't remember this, but I do. In 1988, I and
somebody I was working for, we went to Vermont and campaigned
for your election to the Senate back then. I am not a collector
of such things, but I was going through some stuff the other
day, and I actually have a Jeffords pin or button I think from
that 1988 campaign. In any event, that was a long time ago, and
I have only been here a couple of years.
Like Johnny, I appreciate very much your kindness. I think
that is something that there just isn't enough of around here.
I appreciate the fact that you have always been a gentleman and
also that you are a principled individual. That is something
too that is important to me. I think people in public life want
to accomplish certain things, and I think you can do it in a
way, a principled way but do it with an element of kindness
too. I think those are two qualities that you have really
embodied in your service here.
So thank you, and I congratulate you. As you retire and go
off and do hopefully more fun and pleasant things than battling
some of the issues we battle around here, I wish you well.
Thank you.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Thune.
As I had said earlier, we have recessed our business
meeting. We will go back to it as soon as we get 10 people in
here to make a quorum.
The nominees are not going to be here, but we have
announced who they are. But on the witnesses that are here
today, we are going to welcome them and enjoy their opening
statements.
Prior to that, I would ask if there are other members who
want to make a statement in conjunction with the subject of the
hearing today.
Senator Boxer.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BARBARA BOXER, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Senator Boxer. Mr. Chairman, I am glad we are holding a
hearing on global warming today. As you alluded to, next year
this committee will continue to examine how to contain global
warming. We have a big job since out of the 56 biggest emitters
of carbon dioxide, American is now No. 1. We are 53d out of the
56 nations in our efforts to contain global warming. So we have
a lot of work to do.
I would like to raise a concern that I have about the focus
on the media this morning. The free expression of the media is
a deeply held valued in this country, and the one thing I would
hope we don't want to do is to chill the free expression of the
media. I have a concern about focusing a full Senate Committee
hearing on whether we agree with the vast spectrum of media
outlets when it comes to the presentation of global warming
issues. In a free society in what is the greatest democracy in
the world, I don't believe it is proper to put pressure on the
media to please a particular Senate Committee view, one way or
the other.
It is clear that the dissenting views on global warming get
plenty of attention in the media, and we have a witness today
who will speak to that issue. At the same time, there is a
consensus view of scientists, and that view is that global
warming is happening and human activities are making a
significant contribution. The Bush administration itself says
that.
Now there is a serious risk to the world. It is not just
the consensus view among leading scientists including 11
National Academies of Science throughout the world including
our own; it is a wide consensus view. For example, let us look
at the business community.
Lord Brown, CEO of British Petroleum, has said of global
warming, ``Companies composed of highly skilled and trained
people can't live in denial of mounting evidence gathered by
hundreds of the most reputable scientists in the world.''
Let us look at the CEO of Wal-Mart, Lee Scott, who just
said this year, ``Global warming is real now, and it must be
addressed.''
JPMorgan Chase, the fourth largest banking company in the
world, has a policy that states, ``JPMorgan Chase advocates the
reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.''
There is even a Pentagon report that says climate change
should ``be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a national
security concern.'' That is our Pentagon.
And so, I think if you look at both what is being said in
the media as well as the broad spectrum of voices on this
issue, it seems more than clear that global warming is a
serious concern. A consensus has developed that we need to act.
My other sadness with this hearing is again we are arguing
over who believes what rather than moving toward solving the
problem. What we need to do next is focus our attention on how
we can fight this serious threat. I believe that fighting
global warming will have many benefits to our society beyond
addressing the media issue. We discussed this a little bit at
one of our other hearings, Mr. Chairman.
The new technologies we are developing will produce jobs.
The alternative fuels we are developing burn cleaner and will
aid us with the critical goal of energy independence. Avoiding
the dislocation that could be caused by global warming induced
floods and other disasters will lead us to a more stable world.
I have great faith in this country, and though we have been
slow to address the threat, I am convinced, convinced that we
can do what it takes to change course and protect the future
for our children and our grandchildren.
Mr. Chairman, this certainly is not going to be the last
word, what we do today, but I am glad we are having this
hearing because I think it gives us a chance to tell our
constituents where we each stand on this question. Through a
series of hearings, we are going to call forward people from
both sides of the issue. We are going to call on other
Senators, Senators in this committee. We are going to call on
business leaders. We are going to call on faith-based
organizations, many of whom have contacted us and want to work
with us, faith-based organizations who believe we have to
protect God's planet.
So I think this issue is going to take on, in many ways, a
life of its own, and I only hope and I do pray that enough of
us on this committee will be able to work together to reach
some consensus on beginning to contain global warming.
Thank you.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Boxer, for that
excellent statement.
On this side, any opening statements, Senator Isakson?
Senator Voinovich?
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, U.S. SENATOR
FROM THE STATE OF OHIO
Senator Voinovich. Mr. Chairman, I have been a member of
this committee, as I mentioned in my remarks with regard to
Senator Jeffords, for 8 years, and I have had a chance to
participate in numerous climate change hearings in this
committee as well as the Governmental Affairs Committee. When
Senator Lieberman was Chairman of that committee, he took that
committee and had hearings on global warming and climate
change. I have heard vigorous debate on both sides of the
issue.
Unfortunately, the media and those involved politically in
this issue have raised the rhetoric to such a point that it is
difficult for consensus. Far too often, we talk past each other
because it doesn't promote or defend a certain agenda and any
other point of view that is not orthodox is moot or, worse,
unworthy to be heard.
I remember, Mr. Chairman, when we had Michael Crichton here
testifying, who wrote the book, State of Fear, and Mr. Crichton
discussed the issue of the media's impact on this whole climate
change issue. I asked him the question. You remember we had
lunch with him afterward, and I said: Are they going to make a
movie? Some of his books have been made movies.
He said: You have got be kidding me. There is no way they
will make a movie on State of Fear because the perspective that
I outline in this book about the media's influence doesn't fit
in with what most people in Hollywood think the issue is about.
That is a good example, I think, of how the media does
impact upon this.
Then I remember when I first came here, Bjorn Lomborg who
is from Denmark, who is a great environmentalist, and who
studied Kyoto and came back and said that with the costs
involved and the result that we would get from it, really if
you look at the money spent on that, you could do far more with
the money in terms of bringing potable water to African nations
and health and education.
There is no question that the media has had some impact on
what we are doing. The reality is that not all climate change
skeptics are denialists or ideologues, and those in the
environmental movement are not all alarmists. We can learn a
lot and achieve more if we listen a little more to each other,
and I suspect that is what Americans believe and what they
expect us to work together on in terms of this issue.
I think one of the things, Senator Boxer, that has bothered
me a bit about this committee is that so often we get together
and we discuss some of these issues and because of special
interest groups on both sides, because of media interest, we
don't listen to each other. I happen to believe that there is a
problem, that we have to deal with climate change, OK. The
issue is how do we go about dealing with the issue.
I think we also have to become well aware of the fact that
what we do also is going to be impacted dramatically by the
developing countries. For example, we know that China is
building a new coal-fired plant every week, every single week,
and many of them lack modern pollution control devices. We are
talking about energy for cities like the size of Dallas.
Researchers say, for example, that our Great Lakes that I am
very interested in, 20 percent of the mercury now is coming
from China.
So this is a worldwide problem. I think any time we deal
with it, we have to realize that we have a role to play, but we
also must recognize that others have a role to play and the
more we can engage them in this debate, the better off we are
going to be and the better off the world is going to be.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Voinovich.
Senator Lautenberg did you have any comments?
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, U.S. SENATOR
FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Senator Lautenberg. Disappointingly, I may have some
comments. Mr. Chairman, I want to start off by putting away the
gloves. I am not going to lock the cabinet, but the fact of the
matter is we just had one of those moments in the U.S. Senate
when our hearts take a lead in our views. I am talking about
someone as noble as Jim Jeffords is and how wonderful it is as
he leaves this place that we all detail our feelings about how
nice it is to work with someone who has such balance.
I don't think the people who are new to come here were
elected to cross the bipartisan divide but rather they are here
to accomplish something, and we have to get on with that. We
have to be frank with one another.
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for providing us an
opportunity today to prove to the American people or at least
inform the American people that we don't think that global
warming is really a hoax, that it is real, that is out there in
front of us. To ignore it and to dismiss it as a bad joke
doesn't, in my view, do the public any good and certainly does
not speak well in my view of the Senate or those who are
advocating push it away and maybe we will be lucky and it won't
come back.
I think everybody knows that I look at the world through my
grandchildren's eyes and think about what I would like to see
for the future.
But for the last 6 years, the way the Administration has
behaved toward the environment I think has negatively affected
our world. We just heard from our distinguished friend from
Ohio that this is a worldwide problem and that we are concerned
now about China building all these plants and disregarding good
environmental control. America is purportedly the leader in the
world, so it is not for us to point our fingers at other
countries and say they are going to do terrible things to the
environment unless we lead the way, unless we convey a message
that we really are concerned about the environment and it means
something to us.
Joined by Exxon, American Petroleum Institute, and others,
there has been a misleading of the American people about the
threats that global warming poses to our communities and our
countries and the continents. The reason people are making
movies and writing books focusing on the environment is because
major changes in our environment like global warming are
happening, and the evidence is so clear in front of us. Think
about it.
We have all seen pictures of the polar bears. The mighty
polar bears are now reduced to ragged herds, searching,
foraging for food. Their environment is being less hospitable
to them, and they are out there searching for ways to stay
alive. I don't know whether anybody has not ever seen a picture
of a polar bear, but I have seen them up there, alive and
powerful. Now to see them looking like almost enlarged alley
cats is pathetic. Global warming is melting our glaciers,
leading to record temperatures, changing our weather, changing
the conditions of our oceans. For heavens sake, what does it
take to say there is something amiss out there?
The oil companies and the other polluters have borrowed a
page from the tobacco industry's playbook: create fake science
in order to undermine real science.
But it is time to focus on, if I may borrow the words, an
inconvenient truth. Global warming is real. It is caused by
man; entirely, perhaps not but significantly, of course.
The Bush administration has spent 6 years avoiding any real
action. The Administration has declined to put mandatory caps
on carbon emission and opposed the significant improvement of
cap and trade standards. They refuse to let California set
tailpipe emissions on carbon dioxide for their cars. In the
past year alone, politicians, not scientists, have kept NOAA
and NASA experts from discussing and releasing their work on
global warming. Now when scientists can't tell the public what
they have learned, then we will have to rely on the media to
uncover the truth.
I plead with those in the media: Speak up for heavens sake.
Call it; say it like it is. That is the power of your
profession.
The power of science is that it is beholden to no one. It
is not Democrat, Republican, or Independent. I am hopeful with
a change here and the chairs are going to shift. I have great
respect for our Chairman, and I have also, as some might have
noticed, some great differences, occasional differences. But
the fact of the matter is there is mutual respect because I
know that Senator Inhofe ultimately has the same issues in mind
as I have, and that is to make our Nation a healthier place,
but we see it through different colored glasses. What I want to
do and hope that we can is really reduce the threat that global
warming brings to my grandchildren, to your grandchildren, and
to your grandchildren, so the future generations can look at
what we have done to contribute to their well-being and not to
destroy reality.
[The prepared statement of Senator Lautenberg follows:]
Statement of Hon. Frank R. Lautenberg, U.S. Senator from the
State of New Jersey
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to first thank Senator Jeffords for his service to Vermont
and to our nation. He has worked for safer, smarter transportation,
better health care options, and to protect our environment. He has
served with distinction. He will be missed in this Committee and the
Senate.
Mr. Chairman, now I want to thank you for providing us an
opportunity today to prove to you that global warming is not a hoax--it
is real. I saw a movie recently called Hoot. It's a story about a boy
and his friends who save a group of owls from losing their habitat. I
liked Hoot because it tells the truth: the way we behave affects the
world. For the last six years, the way the Bush administration has
behaved towards the environment has negatively affected our world.
Joined by Exxon, the American Petroleum Institute, and others, the
administration has misled Americans about the threats global warming
poses to our communities, our country, and the continents.
The reason people are making movies and writing books focusing on
the environment is because major changes in our environment--like
global warming--are happening, and people want to know the truth. The
truth is that global warming is no hoax. There is no conspiracy. What
you hear, what you read, what you see, is reality. Global warming is
melting our glaciers, leading to record temperatures, changing our
weather, and changing the conditions of our oceans. The oil companies
and other polluters have borrowed a page from the tobacco industry's
playbook: creating fake science in order to undermine real science.
But it's time to focus on an inconvenient truth: global warming is
real, caused by man, and the Bush administration has spent six years
avoiding real action. The administration has declined to put mandatory
caps on carbon emissions, opposed a significant improvement of CAFE
standards, and refused to let California set tailpipe emissions
standards on carbon dioxide for their cards. In the past year alone,
politicians--not scientists--have kept NOAA's and NASA's experts from
discussing and releasing their work on global warming. And when
scientists can't tell the public what they've learned, then we will
have to rely on the media to uncover the truth.
The power of science is that it's beholden to no one: it is not
Democratic or Republican. I am hopeful that, in the aftermath of
November's elections, and with a new Congress, America's scientists
will be able to tell their own story--and we can use their expert
advice and help to reduce global warming.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Lautenberg. I would now
ask that the statements of Senators Thune and Bond be included
in the record.
[The prepared statement of Senator Thune was not available
at time of print.]
[The prepared statement of Senator Bond follows:]
Statement of Senator Christopher S. Bond, U.S. Senator from the
State of Missouri
Thank you Mr. Chairman for holding this hearing on climate change
and the media. Certainly, we have heard, and will hear more today,
examples of the media's focus on climate change advocates.
What I want to focus on is what the media is not covering, what the
media needs to cover and what this committee needs to focus upon if it
is serious about considering climate change strategies. That is the
human toll current climate change fighting strategies will impose on
people, on families, and on workers.
We cannot, I cannot, and I will fight, fighting climate change on
the backs of the poor. The weak, the infirm, the vulnerable, are all in
the crosshairs of proposals put forward by climate change advocates.
Proposals that cap, ration or tax carbon energy and its waste will
raise the cost of our most basic needs--heating, cooling, lighting--
that no family, rich or poor, can do without. However, it will be the
poor that will suffer most when heating bills go up in the winter.
Fixed income seniors will suffer most when air conditioning bills go up
in the summer. Families, especially blue-collar, middle class families
will suffer most when their bread-winner loses their job.
These are the untold stories, the unreported stories that I
challenge the media, and now the committee, to tell. Maybe we should
not be surprised that the press is not talking about how current
climate change proposals will hurt everyday people, because advocates
surely are not talking about it.
``An Inconvenient Truth'' runs about 95 minutes. In it you will
find about an hour and 20 minutes on global warming and its
environmental impacts, 10 minutes of what to do about global warming
and about 5 minutes on how much those proposals might cost. Nothing on
forcing low-income families to choose between heat and eat.
Read the book ``Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and
Climate Change'' and you'll get chapters on the Golden Toad and the
Mountain Ringlet Butterfly. It bills itself as ``the most important
book about life on Earth in over forty years.'' But it provides no
advice to fixed-income seniors forced to chose between prescription
drug medicine and air conditioning their homes in the Summer.
The book ``The Weather Makers: How Man is Changing the Climate and
What it Means for Life on Earth'' does devote 30 of its 300 pages to
solutions. But advice on walking, biking and hybrids will hardly meet
the needs of blue-collar Midwestern manufacturing workers put out of
work by higher energy costs.
It is no surprise that advocates do not want to talk about the
severe human toll of their current proposals.
The ``Economist'' estimates the costs of adequate emissions
controls at 1 to 5 percent of global GDP. That works out to between
$440 billion and $2.2 trillion. Assuming America's fair at 25 percent
would cost us $100 to $500 billion per year.
And who will pay that $100 to $500 billion? You and me and everyone
less fortunate than us because every electric utility, every car maker,
every maker of a product we can't do without will pass that cost right
on to us. We might as well be raising the cost of milk, diapers and
prescription drugs.
Do not tell me the costs are bearable because the average cost per
family is low. Some groups will say that current proposals are
affordable at only $100 per family per year. Of course, they do not say
that no one will pay $100--that some will pay less and some will pay a
whole lot more.
They cannot tell us whether these nationwide cost figures will
impose unbearable disproportionate regional harm--how they may spare
the natural gas burning Northeast and West Coast but hit hard the coal
burning Midwest.
They cannot tell us whether their plans will impose
disproportionate harm on certain blue-collar workers--how they may
spare California high-tech and New York finance but will hit hard
middle-class workers dependent on power from coal and natural gas,
manufacturing, chemical, fertilizer and automotive jobs.
If this committee wants to get past the rhetoric and seriously
consider climate change fighting proposals, it must come up with these
answers--we must debate these issues.
We need to know what regions of the country, what States, what
cities will be affected by proposals. What sectors of the economy, what
types of jobs, their locations, who holds them and who will lose them?
What types of workers, blue collar, union, are most at risk? What types
of people, families, young, old, struggling, will face burdens too
high?
General legislation that leaves the details and dirty work to
others, like those recently passed at the State level, that abdicate
these questions, abdicate our responsibility to pass judgment on these
issues, are unacceptable. We have a responsibility to those we may hurt
to know more, consider more, and do more.
Some have said that they want to make this committee an environment
committee, not an anti-environment committee. We must be an environment
committee, but we cannot be an anti-poor committee, an anti-blue collar
committee, an anti-family committee. Then we will be able to see if we
can work together.
Thank you.
Senator Inhofe. We will ask the witnesses to please come to
the table. We have Dr. David Deming from the University of
Oklahoma, College of Earth and Energy; Dr. Daniel Schrag,
Laboratory of Geochemical Oceanography, Department of Earth and
Planetary Sciences, Harvard University; Dr. R.M. Carter, Marine
Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Australia; Dr.
Naomi Oreskes, director of Science Studies Program, University
of California at San Diego and professor, Department of History
and Program in Science Studies; and Dan Gainor, The Boone
Pickens Free Market Fellow and director, Business & Media
Institute.
It is not the purpose of this meeting and while I
appreciate very much the comments that are being made, I do
have documentation that I would be glad to share with anyone
after the meeting on the plight of the polar bears--they are
doing quite well--also a long list of scientists who certainly
agree on the point that we are going through a warming cycle,
but it is not related to manmade emissions.
What I would like to ask you to do, the five panelist
members, since we took a little longer on opening is to each
one try to confine your remarks to 5 minutes. Your entire
statement will be made a part of the record.
I think particularly we might give a little bit longer to
Dr. Carter. He came all the way from Australia for this
meeting. So we appreciate that very, very much, Dr. Carter.
At any time that we happen to have 10 members here, we will
go back to our meeting.
Senator Boxer, I don't think that is going to happen,
judging from who isn't here right now. So let me just announce
that after the first vote today, we will go to the President's
room and have our business meeting at that time if we don't
have 10 here, if that is all right.
We will start with you, Dr. Deming, and thank you for being
here from the great University of Oklahoma.
STATEMENT OF DAVID DEMING, Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA,
COLLEGE OF EARTH AND ENERGY
Mr. Deming. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, and
distinguished guests, thank you for inviting me to testify
today.
I am a geologist and geophysicist. I have a Bachelor's
Degree in geology from Indiana University and a Ph.D. in
geophysics from the University of Utah. My field of
specialization in geophysics is temperature and heat flow. In
recent years, I have turned my studies to the history and
philosophy of science.
In 1995, I published a short paper in the academic journal,
Science. In that study, I reviewed how borehole temperature
data recorded a warming of about 1 C in North America over the
last 100 to 150 years. The week the article appeared, I was
contacted by a reporter for National Public Radio. He offered
to interview me but only if I would state that warming was due
to human activity. When I refused to do so, he hung up on me.
I had another interesting experience around the time my
paper in Science was published. I received an astonishing e-
mail from a major researcher in the area of climate change. He
said, ``We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.''
The Medieval Warm Period was a time of unusually warm
weather that began around 1000 A.D. and persisted until a cold
period known as the Little Ice Age took hold in the 14th
Century. Warmer climate brought a remarkable flowering of
prosperity, knowledge, and art to Europe during the high Middle
Ages. The existence of the Medieval Warm Period had been
recognized in the scientific literature for decades, but now it
was a major embarrassment to those maintaining that the 20th
Century warming was truly anomalist. It had to ``be gotten rid
of.''
In 1769, Joseph Priestley warned that scientists overly
attached to a favored hypothesis would not hesitate to ``warp
the whole course of nature.'' In 1999, Michael Mann and his
colleagues published a reconstruction of past temperature in
which the Medieval Warm Period simply vanished. This unique
estimate became known as the hockey stick because of the shape
of the temperature graph.
Normally in science when you have a novel result that
appears to overturn previous work, you have to demonstrate why
the earlier work was wrong, but the work of Mann and his
colleagues was initially accepted uncritically even though it
contradicted the results of more than 100 previous studies.
Other researchers have since reaffirmed that the Medieval Warm
Period was both warm and global in its extent.
There is an overwhelming bias today in the media regarding
the issue of global warming. In the past 2 years, this bias has
bloomed into an irrational hysteria. Every natural disaster
that occurs is now linked with global warming no matter how
tenuous or impossible the connection. As a result, the public
has become vastly misinformed on this and other environmental
issues.
Earth's climate system is complex and poorly understood,
but we do know that throughout human history, warmer
temperatures have been associated with more stable climates and
increased human health and prosperity. Colder temperatures have
been correlated with climatic instability, famine, and
increased human mortality.
The amount of climatic warming that has taken place in the
past 150 years is poorly constrained and its cause, human or
natural, is unknown. There is no sound scientific basis for
predicting future climate change with any degree of certainty.
If the climate does warm, it is likely to be beneficial to
humanity rather than harmful. In my opinion, it would be
foolish to establish national energy policy on the basis of
misinformation and irrational hysteria.
Thank you.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dr. Deming.
Dr. Schrag.
STATEMENT OF DANIEL SCHRAG, Ph.D., LABORATORY FOR GEOCHEMICAL
OCEANOGRAPHY, DEPARTMENT OF EARTH AND PLANETARY SCIENCES,
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Mr. Schrag. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all
the Senators for hearing us today. I am going to depart from my
written comments and just speak from them more generally.
First of all, let me say that I think one of the problems
with media coverage of climate change is that it is being
covered in a very political era where the issue has become
quite divided across partisan lines. I think that is very
unfortunate. This is really a bipartisan issue. Moreover, I
think science reporters are often very concerned about making
sure that both sides are discussed as opposed to framing the
issue.
I see the issue quite differently. I am an earth scientist
who studies the history of the climate on all time scales and
also modern climate dynamics. Let me just start a little bit
with the way I think this issue should be discussed. I attached
some figures that I am going to refer to in these comments.
Let me start with some observations about the climate
system, about the atmosphere that are absolutely
incontrovertible. There is no serious objection to them at all
even by the serious scientific skeptics. Carbon dioxide levels
today are the highest they have been for at least the last
650,000 years and that is by direct observation from measuring
gas bubbles in ice cores. We can't go further back than that
because that is the oldest ice core we have. But indirectly by
measuring chemistry of the ocean which tells us something about
the ph and therefore the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we
can say that levels that we are seeing today and levels that we
will see this century are higher than they have been for tens
of millions of years.
If you look at the Figure 1 that I have attached, you will
see this represented where today and relative to the last
650,000 years, the carbon dioxide concentration is far above
anything we have ever seen. That is everybody in this room
today is seeing an atmosphere unlike any human being ever in
the history of the world.
Now the question in front of us is: What is that going to
do? We know that this carbon dioxide rises due to burning of
fossil fuel primarily with some contribution from deforestation
as well. The good news is that the Earth is actually cushioning
us a little bit. Only about 60 percent of the CO2 we
emit from burning fossil fuel ends up in the atmosphere. Some
of it is taken up by the ocean. Some of it is taken up by
terrestrial plants.
Unfortunately, the natural world can't absorb it fast
enough. We are burning fossil fuels too quickly, and the
CO2 is rising faster and faster.
As Senator Voinovich said, the developing countries, in
particular China today, are burning more and more coal.
Currently about 46 percent of the world's coal is being used in
China, and that is contributing more and more. They will soon
pass us as the largest emitter of carbon dioxide.
Now the important thing here is then what is this going to
do for the climate. We know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse
gas. It absorbs infrared radiation. In fact, in the laboratory,
the way we measure carbon dioxide is by its infrared absorption
properties. It absorbs heat coming from the surface, acting
like a thermal blanket. That is not a controversy. We can look
at our neighboring Venus and look at its atmosphere which is
almost 100 times thicker and composed almost entirely of carbon
dioxide. It is 460 C at the surface mostly because of carbon
dioxide.
The question is: What is a smaller increase in carbon
dioxide going to do on the Earth? We have a variety of
information about this. We have models, and I think the
Chairman has referred to some of the uncertainty in these
models. I actually share those concerns about these climate
models. Climate models are the best physics, the best
observations we have from the last 100 years of observations.
We take those models and the best physics we can, incorporate
them into a physical model, a computer model that we then try
to use to predict the future.
But try to understand it this way, that the carbon dioxide
levels today are higher than they have ever been in human
history, higher than they have been probably for 30 or 40
million years of Earth history. What that means is it is
unreasonable to expect scientists like me to predict exactly
what is going to happen when we are taking the Earth into a
state that we haven't seen for 30 million years. The
expectation that we will be able to predict exactly what is
going to happen is unreasonable.
I will say this though; I look at Earth history and try to
use climate variations in the past to estimate how sensitive
the Earth is to changes in carbon dioxide, and the general rule
that I see is that the Earth is always more sensitive than the
models whether you are talking about the difference between the
last Ice Age and today, and that is Figure 3 here.
If you look at Figure 3, the Northern Hemisphere, when most
of North America was covered with ice, where I live in Boston,
it was covered with a mile of ice, a very different world. The
average temperature difference was 5 C for the whole world. We
are talking about 3 to 5 C warming this century potentially.
That is what some of the models say if we double or triple
atmospheric CO2 this century.
Exactly how this will affect our climate? Very difficult to
say, but there is no question that it will be dramatic and
significant.
To me, we can look warm climates 40 or 50 million years ago
when crocodiles lived up in Greenland, when there were palm
trees in Wyoming, sea level was 300 feet higher because there
was no ice anywhere on the planet, a very warm world. We think
CO2 levels were something like two to four times
higher than today, a very different world. We are not going to
get back to that world in a hundred years--it takes longer for
that for the ice to melt--but we are heading that direction. We
are returning the atmosphere to a state it hasn't been in since
that time.
It is an experiment on the planet. That is the way I think
is the right framing of this problem. We are doing an
experiment on the planet. It is uncontrolled. We don't know
exactly what is going to happen. The question is, it is an
insurance question, how much are we going to risk? What is it
worth to us? What is the cost of fixing this problem relative
to the possibility that we will really do something bad?
Senator Inhofe. Dr. Schrag, will you please wind up now in
fairness to the other witnesses?
Mr. Schrag. Yes, I will wind up right now, absolutely.
I think the framing of this as an insurance problem is
important. Ultimately, we don't buy insurance because we know
our house is going to burn down. We do it because we can't
afford it if it did burn down.
What it comes down to then is: What is the cost of the
premium? What does it cost to fix the problem? I think we heard
Senator Bond earlier talk about 1 percent or 4 percent of GDP.
I think recently there have been estimates that are much lower
than that, 0.4 to 1 percent. The point is that it is actually
relatively affordable. As Senator Boxer said, there are
actually issues. There are many ways this will actually help
our economy and help our national security.
Senator Bond was exactly correct in asking how is this
going to affect poor people. How is this going to affect
different States? There are solutions, for example, for Ohio
which depends heavily on coal.
Senator Inhofe. OK, Dr. Schrag, thank you very much.
Mr. Schrag. Thank you.
Senator Inhofe. Dr. Carter coming all the way from the
other side of the world, thank you very much.
STATEMENT OF R.M. CARTER, Ph.D., MARINE GEOPHYSICAL LABORATORY,
JAMES COOK UNIVERSITY, AUSTRALIA
Mr. Carter. Mr. Chairman, Senators, ladies and gentlemen, I
thank you for the invitation to speak to you. I am aware,
coming from a long way away, of the privilege that it
represents.
I am particularly pleased to meet Senator Boxer for the
first time because, unbeknownst to her, we have something in
common, and that is a brother-in-law of mine who lives in her
electorate. So I just stopped there briefly on the way to
Washington, and I wonder why you spend time in Washington
rather than that lovely part of California?
Climate change is a complex thing, and human-caused climate
change is even more complex. It is important at the outset to
appreciate there is no theory of climate in the sense that
there is a sense of gravity, a Newtonian theory of gravity, for
example.
I like to look at it this way; there are three realities of
climate change. The first reality is the reality that Dr.
Schrag has just been speaking about, the science reality, and
it is based upon facts and experiment and empirical testing.
The second reality is virtual reality, and you have a very
distinguished practitioner of it in the States, Dr. Jim Hansen,
and many colleagues who spend their time devising computer
models that are so mind-bogglingly complex that ordinary
scientists like me can't begin to penetrate them. But the
important thing to understand is that they do not produce
predictions of future climate. They are virtual realities. They
produce imaginary worlds. We learn a huge amount from them, but
we do not gain predictions from them.
The third reality is the cause of this hearing, mostly
behind me but some gentlemen in front of me, the press. It is
the public opinion, the general common view of climate change.
Now those three realities are very different things and two
of them are in complete conflict. The two are the science
reality where there is vigorous debate as indeed there should
be in any mature science or young science, I should say. There
is vigorous debate on virtually every aspect of climate change.
Yet, in the public arena now, it has become a political issue
which is a done deal. Everybody knows the planet is
overheating, and we have got to save it.
How did that come about? How is it possible for there to be
such a disjunct between the public understanding and the
scientific situation? The answer to that has to be the press
because the press carry the privilege of informing the public
and informing them on climate change. The three players that
they should be paying attention to are the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC; the non-governmental
organizations with an environmental bent like Greenpeace and
the World Wildlife Fund; and individual scientists like Dr.
Schrag and others. They are the three big sets of voices.
So the press' job then, is to translate what it hears from
those people out to the public. The press is failing, and let
me tell you why. They are failing to translate the uncertainty
of the science. There is huge uncertainty in every aspect of
climate science.
The second thing they are failing to do is they are not
transmitting many essential facts and especially facts that are
relevant to the human influence. Let me give you two because I
only have time for two.
The first is that if you look at the ice core evidence, you
will discover that yes, changes in carbon dioxide are
accompanied by changes in temperature, but you will also
discover that the change in temperature precedes the change in
carbon dioxide by several hundred years to a thousand or so
years. Reflect on that and reflect when you last heard somebody
say that they thought lung cancer caused smoking, because that
is what you are arguing if you argue on the glacial time scale
that changes in carbon dioxide cause temperature changes. It is
the other way around.
The second example is--it will come as a surprise to some
people in this room--using the official statistics of the
Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, which
are the statistics that the IPCC use, there has been no
increase in global temperature for the last 7 years. Since
1998, global average temperature has remained unchanged, yet
over those 7 years, carbon dioxide has been continuing its
spiral upwards.
Other things that the press do, briefly, and they are
detailed more in my paper to the committee, are they make a
great deal of alarmist stories about climate change. We all
understand why; it sells newspapers. They play the man and the
women, not the ball. It is not the science that gets discussed.
It is the motivation or who is paying for the science.
They use what I call couldism, mightism, and perhapsism.
Droughts could go up; we might get more storms; and perhaps sea
level is going to rise.
They substitute he says/she says type of coverage for
assessing complex scientific issues where there are not just
two sides to the argument. There are multiple sides to the
argument. But a reporter is trained from being knee-high, as
far as I can tell, that the way you produce balanced coverage
is to get a spokesman on the one hand and a spokesman on the
other hand. Climate science is hugely more complicated than
that. It requires the reporter to be able to make some
judgments of his or her own.
Finally, why am I concerned that this public hysteria--I
agree with my colleague, Dr. Deming, on this--on climate change
is such a problem? The reason it is a problem is it is
diverting our attention from what is a real climate problem,
and that is natural climate change, not human-caused climate
change. Every experienced person who studies climate over the
long haul understands rapid climate changes and especially
coolings, can happen in a matter of a few years to a few
decades. We do not understand what causes them. We do
understand that a rapid cooling is going to be economically far
more damaging than a gradual warming.
Therefore, any policy should be based on adaptation to
climate change, not on trying to prevent it. Trying to mitigate
natural climate change is an exercise in utter futility. You
might as well try to stop the clouds scudding across the sky.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Dr. Carter. Thank you very much.
Dr. Oreskes.
STATEMENT OF NAOMI ORESKES, PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
AND PROGRAM IN SCIENCE STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN
DIEGO
Ms. Oreskes. Thank you very much. It is an honor to have
the opportunity to speak to you today about the history of
climate history.
I am a professor of history at the University of
California, San Diego where I teach and do research on the
history of modern science. I hold a Bachelor's of Science in
mining geology from the Royal School of Mines, part of the
University of London, and a Ph.D., from Stanford University
where I completed a graduate special program in geological
research and the history of science.
In recent months, the suggestion has been made that concern
over anthropogenic global warming is just a fad or a fashion.
The history of science clearly shows otherwise. Scientific
attention to global warming has lasted over a century, has
involved thousands of scientists, and extended across six
continents. It has spanned the disciplines of physics,
chemistry, meteorology, and oceanography, and included some of
the most illustrious and trusted scientists of the 20th
Century, and it has included scientific advisors to numerous
U.S. Presidents, both Democratic and Republican.
Let me explain. Scientists have been studying carbon
dioxide and climate for a long time. John Tyndall first
established in 1859 that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.
From this, the great Swedish geochemist Svante Arhenius deduced
in the 1890s that carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere
from burning fossil fuels could alter Earth's climate.
By the 1930s, British engineer Guy Callendar had compiled
empirical evidence that this effect was already discernible.
Callendar's concern was pursued in the United States in the
1950s by the great American physicist Gilbert Plass, a pioneer
in upper atmosphere spectroscopy; by geochemist Hans Suess, a
pioneer of radiocarbon dating who worked closely with the U.S.
Atomic Energy Commission; and by the great oceanographer Roger
Revelle, a one-time commander in the U.S. Navy Hydrographic
Office.
By the 1960s, Charles David Keeling's systematic
measurements demonstrated conclusively that atmospheric
CO2 was indeed rising, work for which he was awarded
the National Medal of Science by the Bush administration in
2002.
These basic facts of history are well documented, but what
is less well known is that by the mid-1960s, a number of
scientific advisory panels had expressed concern about global
warming, and this concern was communicated by some of America's
most illustrious scientists to Presidents Lyndon Johnson,
Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter.
One early warning came in 1965 from the Environmental
Pollution Board of the President's Science Advisory Committee,
which warned that by the year 2000, ``There will be about 25
percent more CO2 in our atmosphere than at present
and this will modify the heat balance of the atmosphere to such
an extent that marked changes in climate could occur.''
Accordingly, President Lyndon Johnson stated in a special
message to Congress: ``This generation has altered the
composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through a
steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil
fuels.''
A second warning came in 1966 from the U.S. National
Academy of Sciences Panel on Climate and Weather Modification
head by geophysicist Gordon MacDonald, who later served on
Richard Nixon's Council on Environmental Quality.
In the wake of the Arab oil embargo, Alvin Weinberg, the
director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, realized that
climatological impacts might limit oil production before
geology did.
In 1979, the subject was addressed by the JASON Committee,
the reclusive group of highly cleared scientists who gather
annually to evaluate scientific and technical problems for the
U.S. Government and whose members have included some of the
most brilliant scientists of our era, including physics Nobel
Laureates Hans Bethe and Murray Gell-Mann.
The JASON scientists predicted that atmospheric carbon
dioxide might double by the year 2035, resulting in mean global
temperature increases of 2 to 3 C and polar warming of as much
as 10 to 12 C. This report also reached the White House where
Frank Press, Science Advisor to President Carter, asked the
National Academy of Sciences for a second opinion. An Academy
Committee headed by MIT meteorologist Jule Charney affirmed the
JASON conclusion: ``If carbon dioxide continues to increase, we
find no reason to doubt that climate changes will result and no
reason to believe that these changes will be negligible.''
It was precisely these concerns that led in 1992 to the
U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change which called for
immediate action to reverse the trend of mounting greenhouse
gas emissions. One early signatory was U.S. President George
H.W. Bush who called on world leaders to translate the written
document into ``concrete action to protect the planet.''
Three months later, the Convention was unanimously ratified
by the U.S. Senate. Since then, scientists around the world
have worked assiduously to flesh out the details of this
broadly affirmed picture.
The purpose of my 2004 study of the scientific literature,
published in the peer-reviewed journal, Science, was to assess
how much disagreement remained in the scientific community
about the basic reality of global warming and its human causes.
The answer surprised me. Not one scientific paper in the sample
disagreed with the consensus position. Scientists, my study
showed, are still arguing about the details, but the overall
picture is clear. There is a consensus among both the leaders
of climate science and the rank and file of active climate
researchers.
Now I should acknowledge that one skeptic has challenged my
study and others have repeated his claim. This man is a social
anthropologist in Liverpool who, to my knowledge, has never
published his arguments regarding my study in a peer-reviewed
journal. This past October, he admitted that he had made
significant mistakes in his criticisms, and he now agrees with
my general conclusion about the state of climate science.
In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting
Commission, he acknowledged, ``I do not think that anyone is
questioning that we are in a period of global warming. Neither
do I doubt that the overwhelming majority of climatologists is
agreed that the current warming period is mostly due to human
impact.''
The scientific evidence is clear: The predictions made
decades ago by Arrhenius, Callendar, Plass, Suess, Revelle,
Charney, MacDonald, Weinberg, White, the JASON Committee, and
many others have come true.
I thank you very, very much for your time.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Dr. Oreskes.
Mr. Gainor.
DAN GAINOR, THE BOONE PICKENS FREE MARKET FELLOW, DIRECTOR,
BUSINESS & MEDIA INSTITUTE
Mr. Gainor. Thank you, Chairman Inhofe, Senators, and
ladies and gentlemen.
We are here to discuss the media coverage of the climate
change debate, but there is only one problem; there is almost
none of that debate actually in the media. Journalists who
pledged to be neutral long ago gave up their watchdog roles to
become lapdogs for one position. The media became alarmist,
claiming the planet is at a tipping point as if at any moment
everything would go over the edge.
An April 2006 issue of Time Magazine pushed readers over
that edge with 24 pages of advocacy, claiming, ``The debate is
over. Global warming is upon us with a vengeance.''
CBS's Scott Pelley, who covers the environment, actually
compared climate change skeptics with Holocaust deniers and
claimed, ``There becomes a point in journalism where striving
for balance becomes irresponsible.''
In an effort to provide balance to that irresponsible
comment, let us recall the media's record on climate change.
Reporters told us roughly 30 years ago that a similar fate
awaited mankind. Then, journalists were convinced we would all
freeze to death.
In an April 1975 article entitled The Cooling World,
Newsweek advised us that ``the Earth's climate seems to be
cooling down.''
A May 1975 New York Times piece cautioned, ``Scientists
Ponder Why World's Climate Is Changing: A Major Cooling Widely
Considered to be Inevitable.''
The Washington Post, U.S. News and World Report, and
Science News all chimed in that cool was suddenly very hot. One
award-winning piece in Fortune said if the trend continued, it
could ``affect the whole human occupation of the Earth.''
The irony of this scare is that just years before, we had
been warned the Earth was warming. In March 1929, the Los
Angeles Times told readers, ``Most geologists think the world
is growing warmer and that it will continue to get warmer.''
The New York Times took a similar approach with a headline
that said, ``America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776.''
And less than 10 years before that, the Times detailed the
exploits of Captain Donald MacMillan's Arctic expedition and
how ``MacMillan Reports Signs of New Ice Age.''
In more than 100 years, the major media have warned us of
at least four separate climate cataclysms: an ice age, warming,
another ice age, and another bout of warming. If you count the
current catch-all term of climate change, that would be five
separate media predictions. Even by their count, they are 0 for
3.
The hubris that convinces supposedly unbiased journalists
they are providing the truth on climate change has led them to
criticize America for its stance on the issue including the
Kyoto Treaty, but they typically leave out the 95 to nothing
vote against Kyoto by this very Senate or the many billions of
dollars such an agreement would cost America. This attitude has
resulted in a media obsession with Al Gore's film, An
Inconvenient Truth. At least 75 TV shows covered Gore or the
film in just 3 months this summer, more than three and a half
times the length of the movie.
The Today Show's Matt Lauer even lent his status to a SciFi
Network program that listed global warming among other
potential threats to our species, including asteroids, aliens,
and evil robots.
Scientists who dare question the almost religious belief in
climate change--and yes, they do exist--are ignored or
undermined in news reports as are policymakers and pundits who
take similar views. The few journalists who sometimes give
another side, like the New York Times' Andrew Revkin, emphasize
funding sources for that side of the debate and rarely bother
to question the billions of dollars that go into promoting
global warming.
This goes against the basic tenets of journalism to be
skeptical of all sides of an issue. It also violates the
ethical code of the Society of Professional Journalists which
urges the media to ``support open exchange of views, even views
they find repugnant.'' That code calls for reporters to
``distinguish between advocacy and news reporting.''
But that wasn't the media response when Chairman Inhofe
read some of our report, Fire and Ice, on the Senate floor in
September. Newsweek responded with a roughly 1,000 word
clarification of its 1975 global cooling report but added it
made this mistake as recently as 1992. Newsweek still claimed
``the story wasn't `wrong' in the journalistic sense of
`inaccurate.' '' But at least it owned up to the error after 31
years.
In the New York Times editorial that responded to Senator
Inhofe's comments, the Times summarized, ``Cooling, warming, we
never get right.'' That is the inconvenient truth.
Thank you.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you very much for the excellent
statement.
Without objection, I am going to enter into the record, Dr.
Carter, a paper that you wrote called Human-Caused Global
Warming because I find it to be very interesting as a
supplement to your testimony.
In order to accommodate Senator Boxer, we are going to
expand the time for questioning. We will have a first round of
7 minutes and then we will have a round after that of 5
minutes. We are going to try our best, though, to conclude it
in 1 hour from now because we have other uses for the room.
Let me start off with the University of Oklahoma which
shouldn't surprise too many people.
I would like to have you, Dr. Deming, just repeat and just
take a second to do it what you said about your call from the
NPR to make sure everybody understands it.
Mr. Deming. It was the week that my paper in the journal
Science, had been published. I came into my office. There was a
voice mail there from a reporter from National Public Radio. He
said he wanted to talk to me about the paper, and I called him
back, very excited. I thought I am going to be on the radio,
and it is going to be wonderful, and it will help my career,
and I will get all sorts of favorable publicity, and blah,
blah, blah.
I called him back, and to my surprise, he focused on the
very last sentence in my paper where I said, I made the
statement I thought was remarkably uncontroversial. I said the
amount of warming that we have observed is within the range of
natural variability for the last 10,000 years, and it is
impossible to say at this point in time if it is due to human
activity or a natural variation.
And he said, did you really mean to say that?
I said, well, of course, I did because I say what I mean.
He said, well. He said, then I guess we have no story. He
said, because if you had said it was due to human activity,
that is what everyone is interested in.
Then he hung up on me.
Senator Inhofe. That is one of the problems that we have
that is very serious.
You also mentioned and as I said in my opening statement, 4
years ago when I became Chairman of this committee, I assumed
that it was anthropogenic gases that were causing this because
that was all I had seen in the media since IPCC came out and,
of course, Michael Mann was the one you heard from more than
anything else.
When we started looking at the science, you commented on
the hockey stick. Isn't it true that if he had been honest in
his portrayal, using a hockey stick for the blades charted at
the 20th Century and included Medieval Warming Period, that it
would have two blades of approximately the same size?
Mr. Deming. As I understand the hockey stick, that period
of time, the medieval time period is included, but the result
they get is different from virtually almost what everyone else
has found, and it has subsequently been criticized for having
the result as an artifact of the methodology.
As I understand the hockey stick, it is based primarily on
tree ring thicknesses which are probably one of the most
problematical indicators we have of past temperatures. The area
in which I am most familiar, borehole temperatures clearly
indicate that there has been a Medieval Warm Period and also
that----
Senator Inhofe. And a Little Ice Age, and I think also
history, which Dr. Oreskes may want to address.
Mr. Deming [continuing]. Polar sea maximum when
temperatures were even warmer than the Medieval Warm Period
about 5,000 years ago. Since that time, which used to be
called, by the way, the Climatic Optimum. Before the warming
scare, it used to be commonly acknowledged that warm
temperatures are beneficial and cold temperatures are
detrimental. Since that time, temperature, of course, has been
undergoing variation, but it has been more or less
systematically declining.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you very much.
Dr. Schrag, I think the only criticism I would have of your
presentation is you said it is unfortunate that it has become
very political and yet you have made appearance after
appearance with Al Gore. I mean Al Gore clearly believes that
global warming is his ticket to the White House. You appeared
at the premiere of The Day After Tomorrow with not just Al Gore
but also have made appearance with MoveOn.org and many of these
highly political groups.
If it is unfortunate that it has become political, why are
you participating in those politics? Cut it short now.
Mr. Schrag. Yes, in the discussion of the movie, The Day
After Tomorrow, I felt the movie was so distorted in terms of
its climate science, that I welcomed any opportunity to try to
explain to the public what was fact and what was fiction. I
think if you actually see my comments on that film, you will
agree with that.
I welcome the opportunity to appear in any Republican or
Democratic forum on this, and I do that regularly at Harvard,
briefing.
Senator Inhofe. I appreciate that very much. I would like
to have you, for the record, give me some of these comments on
the science. My staff should have done this, and I should have
been aware of it, but I would like to see some of the comments
that you made concerned the flawed science of that movie.
Mr. Schrag. Yes, well, the movie was really preposterous,
essentially. The movie suggested that warming would lead to a
shutdown of the thermohaline circulation which is actually
possible. That part of it was correct. However, it happened in
3 days, and it resulted in a global ice age.
In fact, a shutdown of the thermohaline circulation would
have a minor effect on temperatures, probably only in the
coastal regions of Northern Europe, and it might only mitigate
future warming. It might reduce the impact of future warming.
It certainly wouldn't cause a cooling. I would actually suggest
that this is one example where certain climate scientists have
probably, in my view, this is an unlikely thing to occur.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you very much, very much.
Dr. Carter, I have been a vocal critic of the IPCC for some
time, and I actually dedicated one whole 1-hour speech on the
floor of the Senate that I am sure no one listened to about the
IPCC. Can you tell me your views about the IPCC's credibility
and how it can be improved or lack of credibility?
Mr. Carter. Well, of course, the IPCC started off with
great hopes and intentions like most offshore bodies. The
problem is today that after it has been going I guess for 15
years or so, it is basically unaccountable to anybody. The
sovereign governments that receive its assessment reports use
those assessment reports for their own climate policy.
You could reflect on the thought of a sovereign government
using an international body to set its next budget. I don't
know why it is the governments have decided in this area of the
environment that they defer to international advice where in
every other part of their national management, of course, they
use their own judgment.
There is a lot of very good science in the IPCC volumes,
but that is in the volumes. The problem is, as you, I am sure,
heard many people say, it is the summary for policymakers.
Senator Inhofe. It is the summary, the political summary.
Mr. Carter. That is a political document, but that is all
that most governments use in setting policy.
Lord Lawson, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer in the
United Kingdom, his view on this is that you should just shut
the IPCC down. I would like to agree with him, but politically
that is clearly not feasible.
So I think you have to do something to make them
accountable. I think AP-6, the Asia-Pacific Climate Accord, is
the way to go. It is going to have to receive scientific and
technical advice. It won't want to set up its own bodies
because it is cumbersome and expensive and so on to provide
that advice, but it will need an audit body of some sort. I
think the IPCC could well contribute to AP-6 advice on climate
change, but that then needs to be thoroughly audited by a group
of independent scientists and engineers.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you very much.
Senator Boxer, this first round is going to be an 8-minute
round, not a 7-minute round.
Professor Oreskes, you have spoken about consensus about
climate change, so I want to make sure that I understand what
you mean. Is the definition of consensus that No. 1, the globe
is warming and No. 2, that man's activities have contributed to
that?
Ms. Oreskes. Correct.
Senator Inhofe. All right, I would like to be invited to be
part of your consensus because I have said this and I have
acknowledged that we are in a period where there has been
warming now, as it was pointed out by Dr. Carter, not really
since 1998 but generally a warming period.
I have said many times that there are human contributions
to this such as the expanded cities, the land use policies, the
agriculture, the heat island effect. These things do have an
effect. I understand that. My only concern has been
CO2 specifically.
Now I am going to stop right here and wait for the next
round of questions in deference to my future Chairman. I want
to make sure we get everything covered.
Senator Boxer, 8 minutes.
Senator Boxer. Eight minutes, thank you very much.
A couple of comments, Senator Voinovich, I was very moved
by what you said about working together and recognizing China
is a threat, and I think I agree with Senator Lautenberg's
remarks that the best way to engage other nations is to become
a role model and at the same time pulling them along. I hope in
the Foreign Relations Committee, maybe we can team up and do
some work in reaching out to China because clearly China is
going to surpass us in 2009 as the largest emitter of carbon
dioxide. I think that is key, and I thank you for bringing it
up.
I also think attacking the press doesn't make the truth go
away. So you can attack and flail away, but it doesn't work. A
lot of politicians and their death rattles turn against the
press. It doesn't work at the end of the day. It can be
certainly frustrating, but at the end of the day, it is a free
press that keeps us strong.
I also think attacking individuals for speaking out at
forums is anti-democratic, and I just feel that way, regardless
of what forum. That is what differentiates us from others. We
don't say to people you can't have an opinion, regardless of
what your profession is. I encourage all my people at home, Dr.
Carter, and maybe you do too, and I encourage your brother,
however he feels on this subject, to speak out, to go to forums
to be educated and lead.
Since you, Dan Gainor, you put up the Times, let me put up
a series of mainstream press. I want to show you this. I am
going to ask Dr. Schrag, because I asked you before if you
would read these articles, to comment on whether you think
there is anything in these articles that is hysterical, as my
Chairman says, hysterical.
The first one is the Tulsa World. We go to Oklahoma, Mr.
Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think you would be interested. Tulsa
World, September 26, 2006: Global Warming Reaching Record:
Earth's Temperature Highest in Millennia. Researchers say
Earth's temperature has climbed to levels not seen in thousands
of years; and warming has begun to affect plants, animals,
researchers report in Tuesday's issue of proceedings of the
National Academies of Sciences.
So that is one. Let us go quickly with these because we
have 8 minutes and eight charts. OK, here we go.
Business Week, not your liberal bastion of a magazine:
Global Warming Consensus Growing Among Scientists, Governments,
Business. We must act fast to combat climate change. This has
already sparked efforts to limit CO2 emissions. Many
companies are now preparing for a carbon-constrained world.
They cite a Pentagon report that tells of a plausible
scenario in which the conveyor shuts off. They also quote
Senator McCain as saying: The facts are there. We have to
educate our fellow citizens about climate change.
Let us go to the next one. This is the L.A. Times:
Academies Warn of Warming. Science organizations from 11
countries including the United States call for global action
against the changing climate.
It goes on to explain that.
Let us go to the next one. Washington Post: Growing
Activity of Oceans. This is important because Dr. Deming made a
very important point that the oceans are our friend and they
sequester the carbon dioxide. But look what is happening to the
oceans: Growing acidity of oceans may kill corals.
That is quoted also from a report from the National Center
for Atmospheric Research in the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, and that is the Bush
administration.
Let us go to the next one. This is the Financial Times: No
Need to Become a Sitting Duck; Hurricane Zones: Businesses Can
and Should Plan for Events Outside Their Control.
Even the U.S. Pentagon says climate change should be
elevated beyond a scientific debate to a national security
concern. That is the Pentagon. That is the Bush administration,
the current Administration.
This is the New York Times: Yelling Fire on a Hot Planet.
Between the poles of real time catastrophe and non-event lies
the prevailing scientific view.
Let me repeat that. The New York Times: Between the poles
of real time catastrophe and non-event lies the prevailing
scientific view. Without big changes in emission rates, global
warming from the buildup of greenhouse gases is likely to lead
to substantial and largely irreversible transformation of
climate, ecosystems, and coastlines.
So talk about the middle position, Dr. Deming, there you
go.
The next one, United Press International, CDC, this is
important. This is the Bush administration's CDC. This is this
month, Mr. Chairman.
Climate Change a Health Threat, December 5: The rising
scientific certainty of climate change should mobilize
environmental health professionals to take aggressive action, a
Center for Disease Control and Prevention director said at a
meeting here Monday.
Climate change is perhaps the largest looming public health
challenge we face, certainly in the environmental health field,
Dr. Howard Frumkin, director of CDC's National Center for
Environmental Health.
Given credible indications there is a danger there, we need
to act to protect people from that danger. It is standard
public health practice, said Frumkin, Bush administration's
CDC.
So, Dr. Schrag, in this example, I tried to pull together
from all over the country business magazines, the mainstream
press, an article from Tulsa. Is there anything in here?
You have read them all because I have asked you because I
consider you to be one of this country's leading experts on
this. Is there anything in here that you think is hysterical,
that is in any way out of the mainstream of scientific thought
on this subject?
Mr. Schrag. No, Senator Boxer; I actually think that, in
general, those articles do a very excellent job describing the
general scientific evidence for those various issues.
I would just add that I think the business articles,
Business Week and an article you didn't cite, one from the
Economist recently that was a cover article--both of these are
not typically political journals--they did an excellent job
reporting on this partly because they weren't science
reporters. They were business reporters, and business reporters
have good experience making decisions under uncertainty, and
that is what we are dealing with here. Again, it is the risks
that we care about.
Senator Boxer. Dr. Deming, I think it was interesting on
the NPR story because as a former reporter myself, you tried to
get what you consider a balanced view, but I thought what you
said was really interesting and worthy of reporting because
that last sentence was pretty balanced. You said we are not
sure why this is happening, and I think that is important
because I thought your position is we absolutely know it has
nothing to do with human activity and actually that is not what
you said at the end. So I was encouraged by that.
I want to ask you, Dr. Deming, the National Academies of
Science of 11 nations including the U.S. National Academies
have said climate change is real. It is likely most of the
warming in recent decades could be attributed to human
activity. Am I right that you do not agree with this
conclusion?
Mr. Deming. What you said, I think, has two parts. You said
that, first of all, climate change is real and second that it
is due primarily to human activity. I think the first----
Senator Boxer. I didn't say this. The National Academies of
11 nations said this.
Mr. Deming. Right, I understand.
Senator Boxer. Do you agree with this or not?
Mr. Deming. Well, I agree with the first part. I don't know
of anyone who disagrees with it because climate changes on all
time scales.
Senator Boxer. How about the second part?
We all agree climate change is occurring; you are right.
Mr. Deming. It changes; you are right. Here in Washington,
DC, every summer, it gets hotter; in the winter, it gets
colder.
Senator Boxer. We are not talking about that. We are
talking about, as you know, over time. We understand that.
But I am asking you: Do you agree with the statement, it is
likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be
attributed to human activity? Do you agree or disagree?
Mr. Deming. I think it is highly problematical.
Senator Boxer. You don't agree or you do agree?
Mr. Deming. Well, I don't think my answer would fit into
either of those categories because----
Senator Boxer. So you don't disagree with this. You don't
disagree with this then. You don't flat-out disagree with this
statement of the 11 nations National Academies of Sciences that
it is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be
attributed to human activity. You don't flat-out disagree.
Mr. Deming. Well, let me see if I can phrase my answer in a
way that links up.
Senator Boxer. Dr. Deming, please try to help me out here.
Do you agree or disagree?
Mr. Deming. Well, I am trying, but you keep interrupting
me.
Senator Inhofe. Senator Boxer, you over your time. We are
going to come back to you, and I will give you time to give
your answer under my time if that is all right.
Senator Boxer. Yes.
Senator Inhofe. I know that Senator Isakson has to go.
Senator Isakson, why don't you go ahead and take what time that
you need?
Senator Isakson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank Senator Voinovich for giving me this
opportunity to jump in. I have to be on a very important call
in 4 minutes, but I have one very important question. I
appreciate everything everybody said, but I heard something
fascinating and I want to make sure I heard it right.
Dr. Carter, did you say that the ice cores demonstrated
that warming preceded the increases in CO2?
Mr. Carter. Yes, and that is not controversial. There is no
climate scientist that will disagree with that. There are a
number of papers in Nature, Science, and other such journals.
Senator Isakson. Before you go any further, excuse me for
interrupting. I apologize for being rude.
Does anybody disagree with that statement?
Mr. Schrag. Well, I would like to say that it is a little
bit more complicated than that, unfortunately.
Senator Isakson. Most everything is.
Mr. Schrag. It is. Unfortunately, I wish it weren't in this
case. The bubbles in the ice that trap the CO2 have
actually a different age than the ice that surrounds it, and
that is just the nature of the way they form. As a result,
there is a big uncertainty on the exact age of those bubbles.
It is that the error is a few thousand years. Therefore, it is
very difficult to say exactly which. To the best of errors,
within the error, they are essentially synchronous.
Now, the important point that I think is misleading about
this is that on thousand-year time scales, on many thousand-
year time scales, CO2 is very much connected with,
linked to ocean temperature. They go up together, and they go
down together. Therefore, talking about one driving the other
is silly. They are connected. The ocean warms. It releases
carbon dioxide which causes more warming which warms the ocean.
It is a cycle. They are connected.
On shorter time scales, this isn't the case, and we are
dealing with a shorter time scale.
Senator Isakson. Dr. Carter, I cut you off to get that
response. Go ahead. I am sorry.
Mr. Carter. Well, on short time scales, it is the case. Of
course, the statements I was making are similar to those that
Dr. Schrag was making. They are within scientific error. So the
best estimates by the best scientists are that the change in
temperature precedes the change in carbon dioxide in the ice
cores.
Getting to the short time scale, now that is true in the
ice cores. It is also true on the annual temperature cycle.
David Deming referred to that, that it gets colder here in the
Washington winter as I have noticed, having just come from the
Great Barrier Reef, and warmer in summer.
You all know the famous Keeling Curve from Hawaii of
CO2 which goes up like this, and that jiggle-jaggle
in it is the annual cycle of CO2. Now when you
compare that, you find again that temperature changes 5 months
before carbon dioxide changes. So both on the short time scale
and on the large time scale, that is the reality.
But I do not disagree with what Dr. Schrag just said. This
is a complex system. It is interacting both ways. But for what
it is worth, temperature changes first; carbon dioxide changes
second.
Senator Isakson. The reason I asked the question is--and I
am going to have to go, Mr. Chairman of all the things
everybody said, I think your statement, Dr. Carter, and then
your response demonstrates that this is a very complex issue of
which far too many people have conclusive opinions as to who
the villains are, who the contributors are, and what the
solution is when, in fact, we need more dialog like we are
having today to start identifying those things we can do and
recognizing the impracticality, if that is the right word, of
some of the things that we really can't do.
I am a businessman. I spent 33 years in the private sector.
I have never seen corporate America move as much as it has,
particularly over the last 5 to 10 years, in its greening and
its conscious effort to make constructive efforts to recognize
there are things we can do to better improve our environment.
But there continues to be this element of some who have all
these absolute beliefs of the absolute solutions to this
absolute problem when, in fact, people of your intellect.
I am a politician. I am not a scientist. I was a barely
good businessman. But I really think, Mr. Chairman, this has
been very helpful today in getting out the information that we
all agree with. There are some things that are happening, and
there are some things that we can do, but some of the absolute
conclusions that become facts because they get repeated over
and over again are incontrovertibly not correct. Is that fair,
Dr. Carter?
Mr. Carter. I agree with that sentiment.
Senator Isakson. I apologize for making a speech and then
leaving, but I have got to be on a conference call in 2
minutes.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you. I am sorry it took so long to
get to you, Senator Isakson. Thank you for your contribution.
Senator Lautenberg?
Senator Lautenberg. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman.
I thank each of you for expressing yourself, in some
instances way beyond the things that we would expect from the
observations that man makes without instruments, without the
calculations that may confirm that something terrible is
happening in front of our eyes. That is what concerns me.
One of them is, and I ask this to Dr. Schrag. Are you aware
of any reports of government scientists who have had their work
on global warming altered or suppressed or been prevented from
speaking to the press, or you, Dr. Oreskes? Any evidence that
there has been an attempt?
Mr. Schrag. I am certainly aware of what was published
widely in the press, and I have talked with Dr. James Hansen
about his experience at NASA. I think ultimately, he was a
prominent enough figure that he was able to overcome that.
Senator Lautenberg. To break through.
Mr. Schrag. I know other scientists at NOAA of a much
smaller reputation who have been prohibited from talking about
or mentioning the words, global warming, when they discuss
their data on climate science.
Senator Lautenberg. Dr. Oreskes?
Ms. Oreskes. Yes, the example that I know about is the
example of the Environmental Protection Agency reports that
were altered, which was reported on the front page of the New
York Times by Andrew Revkin and Kathryn Seelye. I would
encourage you to invite people from the Environmental
Protection Agency to discuss what was done to their reports.
Senator Lautenberg. We don't have any here with us today,
but I do hope that in the future, we will hear from Government
witnesses.
There is a science writer in the major New Jersey paper.
The paper is the Star Ledger, very widely circulated, with the
Sunday and the daily in the many hundreds of thousands of
readers. She was writing a story on NOAA's GFDL laboratory in
Princeton that she, the reporter, was denied permission to
interview an important climate scientist named Richard
Wetherald.
Should NOAA or any other Government Agency be preventing
their scientists from speaking to the press and the public
about global warming? Can any of you think of any logical
reason to block off that contact with the press?
Ms. Oreskes. If I might respond to that, obviously, no. But
if I could add a historical point on that, Professor Wetherald
is one of the most important people in the history of climate
science because he was one of the pioneers of the development
of global climate models. So if you want to understand what
climate models can and can't tell us, Professor Wetherald would
be one of the best possible people you could talk to about that
question.
Senator Lautenberg. Do any of you know Dr. Wetherald at
all? Do you know his reputation?
Dr. Schrag, do you know who he is?
Mr. Schrag. I taught at Princeton for a few years. I lived
in Princeton, NJ, for 3\1/2\ years and worked closely with
people at GFDL. It is a fantastic outfit. I believe they should
all be encouraged to speak to the press.
Senator Lautenberg. Dr. Carter, in Australia, do they stop?
Mr. Carter. In the supporting papers, Senator, you will
find I have given two examples of that. Of course, they are in
Australian science so they are not primarily of concern to the
committee except as an example.
I would respond to your question. Why would an Agency head
want to restrict? Did you ask that question.
Senator Lautenberg. Yes.
Mr. Carter. Because that Agency head has a primary
responsibility for garnering next year's budget.
Senator Lautenberg. That is a very interesting comment. So
to withhold truth is an acceptable instrumentality to restrict.
Mr. Carter. No, I didn't say that was acceptable. What I
said is I can understand why that is a pressure on an Agency
chief.
Senator Lautenberg. Someone of your esteem, sir, when you
say you can understand, it means that it is not so bad.
Mr. Carter. Oh, well, that is not my intention at all. Let
me say I think it is very bad, but I can understand why a
manager in that situation ends up trying to restrict his staff
talking to the press, and that happens the whole time in major
Government organizations, scientific organizations, certainly
overseas.
Senator Lautenberg. Dr. Oreskes or Mr. Gainor?
Mr. Gainor. I am a huge believer in the First Amendment,
and I am a career journalist. So I certainly think that the
people in the Agencies, I would love for them to talk to the
media.
But I would also at the same time like to challenge the
point about Dr. Hansen who ended up on more TV and print media
than I think pretty much any of the climate scientists that
have been mentioned here today.
Senator Lautenberg. He was forced. He was forced into the
public eye. He wanted to tell the truth, and they didn't want
him to. We have seen redactions around here, EPA reports, Dr.
Oreskes, that say don't tell it like it is; tell it like we
want you to tell it which is quite different especially coming
from a distinguished group of scientists as you are. I would
think that at any cost, dear God, tell the truth. Tell it as
you see it.
Ms. Oreskes. If I could just say one more thing, if I could
respond to something that was in Dr. Carter's written
testimony, which was that he raised the question of ad hominem
attacks and libel restraints. I would like to make the point
that this is issue not only for Government scientists but for
academics and others as well.
Since my paper was published in Science magazine in 2004, I
have received hate e-mail. I have received threatening phone
calls. I have been threatened with lawsuits by people who deny
the scientific evidence of climate change. So there has been
enormous pressure on academics not to speak up on this issue,
and it is not just a matter of Government science. It goes
across the board.
Senator Lautenberg. Dr. Carter, I had the privilege of
visiting Australia on my way to New Zealand, on my way to
Antarctica, on my way to the South Pole. My principle mission
was to meet with our National Science Foundation people and see
what they saw, what they believed was happening.
I don't know at what point, Mr. Chairman, there is a
conclusion drawn from things that you feel, humans feel, see,
changes in populations of particular species, the diminution of
the penguin population and, as I mentioned before, the polar
bear population.
It was suggested that former Vice President Al Gore did
this film on his way to another chance at the White House. See
it before you make that kind of comment and debate it honestly.
Go to the public and just say: This is wrong. That is wrong.
The fact is that these ice flows are in your imagination, bad
dreams for kids and just say seeing what you see is not really
so as opposed to a discussion that gets us into relatively
minute details which are important in the science world.
But on the other hand, do you deny that there is a fire in
the house and discussion the origination of the fire and how
high the temperature is going to be before you tell everybody
to get out of there? I don't think so.
So, Mr. Chairman, we have to continue to search through
these problems, and I appreciate your time.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Lautenberg.
Senator Voinovich.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As I have mentioned, I have sat through lots of these
hearings. Senator Boxer, I understand we have two subcommittees
now. One is going to be talking about private contributions to
climate change and public contributions to climate change.
The real question for me is: What do we do about it that is
practical, that makes a difference?
I would like to read and then have the panel comment on a
couple of things. One of the things we have debated here is cap
and trade. The European Union introduced a carbon cap and trade
system in October 2001 which granted carbon permits to 12,000
powerplants, factories, oil rigs, and refineries. Each permit
represented the right to produce a ton of carbon dioxide and
could be traded like any other commodity.
The system was supposed to motivate companies to reduce
carbon dioxide and sell their extra permits for profit, but
according to an article published by Bloomberg England, the
carbon trading system has led to huge utility price increases
in Europe's two largest economies--Germany, prices up 61
percent; England, up 66 percent. These price jumps were higher
than the increase of crude oil traded in the London Stock
Exchange, up 46 percent.
The question is: Why hasn't this generated more attention
with the mainstream media or is it that it contradicts some of
the things that are being proposed in this country in terms of
a cap and trade proposal to deal with reducing greenhouse
gases?
Again, I want everyone to understand. I believe that we see
warming. I am not really sure how much is due to natural causes
or to manmade causes, but I believe that manmade causes do
impact on it. The issue is what do we do from a responsible
policy perspective to deal with the problem?
So that is one thing, and I want to read one other. I would
like to one day, Senator Boxer, have an opportunity to let the
Administration come in here and talk about what they have done
about climate change.
Senator Boxer. They will be on the very first group that we
have before us.
Senator Voinovich. They joined with China, India,
Australia, and South Korea to form the Asia-Pacific
Partnership, and I think personally engaging these nations
which have the fastest growing economies and sharing our
technology is one of the best way to address the problem of
climate change.
During the debate of the 2005 Energy Act, I worked on with
Senator Hagle to add a climate change amendment which
authorized $2 billion in direct loans, loan guarantees, and
other incentives over 5 years for the adoption of technologies
that reduce greenhouse gas intensity while directing a Federal
effort to implement a national climate change strategy. These
funds would be used to develop new technology to limit
greenhouse gas intensity and would then be exported to
developing nations that are burning fossil fuel at increasing
prices or increasing rates.
What role do you see technology transfer and development
playing as the United States and the world move forward?
Why does this get so little coverage when we know that if
we are ever going to reduce global carbon emissions, that
technology development must be the focal point of that
strategy?
What it is getting to is the real issue of if you have a
problem, how do you go--maybe I was a mayor too long or a
Governor. How do you practically deal with these things and
invest money and get a return on your investment?
We just talk about the problem and it is getting worse and
so on and so forth. But the real issue is: How do we do
something about the problem?
Why can't we get more information out about some of these
things that people are doing, what works and doesn't work, and
come back with some practical recommendations on what it is
that we can do here in Congress and what the world can do to
impact responsibly on this problem?
Dr. Schrag?
Mr. Schrag. Senator Voinovich, I think that is a very good
question. I think the question of what to do about climate
change, it is about time that we got to that question. While I
think that a cap and trade is a good way to start perhaps and
it may be politically inevitable in the Congress, what cap and
trade does is just let the market decide where the cheapest way
to reduce carbon emissions. Markets are wonderful in many
cases, but they don't consider certain things like how certain
areas will be impacted preferentially to other areas, things
that are real decisions that you are going to be faced with.
I think technology is an essential part of the answer. We
have to become more energy efficient, that is, do the same
things we are doing now but using less energy. We have to
develop essentially decarbonizing our fuel sources, and we are
not going to be as able to get away from fossil fuels. As you
know, coal is an essential part of what drives this country,
and it will continue to be for the century. Our Department of
Energy is working on ways of reducing carbon emission from coal
plants by carbon capture and then storage in geologic
repositories. Unfortunately, the funding for that is so low, we
need to see test projects done now, so that 10 years from now
we can roll it out on a bigger scale.
So the sorts of things that you suggested, I think, are
very much in line with what is needed in leadership from this
Government.
Ms. Oreskes. May I join in? Thank you.
At the University of California, I teach the history of
20th Century science including the history of the Manhattan
Project, and I think there is a useful analogy there. In 1942,
the U.S. Government realized it had a big problem, and that
problem was the threat that the Nazi Government might build an
atomic bomb. In response to that threat, the U.S. Government
mobilized the combined resources of physicists, chemists, and
engineers across the United States, and from Europe as well,
and invested unprecedented amounts of money into the Manhattan
Project to create a new technology, a technology that had never
existed before to address an immediate, a clear and present
danger.
I think there is a useful analogy there. We have a clear
and present danger. We pretty much have all agreed upon that
today. The question with which I agree 100 percent is what to
do about it, and I am in complete agreement with you that the
centerpiece of that strategy must be based on technology. So I
believe that one thing that the U.S. Congress can do is the
same thing that it did in 1942, which is invest money into the
engineering resources that will be required to develop those
new technologies.
Mr. Gainor. Senator, you are also trying to get at how to
get the word out. Essentially, there are two problems with the
media as far as this story goes about some of the things you
are talking about. One of them is quite simple; the scare story
is an easier one to tell. There is a lot of media group think
on this issue, and I thank Senator Boxer for proving my case
for me. It is really quite simple.
But the other problem is it is a very technical issue, and
trying to get journalists to tell something in detail is also a
challenge. It doesn't make good sound bites in the evening
news. You will see the morning shows will just give you 5
seconds of a new study that comes out. The media are letting us
down because they are trying very heavily on the scare issue,
but then the other half of the story, it is just difficult to
tell. Only print media are really well equipped to do that, and
they are not doing it either.
Mr. Deming. Senator, perhaps I was napping earlier, but if
I just heard your question to the panel, it was what is the
responsible thing to do, and it seems to me the responsible
thing for us as a society now to do is to encourage more
greenhouse gas emissions. I find myself in opposition to some
of the other members of the panel here, I think because I have
a different perspective. I have the geologic perspective, and I
think that is a proper perspective when you are dealing with
natural problems.
We know that the natural state of Earth's climate for the
past million years is an Ice Age. Ninety percent of the last
million years has been spent in an Ice Age during which not
only is the climate colder, it is also more variable. We are
now in an unusual period. We are in an interglacial period
where the climate is warm which is good and it is also
relatively stable. The greatest danger that we face right now
is moving into another Ice Age.
When the Little Ice Age took hold in Europe at the
beginning of the 14th Century, there were massive crop
failures. There were famines. People resorted to cannibalism to
stay alive. We have never had a famine in the United States of
America.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Chairman, could I just support that? That
is indeed the geological perspective. Can I just tease out two
differences? I spoke of the risks of cooling earlier. There are
two different risks. The one that Dr. Deming just talked about
is the longer term glacial-interglacial risk. A higher risk at
the moment is another Little Ice Age.
You should be aware, Senator Voinovich, that the NASA about
6 months ago issued a statement that they predict over the next
couple of decades, we are likely to head into another Little
Ice Age. That was supported by a piece of research from the
Russian Academy of Sciences. So there are two quite respectable
Agencies giving that advice at the moment, that the most likely
event over the next 20 years is not continued warming driven by
greenhouse gases but cooling driven by lack of solar activity.
Mr. Schrag. Excuse me, that is not the consensus.
Mr. Carter. I didn't say it was the consensus. I said it
was advice that had been given.
Mr. Schrag. Fair enough.
Senator Inhofe. I am afraid time has expired for this
round. We will go ahead and start with our second round of
questions.
I agree with Mr. Gainor. Senator Boxer, I appreciate your
exhibits that you used because that does make my case. The
point I am saying is that we have had such a bias in the media,
and that is what this hearing is about, and I think that does
pretty well make the case.
Dr. Deming, I would like to ask you what you think of Dr.
Oreskes' claim that 100 percent of the scientific consensus is
on the global----
Ms. Oreskes. I didn't claim 100 percent.
Senator Inhofe. Let me read your statement here. The answer
surprised me. Not one scientific paper in the random sample
disagreed with the consensus position.
Ms. Oreskes. In my analysis; I am not saying that there is
no one on this Earth.
Senator Inhofe. OK, that is fine. I am asking Dr. Deming.
Mr. Deming. I read Dr. Oreskes' study. It was published in
Science, and I am also under the impression that what she said
was 100 percent.
I think there are some problems with the study. I think
there are three primary problems. If we have time, I will
describe all of them.
First of all, I am 52 years old now, and it is my
experience in my life, as probably many people here, that when
you get a large group of people, if you get 900 scientists or
any group of 1,000 people together, you are not going to get
100 percent agreement on anything. In fact, the only other
examples besides Dr. Oreskes' study that I know of, of 100
percent agreement, was the last election in Iraq where Saddam
Hussein received 100 percent of the vote. Now, if you believe
that was an honest election, perhaps you also believe that Dr.
Oreskes' study was valid.
However, I think the fact that she got the results she did
should have suggested to her that it was an artifact of her
methodology.
Senator Inhofe. Dr. Deming, let me again try to stay within
the timeframe here. I said I would let you respond to Senator
Boxer's question that she was trying to get a yes or no. What
would be your best answer to that question?
Mr. Deming. I believe she asked me if I agreed with the
statement it was likely that the majority of the warming that
has been observed is due to human activity, and I guess I would
say I disagree.
Senator Inhofe. All right, thank you very much.
Mr. Deming. Simple answer.
Senator Inhofe. Yes, Dr. Schrag, again getting back to the
politics of this, no; I will save that until last here.
Dr. Carter, you commented about some of the things in the
past, the cooling periods and the fact that the temperature
sometimes or always precedes the release. You guys are smart,
and we are not up here, and we don't have the background you
have. When I look and see--and I don't think you disagree--that
in recent history, the largest discharge of CO2 took
place in the middle forties right after World War II. As I
understand, it was something like an 85 percent increase.
Now, that being the case, one would think that would have
precipitated a warming period when, in fact, it precipitated a
cooling period. Do you agree with this? Would that be a good
example to use, Dr. Carter?
Mr. Carter. That is a correct statement. Whether it is a
good example to use is a separate question. The explanation for
that then, because the implication under the greenhouse
hypothesis, is that because we have had a big burst of carbon
dioxide, we should have had warming as a result, and plainly we
don't see that. So you can view that as a test of the
greenhouse hypothesis, and you can say quite fairly the
greenhouse hypothesis fails that test.
But then you may seek other explanations. The explanation
that a large number of people have come to and this word,
consensus, keeps coming up. I do not believe in the use of
consensus of science. Science is not about consensus. But
nonetheless, a significant number of scientists have argued
that it is due to aerosols in the atmosphere over that time
which after the War were also increasing because of industrial
activity, and they have the function of reflecting the incoming
radiation from the Sun, and therefore they cool the Earth. By
happy coincidence, that just explains the temperature curve.
Senator Inhofe. All right, thank you very much.
One real quick yes or no question, Dr. Oreskes, for
clarification, in your original Science magazine study, I think
you made a correction, and I just want to see if this is right.
You claimed that you use the search term, climate change, and
found 928 papers, but my understanding is that using that
search term, climate change, pulls up almost 12,000 papers and
you later published a correction noting that error, is that
correct?
Ms. Oreskes. That is correct. It was a typographical error
on the part of Science magazine that the word, global, was left
out of the original article, and it was corrected shortly
thereafter.
Senator Inhofe. Very good; I am coming down toward the end.
I would only like to say, Mr. Gainor, some might say that
you are influenced by being a part of the media, a part of the
pro-business and anti environment and so forth. Since that
accusation comes occasionally, how would you respond to that?
Mr. Gainor. Well, they say Al Gore has always focused on
his carbon footprint, and yet he flies around the world in what
even he would say is harmful to the environment. He rides in an
SUV and owns several houses. I live in an apartment; I walk to
work; and I took Metro most of the way here today and would
have finished the trip if it hadn't been for problems there.
You don't have to be in agreement with other members of
this committee to be pro-environment, to care about what
happens to the Earth. Unfortunately, that is the bias that has
crept into the media, that somehow any disagreement means that
you are a bad person, and that is patently false.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you very much.
A comment was made by Dr. Schrag, and I appreciate that
very much, concerning the lack of science behind the movie that
was produced by Al Gore. I would like to read something.
Mr. Schrag. Excuse me, that wasn't the movie produced by Al
Gore. That was the movie, The Day After Tomorrow.
Senator Inhofe. Oh, The Day After Tomorrow, very good.
I would like to read something here. Dr. Richard Lindzen,
who is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at
MIT in an op-ed on June 26 of this year in the Wall Street
Journal said, and he was criticizing Al Gore in this case, in
the scare tactics and so forth. ``A general characteristic of
Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the
Earth and its climate are dynamic. They are always changing
even without any external forcing. To treat all changes as
something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit
that fear is much worse.''
I believe this has been a political exploitation. I am only
sharing that with you and not asking you to respond.
Senator Boxer, before you came in, I read my opening
statement which ended with several people who had been very
strong believers back in the middle nineties about manmade
gases causing global warming. One of them I used was a
scientist, Claude Allegre, a French geophysicist. You mentioned
several times the Academies of Sciences. He is on both the
French and the United States Academies of Sciences, and his
quote has been that the ``alarmism has become a very lucrative
business for some people. In short, their motive is money.''
I agree that a lot of the motive is money. I would only say
that when you look at the publications and you see, as I
mentioned before, the pitiful polar bear stepping on the last
ice cube in Time Magazine and be worried; be very worried.
Believe me, this is something that sold a lot of copies. We
understand that. But then how do you equate that with their
headlines back in 1975 that another Ice Age is coming and we
are all going to die?
Last, put that chart up. Let us assume that I am wrong on
this, that all this stuff is proven, it is all right, and we
have to do something. Al Gore enlisted the support of a
scientist named Tom Wigley back during the time that he was
Vice President, and he said if all countries of the developed
world--not China and India, and some of the rest of them--all
the developed nations signed onto and complied with the
emission requirements of Kyoto, how would that lower the
temperature over the next 50 years?
His answer was this chart. This is not my chart. This is
Dr. Wigley's chart. He said it could reduce it by as six one
hundredths of one degree centigrade. Does anyone want to
comment on that?
Mr. Schrag. Yes, Mr. Chairman, that is absolutely correct.
I don't think anybody who negotiated Kyoto, and by the way, I
am not a fan of Kyoto for a variety of other reasons that we
don't have to talk about, but Kyoto was viewed as a first step
which would be followed by a series of additional steps that
would ultimately reduce emissions by a substantial amount more.
So showing that Kyoto by itself would only make a small
difference is sort of irrelevant to the point because
ultimately Kyoto was only viewed as a small step.
Senator Inhofe. Yes; I don't want to interrupt you, but I
would say I agree with that. But it aggressively forces a
reduction in CO2, and anything that comes after this
would have to be more aggressive. I will go back to some of the
financial analyses as to what would happen to this country,
this great machine that we call America if, in fact, we were
even more aggressive than that.
Now I will let you go ahead and take an extra 2 minutes,
Senator Boxer. I have tried to be very accommodating, and you
are recognized at this time.
Senator Boxer. Thank you so much.
Where to start? I will start with you, Mr. Gainor, because
I understand you worked for the Washington Times.
Mr. Gainor. Yes, I did, Senator.
Senator Boxer. You know I am shocked that a reporter would
really take the position to criticize a free press. I am
stunned by it and shocked by it.
Now I have been skewered by that paper many a time, and I
fully expect to be skewered by that paper again. You know what?
That is the breaks. I don't have a committee hearing talking
about how I am skewered by the Washington Times, so let us get
over it. It is a free country, and the papers are going to
report the truth as they see it.
Then you said, I disproved my own case. I proved my case.
What I proved by going through these articles that you seem to
shun is that in the vast majority of cases, almost every one,
they are quoting reports, they are quoting organizations, they
are quoting scientists, and most of all these articles, they
are quoting the Bush administration. So how you can argue that
that is inappropriate is beyond me.
I just hope that a message goes out from this hearing that
we treasure a free press. It may annoy us. Lord knows, it
annoys me many times. But we treasure a free press, and I hope
that is what goes, whatever they write on their opinion pages.
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal skewered Olympia Snowe and
John Rockefeller--it was the day before yesterday--because they
had the temerity to write a letter to the big oil company and
say: Why are you funding these anti-global warming theories? We
think it is time to do something about this rather than deny
it.
And talk about big bucks, do you want to talk about the big
bucks on the other side? That would take a whole hearing in and
of itself.
I want to make sure that Senator Voinovich understands
because he hasn't really seen the list of subcommittees. They
deal with solutions to the problem, solutions to global
warming, including private sector and consumer solutions.
Senator Lieberman will work on that, and I am going to be
looking at in my subcommittee--and I am sure all of us will do
this on the full committee--what the public sector is doing
because there have been, I think it is 13 States now that have
actually acted. Waiting for us to act, they have decided is
just too risky, and they have gotten out there. That means from
Governor Schwarznegger, a Republican Governor, to many other
Republican and Democratic Governors in the West and all
throughout the country. We will hear from them, and that will
be exciting.
This is what I would like to do in closing. First, I really
want to thank all of you for coming today. You know you are in
a tough environment here. There is a lot of tension, and I
understand for scientists in particular. The media guy is used
to it, but the rest of you are not. So I want to thank the four
scientists. I think you have all been just terrific for coming
and in your expression of your views.
What I am going to do in my last few minutes here is read
you--you have to listen carefully, just the scientists in this
one--a list of statements made by various organizations. If you
believe that these statements have no reasonable scientific
basis, so it is not just a yes or no, Dr. Deming. If you
believe that these statements have no reasonable scientific
basis, I am asking you to put your hand up. Then at the end, if
I have time, I will ask you to explain why.
I am going to start with the U.S. National Academy of
Scientists: It can be said with a high level of confidence,
that global warming meaning surface temperatures were higher in
the last few decades of the 20th Century than during any
comparable period during the preceding four centuries.
Does anybody believe these statements have no rationale?
OK, next, 11 National Academies of Sciences: It is likely
that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to
human activities. We urge all nations to take prompt action to
reduce the cause of climate change.
Raise your hand.
Mr. Deming. Could you repeat that?
Senator Boxer. No, you are not being asked.
Mr. Deming. I am sorry. I don't understand what we are
doing here.
Senator Boxer. Just the scientists are being asked a
question to respond. I think you would want to raise your hand
because you already said you disagreed with it before.
We will go on. The American Geophysical Union, an
organization representing more than 45,000 scientists from 140
countries who are experts on Earth and science: Human
activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate.
Raise your hand if you believe that these statements have
no rationale, no rationale. Did you raise your hand?
Mr. Carter. Do they mean global climate or local climate?
It is completely ambiguous.
Senator Boxer. We are talking about global warming in this.
All of these relate to global warming. I will repeat it again.
American Geophysical Union: Human activities are increasingly
altering the Earth's climate.
Raise your hand if you don't agree with that statement.
U.S. National Assessment Synthesis Team, a Federal Advisory
Committee, the U.S. Global Change Research Program: Humanity's
influence on the global climate will grow in the 21st Century.
Ad hoc study group on carbon dioxide and climate report
requested by President Carter, delivered to the National
Research Council of the National Academy of Scientists: Changes
will result and no reason to believe that these changes will be
negligible. A wait and see policy may mean waiting until it is
too late.
That is what they wrote? Anybody disagree?
Recent statements from industry, Shell Oil: It is a waste
of time to debate it. Policymakers have a responsibility to
address it.
If you disagree with that, raise your hand.
Mr. Carter. Address what?
Senator Boxer. Shell Oil, global warming; this is all about
global warming climate change. All right, that is interesting.
Next, British Petroleum: Companies composed of highly
skilled and trained people can't live in denial of mounting
evidence gathered by hundreds of the most reputable scientists
in the world.
This is all about global warming and climate change, OK.
Wal-Mart: Global warming is real, now, and it must be
addressed.
Anybody disagree with that?
Mr. Deming. I am really lost here as to what you are doing
because----
Senator Boxer. I am reading to you----
Mr. Deming [continuing]. I am supposed to participate, and
I don't know if I agree or disagree or if I am being forced
into one position or another.
Senator Boxer. Let me repeat what I asked you to do, sir. I
hope I am not being unfair. I said if you believe that these
statements have no rational scientific basis, please raise your
hand. We are in a very big dispute in this committee between--
--
Mr. Carter. Mr. Chairman?
Senator Boxer. Let me just finish here. I want your help
here. We have a Chairman who says this is all a hoax, all
right, and we have right now a member, a senior member here
today who believes it is not a hoax.
Senator Inhofe. No, let us be sure and characterize my
statement correctly. We are talking about yes, there is
increase in temperature. Whether it is the whole globe or not,
I would disagree because in the Southern Hemisphere, there
doesn't seem to be a change and the last time I checked, that
was part of the world.
But the statement that I have made many times before is we
recognize there are increases and decreases that have taken
place, but do not believe that it is due to the cause that you
believe it is in terms of the release of anthropogenic gases.
So that is my statement. I don't like to have it shortened.
Senator Boxer. It may be that the press has misquoted you,
but that is fair. We are arguing with the press anyway.
The point I am making is, and I will stop here because
obviously our witnesses have refused essentially to participate
in this, and I think there is a reason. I think that everything
I am reading has merit, has a rational basis. Nobody really has
disputed that.
I will continue and I won't ask you to participate in this.
If you can't do it, I think frankly it says you are not so sure
of yourself. That is all I am saying. But bottom line here, we
have DuPont saying: We came to the conclusion, the science is
compelling and action should be taken.
We have Swiss Re, the 14th largest insurance company
saying: Risk of climate change is real. It is here. It is
affecting our business today.
We have Fitch Ratings Limited: Global warming is on the
radar screen of a lot of financial institutions.
We have AIG, the largest insurance company in the world,
saying: Climate change is increasingly recognized as an ongoing
significant global environmental problem with potential risk to
the global economy and ecology and to human health and well-
being. AIG recognizes the scientific consensus that climate
change is a reality and is likely in large part the result of
human activities that have led to increasing concentration of
greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere.
I will conclude here. I am getting close to my time.
Goldman Sachs: We support the need for national policy.
So there is consensus, gentlemen and ladies. There is
consensus. Now there are a few people on the edges, of course.
That is fine. By the way, they should be listened to. I agree
with you. That is important that they be listened to and that
Dr. Carter and Dr. Deming be listened to. But we can't, as
policymakers, it seems to me, turn our backs on the
overwhelming scientific evidence and opinion as evidenced in
the Bush administration's own statements on this as late as
December 6, when the CDC declared that this is a big problem.
I feel very sad that we have spent time attacking the press
today. I am glad we didn't just spend all our time doing that.
I urge the press, you just do what you think is right. You
report the news as you see it, and you can have any opinion you
want. Stick it on the opinion page like the Wall Street Journal
did.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Boxer.
Senator Boxer. I think that is really very key, and I say
that as a former journalist.
Thank you.
Senator Inhofe. I believe most of those things have been
answered on the question of consensus.
Senator Voinovich.
Senator Voinovich. We are talking about global warming,
aren't we? We are talking about the media's influence on the
issue, and there is no question that because of the media, the
American people are more aware of this problem than they would
be if the media wasn't involved with all the articles that are
being written about climate change and so on and so forth.
The question I have for the panel is this: If we look
around the world and we see China and we see India and other
developing nations and we know that they are going to be
emitting a lot more of this stuff than they are today, what
kind of environment do we have in the media in China, for
example, or in India because in all likelihood actions will not
be taken by those governments unless there is some public
pressure to do something about it?
It is expensive for those business that are emitting and
also expensive in terms of the general economy of the countries
that they are going to have to allocate more of their GDP to
dealing with this problem than they are now dealing with it
today. Where are we globally on this issue?
I have talked to Tony Blair about this. He talks about
Kyoto; you have sign it. The fact of the matter is that first
of all, I think, Dr. Schrag, you pointed out that this is just
the beginning and it is not going to really make a big
difference if Kyoto goes forward as the first step. The fact of
the matter is the countries that have signed aren't even going
to make the deadlines that they agreed to sign? So where are
we?
Mr. Schrag. I think the United States has a key role to
play, and I think the lack of progress on the countries meeting
their Kyoto obligations is partially a result of the United
States not taking a leadership role. We are the technological
innovators of the world, and we have a critical role to play.
The good news is the Chinese Government cares about climate
change. Colleagues of mine at Harvard are working with top
members of the Chinese Government. They are very concerned
about the hydrologic changes in China. They worry about a
peasant uprising, and they are worried about feeding their
people. Therefore, they worry about climate change.
However, their official position is they will follow as
long as the U.S. leads, and I think that is very important. I
think we have an opportunity to lead here, and we have an
opportunity, our American businesses have an opportunity for
huge investment opportunity in rebuilding our world's energy
infrastructure. That is something that can't be missed. I think
if you talk to leaders from GE, they will tell you that there
are huge opportunities.
I also want to say that there is a window of opportunity
here. We have about 20 years or so when these rapidly
developing countries are building powerplants like they are
going out of style and accumulating cars and infrastructure.
Once they are finished, it will be much more expensive to
rebuild it. Therefore, things we do today are going to be much
cheaper than waiting 20 years and trying to catch up.
Mr. Gainor. Senator, you were talking about the state of
journalism in other nations. I have had actually a fair amount
of contact with Chinese journalists over the last, I guess, 15
years coming into this country. To characterize China's
journalist situation as anything other than government-
controlled would be inaccurate. When you are talking about what
the media will do in that country, it will not put pressure on
that government do to anything because it is not a free
country. India is different.
But, in general, the American concept of media is
relatively unique in the world, the concept which I hugely
support, contrary to Senator Boxer's comments, the concept of
freedom of the press where American media are supposed to be
neutral and supposed to not take a position, not to be
advocates for one side or the other. That is relatively unique
to America. If you look around the world, much of what is
reported on this issue in other countries is reported by a very
activist press that is often politically affiliated. So you
can't look at that information without a jaundiced eye.
Mr. Schrag. Mr. Gainor, they are supposed to be accurate,
not neutral. There is a difference. There is a very important
difference there.
Mr. Gainor. There is a difference. They should always be
accurate. But to skew reporting decidedly where you undercut
people who say one thing, where you don't report important
facts, or you don't report people who actually dare to disagree
with your group think, that is not accurate either. That is
creating a false painting. You are including lots of important
and maybe accurate data, but by what you leave out, you create
an inaccurate picture.
Ms. Oreskes. Can I jump in here because we have actually
facts about this question of bias and inaccuracy on the
coverage of global climate change?
My colleagues at the University of California, Max and
Jules Boykoff, did a study of print media coverage of the
climate issue, and what they were able to demonstrate was that
the press bent over backwards to give space to dissenting
opinions and that, in fact, the space that was given to the
dissenting opinions, the minority opinions, were actually quite
out of proportion to their population in the scientific
community. So I think that if the press has been biased here at
all, it has been biased in the direction of giving attention to
a very small number of people who are outside the mainstream of
scientific opinion.
Mr. Gainor. I will be happy to debate that with a study
that I personally did about media coverage of climate change
which showed just the opposite in talking about how the
networks covered climate change, overwhelming one-sided,
including very few experts from the other side, and when they
did--with the exception of Bob Jamieson from ABC News who did a
good job--almost universally they reported it in a one-sided
way.
You can have dueling studies all you want, but the reality
is all you have to do is turn on the network news and look how
they covered Hurricane Katrina and the linkage of Hurricane
Katrina to global warming. I have actually a quote from that,
from Good Morning America, where: ``Scientists have long warned
that global warming could make Hurricanes increasingly
destructive. They couldn't prove it until now.'' They can't
prove it even now, but it doesn't stop the networks from
reporting it. As much as I am a First Amendment huge believe,
these networks--ABC, CBS, and NBC--do use the public airwaves.
So it is right that we at least discuss this in the bully
pulpit and try to encourage them to do a better job.
Ms. Oreskes. But, again, to bring some facts into this
discussion, it is only in the last year or two that the media
have really stopped giving a lot of attention to skeptics,
contrarians, deniers, whatever you want to call them. But if
the media had represented the scientific community in an
accurate way, they would have done that probably about 10 years
ago.
Senator Voinovich. Chairman, I have no further questions.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Chairman, may I make a final comment
regarding some of the things that Senator Boxer said and
something Senator Voinovich said?
Senator Inhofe. Yes, you can do it on his time. He has
another minute.
Mr. Carter. The difficulty with the quotations that the
Senator was reading to us is that many of them were not from
science bodies; they were actually from commercial
organizations. That doesn't condemn them outright obviously,
but it means they are not being produced by bodies with science
credibility. The second problem is because they are chosen
quotations, nearly all of them are ambiguous. They may not be
ambiguous in full context, but they are ambiguous as quoted.
That brings me to you, Senator Voinovich. When you say we
are all here today to talk about global warming. Now, of
course, we are, but I am astonished that there has been no
attempt by anybody to tease that out. No scientist doubts that
climate change happens. No scientist doubts therefore that
global warming occurs from time to time.
But what we are actually here today to talk about is not
global warming. It is human-caused global warming, and that
distinction, pedantic as it may seem, is absolutely critical in
the discussion. The press confused that, not I believe by
intention but just because that is the way it is, because
everybody knows we are talking about global warming, that it
means human-caused global warming. Well, it doesn't.
To a scientist, global warming means the temperature is
getting warmer. Why it is getting warmer, that is the question.
The degree to which the human contribution and nearly all
scientists will acknowledge there is a human contribution to
that, but the degree of that with respect to natural climate
change remains completely unknown and unquantifiable. That is
where the argument is.
Ms. Oreskes. May I make a very brief response?
Senator Inhofe. First of all, in fairness to Senator
Lautenberg, he is recognized at this time, and I will try to
give each one of you a little bit of time when it is over.
Senator Lautenberg. I am willing to have comments repeated
when Senator Boxer--is she gone? She is finished, OK. I am
sorry the comments that are critical of her statements are not
being heard by her.
Senator Inhofe. Well, Senator Lautenberg, I have to say
that there was an attempt by almost each member of this panel
to respond and they were unable to do it. I think it is only
fair that you let them. They have come a long ways,
particularly Dr. Carter.
Senator Lautenberg. Yes, well, we heard. We are pleased
that they are here, even though there might be some differing
views and a lot of them are contradictory.
Let me start off by asking the panel whether or not, I am
sorry to do this, Mr. Chairman, but I feel compelled to. So I
will just conclude by saying, wake up America. With all the
hysteria, all the fear, all the phony science, could it be that
manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on
the American people?
I will end with the comment, the words that I believe it
is. Our distinguished Chairman made that speech in July 1903,
2003, I am sorry.
[Laughter.]
Senator Lautenberg. I remember in 1903, we weren't worried
about global warming.
Senator Inhofe. Since you are correcting your dates there,
let me also say I made that on the Senate floor of the Oklahoma
State Senate in 1975, referring to the coming Ice Age.
Go ahead.
Senator Lautenberg. Let us see, OK. Well, it says 03 here,
so I will throw this away.
Now, Dr. Deming, I am not Senator Boxer's clone, I promise.
But in keeping with that, can I ask each one of you your view
of whether or not this is a bad joke perpetrated on the
American people, a hoax?
Mr. Deming. Global warming?
Senator Lautenberg. Yes.
Mr. Deming. Well, I wouldn't use the same word that Senator
Inhofe used. I wouldn't use hoax because hoax implies it is
deliberate.
Senator Lautenberg. Implies?
Mr. Deming. Hoax implies it is a deliberate attempt to
deceive. Instead, what we are dealing with is a psychological
phenomenon. It is a mass delusion.
Earlier, you had mentioned or used the phrase something
terrible is happening and fire in the house. We have a lot of
problems in this country and worldwide.
Senator Lautenberg. You are going to be using more of my
time than I am feeling applies here.
Mr. Deming. Let me.
Senator Lautenberg. Well, then we finished with the
description of hoax, I think.
Mr. Deming. OK.
Senator Inhofe. I kind of like mass delusion. That is a
good one.
[Laughter.]
Senator Lautenberg. Mr. Chairman, no one ever accused you
of having a lack of words to describe your views, and I always
enjoy them. It is amazing that we can be good friends and be so
wrong.
Anyway, Dr. Schrag, a hoax, I can perhaps ask you.
Mr. Schrag. A hoax or a mass delusion, I guess if you call
it a mass delusion, then I would count myself as among the
deluded. The evidence is so clear. Carbon dioxide causes
warming. The evidence is absolutely clear that carbon dioxide
is higher now than it has been for millions of years of our
history.
Earlier I heard the geologist on my right and left, and I
am also a geologist, say that the geological thing to do would
be to increase greenhouse gas emissions. That is pouring oil on
fire. That is really big trouble although we today are in an
Ice Age.
We have an ice sheet on Greenland. We have an ice sheet in
Antarctica. We were in a bigger Ice Age 20,000 years ago, but
we are still in an Ice Age. By warming the Earth as much as we
are doing over the next century, we risk destabilizing those
ice sheets, and once they start to go, I am not sure anybody
can stop them. This sort of thing, this is very serious and it
is an issue of national security.
Senator Lautenberg. So you say that it couldn't be a hoax.
Mr. Schrag. It is certainly not a hoax.
Senator Lautenberg. Dr. Carter.
Mr. Carter. I mentioned some of the players in this drama
earlier, the IPCC, individual scientists, and I can't remember
the third one, but there are a lot of them. Amongst that range
of players, yes, there are some people who are deliberately
perpetrating what they know to be untrue.
Senator Lautenberg. Do you think that global warming is a
hoax being perpetrated?
Mr. Carter. I am answering that, Senator Lautenberg. Yes, I
think there are some people in the very large group of people
that are commenting.
Senator Lautenberg. No; I asked, sir, if you think that it
is a hoax.
Mr. Carter. I think that in some cases, people are
deliberately spreading misinformation on climate change yes,
but that is not everybody and it is a small number of people.
Senator Lautenberg. Thank you.
Ms. Oreskes. And some of them are the people who deny it,
so we could just say that.
Global warming is not a hoax, and it is not a mass
delusion. I am not a psychologist, but if there is a
psychological factor involved here, it is denial. We have
overwhelming scientific evidence of the changes taking place on
our planet, but some of us are reluctant to admit that because
it has consequences that we need to deal with.
I am also a geologist, and I worked for several years as an
exploration geologist in Australia. I think that the great
insight that Roger Revelle had on this issue was his geological
insight which is to say that as geologists, we were all trained
to believe that humans were insignificant compared to the
vastness of geological time and the magnitude of geophysical
forces. But what Revelle realized in 1957 was that we had
reached a historic moment where that was no longer true and
where human activities were having an impact on a planetary
scale. We have changed the chemistry of the atmosphere, and
there are consequences across the board.
Senator Lautenberg. I think you also do not believe that it
is a hoax.
Ms. Oreskes. I do not believe that it is a hoax.
[Laughter.]
Senator Lautenberg. Mr. Gainor, I was interested that your
representation here is not simply as a reporter for the
Washington Times.
Mr. Gainor. Sir, I haven't worked for the Washington Times
for more years than I care to count.
Senator Lautenberg. Oh, I didn't realize that.
Whose views do you represent?
Mr. Gainor. I am director of the Business & Media
Institute, and that is what it says on the invite. I obviously
promote and what I am advocating for, I think, is very clear
which is trying to get more and better journalistic coverage on
this issue to do a more balanced job.
Senator Lautenberg. OK, and I heard you describe things
that you influenced your view in the news. It was that you live
in an apartment and you don't drive an SUV, and therefore Al
Gore is discredited a----
Mr. Gainor. No, I am simply saying, Senator, that----
Senator Lautenberg. Well, that is what you are saying.
Mr. Gainor [continuing]. Portraying me as somebody who
hates the environment runs counter to that whole media mind set
that everyone----
Senator Lautenberg. If the ownership of a particular car or
type of house is the yardstick by which we measure that, I
think you are on weak ground.
Last year, Phil Cooney, a career oil industry lobbyist,
then serving as Chief of Staff at the Council of Environmental
Quality was caught editing scientific findings on global
warming to inject uncertainty where none was intended by the
authors. That is a fairly inappropriate thing for the White
House to approve, modifying findings of the Federal scientists.
When we talk about Government control of the press, Mr. Gainor,
and we talk about Government control of information that was
produced being redacted or modified before it gets to the
public, that is Government control also, is it not?
Mr. Gainor. All governments control the information that
comes out of their agencies.
Senator Lautenberg. So then it is all right if China----
Mr. Gainor. If you try to disagree, you get killed.
Senator Lautenberg. Well, since you don't want to get
killed, I don't want my grandchildren to get killed, then I
don't want people who are affected by climate change to die
earlier because the air is unsuitable, et cetera.
Is it correct to say that control by Government is an
unacceptable condition and control is represented by massaging
the data that is there in reports, repressing it, from a
scientist's viewpoint?
Mr. Gainor. You are asking if the Government Agencies can't
modify reports from their own agency. I think you are asking
the wrong person, but as far as injecting uncertainties----
Senator Lautenberg. Redaction is an acceptable process for
making sure that the information that is being given to the
public is modified in some way.
Mr. Gainor. To cite actually a quote from Dr. Schrag,
nobody knows what is going to happen about climate change.
Mr. Schrag. Exactly; nobody knows exactly what is going to
happen.
Mr. Gainor. The quote I have is nobody knows what is going
to happen, specifically.
Senator Inhofe. Senator Lautenberg, your time has expired,
and I think we have been fair to everyone.
Senator Lautenberg. Well, I think it was 30 seconds.
Senator Inhofe. Well, if you want 30 seconds.
A reminder, well, there is no one here to remind when we
are going to have our business meeting.
[Laughter.]
Senator Inhofe. Let me do this. I know you have come from a
long ways. We are actually 25 minutes over the time I said that
this would come to a conclusion. I hope that hasn't caused an
inconvenience to anyone.
I would like to give each one of you another minute, if you
would like to, to respond to anything that was said here today.
I would remind you that this hearing is not on the science of
global warming. We have looked at it. We know that there is a
differing opinion. We have had many hearings on this, many
speeches on the floor.
But insofar as how it is being reported, if there are any
further comments that this distinguished panel, each member,
would like to make, I will give you the opportunity to do that
at this time. Let us start with you, Mr. Gainor, and work the
other way.
Mr. Gainor. OK, well, first of all, thank you for this
opportunity.
I think the big point that gets lost in all of this
coverage is that there are competing opinions. You will hear
journalists periodically admit to this. Andrew Revkin will talk
about the murk or the uncertainties involved in the science.
You will hear scientists about it. But somehow or another, we
are supposed to view that there is a consensus when, in fact,
there isn't.
For the scientists who dare disagree or for the pundits or
public policy people who dare disagree, it is the
responsibility of the media to do a better job covering that,
trying to get that side out because this is a democracy and if
we are going to possibly make the right decision on this issue,
then we need to do so as well informed as possible.
I think it is the great opportunity for the committee to
raise this issue, raise this opportunity for everyone to look
at it and say this is not being done right; how can we do it
better?
Senator Inhofe. Good, thank you.
Dr. Oreskes.
Ms. Oreskes. Thank you. I have enjoyed being here, and I am
thrilled to discover that the U.S. Senate has a sense of humor.
I just want to say that----
Senator Inhofe. I could probably put you in front of some
committees who don't.
Ms. Oreskes. Please don't.
I want to just emphasize, as a historian of science, that
there is always uncertainty in any science, but the task of the
Government, it seems to me, when it makes policy is to base
those decisions on the best available scientific information.
At this point in time, that information says that global
warming is real and caused by human activities.
Now, Mr. Chairman, you raised the point of other causes
such as the heat island effect and deforestation. Those are
important, and I am in complete agreement with you about those
causes. We know that those issues have to be addressed as well.
But it is the consensus of our own United States National
Academy of Sciences, the most distinguished group of scientists
in America if not the world, that most, most, not only just a
little bit but most of the observed warming of the last 50
years is likely--and they are careful; they are not alarmist;
they are saying the best they can based on what we know--is
likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas
concentrations.
Thank you.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you very much.
Dr. Carter?
Mr. Carter. Senator Inhofe, I would really just like to say
thank you for the privilege of participating in this discussion
today, and I would like to pay your tribute to your
chairmanship, not only today but over the last several years of
this committee. I would like people to understand that this
committee worldwide has had an impact, and though Senator
Inhofe is leaving, it has been instrumental in making sure that
some of the other side of the story on climate change remains
in the public domain. I think that is an enormous achievement,
sir, and I congratulate you for it.
I hope that under Senator Boxer, the committee is going to
continue to be looked at worldwide for leadership and advice on
this issue of climate change, and I wish you well in seeking a
national policy which is an incredibly difficult thing to do,
to grapple with this issue.
Last, I commend to you the partnership that you were
instrumental in starting, the Asia-Pacific partnership, as one
of the ways forward. I think that is a very good solution.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you. I commented about that, and I
believe it is too, and that it brings in the undeveloped
nations.
Dr. Schrag.
Mr. Schrag. Senator Inhofe, thank you.
The idea that in terms of media reporting, there has been a
concern that somehow scientists are afraid to speak out if they
oppose the consensus view, and I think that is important to
address here. I can only address it in a personal sense which
is my own career. I am a tenured professor at Harvard, and I
owe that success in my career partially to speaking out, going
against my community on several hypotheses, and I was able to
defend those hypotheses with observations, with calculations
that ultimately convinced the community that I was correct. So
it was, in fact, the opposition to the consensus view that
actually gave me fame and it is why I am here today.
Therefore, I think it is very important to recognize that
the motivation for most of the scientific community is not to
just follow the party line but, in fact, if you can support
those views, you encouraged to speak out because if you do so,
you are considered a great hero.
Senator Inhofe. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Schrag?
Dr. Deming.
Mr. Deming. As I make a final comment, I am kind of in
astonishment. We are sitting here at the apex of 10,000 years
of human civilization. The United States and the rest of the
developed world is the most prosperous, most knowledgeable,
most technological society as ever existed on Earth, and we sit
here scared to death of something that doesn't even really
exist.
Senator Lautenberg talked about something terrible is
happening, fire in the house. As far as I know, there isn't a
single person anywhere on Earth that has ever been killed by
global warming. There is not a single species that has gone
extinct. In fact, I am not aware really of any deleterious
effects whatsoever. It is all speculation.
We have on the other hand, throughout the world and in this
country, real problems. We have poverty. We have disease. We
have things that we could do to really help people. Global
warming is human folly.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you very much, Dr. Deming.
Let me thank all five of you for taking the time and for
extending the time that you committed to make it here and thank
you for your input.
We are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[Additional statements submitted for the record follow:]
Statement of David Deming, Ph.D., University of Oklahoma, College of
Earth and Energy
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, and distinguished
guests, thank you for inviting me to testify today. I am a
geologist and geophysicist. I have a bachelor's degree in
geology from Indiana University, and a Ph.D., in geophysics
from the University of Utah. My field of specialization in
geophysics is temperature and heat flow. In recent years, I
have turned my studies to the history and philosophy of
science. In 1995, I published a short paper in the academic
journal Science. In that study, I reviewed how borehole
temperature data recorded a warming of about 1 C in North
America over the last 100 to 150 years. The week the article
appeared, I was contacted by a reporter for National Public
Radio. He offered to interview me, but only if I would state
that the warming was due to human activity. When I refused to
do so, he hung up on me.
I had another interesting experience around the time my
paper in Science was published. I received an astonishing email
from a major researcher in the area of climate change. He said,
``We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.''
The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a time of unusually warm
weather that began around 1000 AD and persisted until a cold
period known as the ``Little Ice Age'' took hold in the 14th
century. Warmer climate brought a remarkable flowering of
prosperity, knowledge, and art to Europe during the High Middle
Ages.
The existence of the MWP had been recognized in the
scientific literature for decades. But now it was a major
embarrassment to those maintaining that the 20th century
warming was truly anomalous. It had to be ``gotten rid of.''
In 1769, Joseph Priestley warned that scientists overly
attached to a favorite hypothesis would not hesitate to ``warp
the whole course of nature.'' In 1999, Michael Mann and his
colleagues published a reconstruction of past temperature in
which the MWP simply vanished. This unique estimate became
known as the ``hockey stick,'' because of the shape of the
temperature graph.
Normally in science, when you have a novel result that
appears to overturn previous work, you have to demonstrate why
the earlier work was wrong. But the work of Mann and his
colleagues was initially accepted uncritically, even though it
contradicted the results of more than 100 previous studies.
Other researchers have since reaffirmed that the Medieval Warm
Period was both warm and global in its extent.
There is an overwhelming bias today in the media regarding
the issue of global warming. In the past 2 years, this bias has
bloomed into an irrational hysteria. Every natural disaster
that occurs is now linked with global warming, no matter how
tenuous or impossible the connection. As a result, the public
has become vastly misinformed on this and other environmental
issues.
Earth's climate system is complex and poorly understood.
But we do know that throughout human history, warmer
temperatures have been associated with more stable climates and
increased human health and prosperity. Colder temperatures have
been correlated with climatic instability, famine, and
increased human mortality.
The amount of climatic warming that has taken place in the
past 150 years is poorly constrained, and its cause--human or
natural--is unknown. There is no sound scientific basis for
predicting future climate change with any degree of certainty.
If the climate does warm, it is likely to be beneficial to
humanity rather than harmful. In my opinion, it would be
foolish to establish national energy policy on the basis of
misinformation and irrational hysteria.
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Statement of Daniel Schrag, Ph.D., Laboratory for Geochemical
Oceanography, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard
University
Thank you to the Senators and to the staff members of the committee
for inviting me to speak here today. I am a professor at Harvard
University in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and in the
Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences. I also direct the Harvard
University Center for the Environment, which allows me to work with
faculty in public health, public policy, economics, business, law and a
variety of other disciplines.
The questions before this committee today are whether press
coverage of global warming in this country has portrayed accurately the
state of scientific knowledge and whether the press has properly framed
the issue for the public and for decision makers like yourselves. I am
hesitant to generalize, as reporting on this issue is quite variable. I
think it is safe to say that press reports are accurate when they
present the strong consensus that exists among climate scientists that
global warming is occurring, and when they describe some of the risks
we face. When I have taken issue with press coverage of global warming,
it is usually because the issue is presented as a debate between
``believers'' and ``skeptics.'' Articles often give a voice to extreme
views, rarely evaluating credentials or credibility. The public is left
trying to decide whether global warming is real based on highly
technical arguments, and left uncertain whether corrective action is
necessary.
I think the proper framing of this issue is quite different: There
is no serious debate about whether the earth will warm as carbon
dioxide levels increase over this century--it will. What is difficult
to predict is exactly how much warming will occur, and exactly how that
will affect human society. The media does not usually explain this
distinction very well. I would like to see the press raise the same
question used for other issues of national security: Are the risks of
severe consequences sufficient to warrant taking preventative action?
Humans are changing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,
mostly from burning of coal, oil and gas, with deforestation also
playing a significant role. The current level, in excess of 380 parts
per million (ppm), is higher than it has been for at least the last
650,000 years, and perhaps for tens of millions of years (Fig. 1). To
put it differently, we are experiencing higher CO2 levels
now than any human being has ever seen in the history of the earth; and
over the next 100 years, without substantial changes in the trajectory
of energy technology or economic development, we will see atmospheric
CO2 rise to 800 to 1000 ppm, roughly triple the pre-
industrial level. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Its presence in
planetary atmospheres causes warming of planetary surfaces; an extreme
example is the CO2-rich atmosphere of Venus, which is
responsible for its surface temperature in excess of 460 C.
The question that confronts us now is how the rise of
CO2 on this planet will affect our climate, not over
millions or even thousands of years but over decades and centuries. We
know that, coincident with the unprecedented rise in CO2
over the last century, we have seen a rise in global temperatures. We
know from Lonnie Thompson's work on tropical glaciers that this warming
is not part of any natural cycle (Fig. 2). But this does not address
the question of what will happen as CO2 levels continue to
rise. To answer this question, climate scientists have constructed
models that represent the best understanding of the climate system from
the last century of observations. These models tell us that climate
change in this century may be dramatic, and perhaps even catastrophic.
These models are not perfect--but this is not surprising as they are
attempting to make predictions about an atmospheric state that no human
being has ever seen. They remain an essential tool for exploring future
scenarios, but we must also consider evidence for climate change from
the geologic past. This is the major area of my research. I cannot
cover it today in much detail, but let me simply say that lessons from
earth history are surprisingly consistent, whether from warm climates
or cold, whether over millions of years or thousands: our climate
system is very sensitive to small perturbations (Fig. 3). And human
activities represent a large perturbation, sending our atmosphere to a
state unlike any seen for millions of years.
The important point is that the uncertainty in the climate models
should not comfort us--just the opposite. Our best observations from
earth history suggest that the earth is more sensitive to an increase
in greenhouse gases than most of the models, and therefore that climate
change may be worse than most of the models predict.
A good example comes from the question of whether Europe was
slightly warmer than it is today during the medieval warm period,
roughly 1,000 years ago. Some have suggested that such natural
variability means that we don't need to worry about anthropogenic
climate change in the future. Ironically, the logical conclusion, if
indeed Europe was slightly warmer 1,000 years ago, is that we should be
terrified about the next 100 years. We know that the natural forcing
1,000 years ago, mostly changes in solar and volcanic activity, was
small relative to the rise in CO2 over the last 100 years,
and tiny compared to what will happen in the next 100 years. So if
Europe became much warmer 1,000 years ago in response to such miniscule
forcing, we are in very, very big trouble.
Getting back to the question of the media, I think that the press,
in general, could do a much better job in explaining to the public that
uncertainty in our predictions of future climate change does not cast a
shadow on the science, but rather is inevitable given the scale of the
experiment we are doing on our planet. A notable exception is a recent
cover article on global warming in The Economist in which the author,
Emma Duncan, portrays global warming as an insurance problem. We buy
insurance for our house not because we expect it to burn down, but
because we could not afford the consequences if it did. Similarly, we
should take immediate action to protect ourselves from future climate
change not because we know it will be catastrophic, but because it a
consensus of experts think that there is a substantial likelihood it
will be catastrophic if no actions are taken. Moreover, the response
time of oceans, glaciers, the atmosphere, and even our own energy
technology means that we are confronting systems with huge momentum,
and we will not have time to avoid a catastrophe once we are absolutely
certain that one will occur.
Many possible tipping points have been identified in the climate
system, each with large uncertainty about exactly when they will happen
but also carrying enormous costs to our society. Good examples include
the collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet, causing more than 20 feet of
sea level rise (Fig. 4), the early melting of mountain snow that
provides the natural water storage for a large fraction of the world's
population (including most of our western states), or the melting of
permafrost in the tundra which might release hundreds of billions of
tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere currently stored in frozen
soils.
In light of these dangers, and in light of the growing evidence
that serious harm from human-caused climate change is already
occurring, I'd like to ask the climate skeptics here today this
question: Do you really expect us to gamble our planet, our entire way
of life, on your arguments that climate change will be gentle on our
society? What are the consequences if you are wrong? If the Greenland
Ice Sheet began to show signs of abrupt collapse, do you really think
we could engineer a way to stop it? Whatever the probability, and I
fear that it is much higher than many people think, the point is that
it represents an unacceptable risk.
A more responsible question would be to ask what is the insurance
premium? How much do we have to sacrifice today to prevent a
catastrophe in the future? We do this sort of analysis all the time
with homeland security and other issues that, like global warming, also
affect our national security. With terrorism, we cannot be sure when,
where, or even if an attack will occur, but we make great effort to
reduce the risk at a huge cost to our economy. Relative to these costs,
the price of climate change mitigation through investment in our energy
infrastructure is minor, probably amounting to a continuing investment,
over time, of less than 1 percent of our gross domestic product. And
like many such actions, there are additional benefits to our military
and to our economy that we obtain as we reduce our dependence on
foreign sources of oil and gas. Developing and implementing advanced
energy technologies that do not put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
is a grand challenge facing our society, but is also a remarkable
business opportunity. America should lead in this new global market; we
cannot afford to do otherwise.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Statement of Robert M. Carter, Ph.D., James Cook University,
Townsville, Australia
biographical notes
I am an Adjunct Research Professor at James Cook University
(Queensland). I have 35 years training and experience as a
palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist and environmental
scientist, and hold degrees from the University of Otago (New Zealand;
BSc Hons) and the University of Cambridge (England; Ph.D.). During my
career I have held tenured academic staff positions at the University
of Otago (Dunedin) and James Cook University (Townsville), where I was
Professor and Head of School of Earth Sciences between 1981 and 1999.
I have wide experience in research management and administration,
including service as Chair of the Earth Sciences Discipline Panel of
the Australian Research Council, Chair of the national Marine Science
and Technologies Committee, Director of the Australian Office of the
Ocean Drilling Program, member of the international Planning and
Technical Operations Committees, and Co-Chief Scientist on ODP Leg 181
(Southwest Pacific Gateways).
My current research on climate change, sea-level change and
stratigraphy is based on field studies of Cenozoic sediments (last 65
million years) from the Southwest Pacific Ocean region, especially the
Great Barrier Reef and offshore eastern New Zealand, and includes the
analysis of marine sediment cores collected during ODP Leg 181. I am
involved in helping to plan future IODP drilling legs to collect high-
resolution climate data from the Pacific Ocean.
Throughout my career, my research has been supported by grants from
competitive public research agencies, especially the Australian
Research Council (ARC). I have received no research funding from
special interest organisations such as environmental groups, energy
companies or government departments.
I am the author of more than 100 papers in refereed scientific
journals. I also contribute regular letters, opinion pieces and
interviews to newspapers, national magazines and other media, and
regularly engage in public speaking on matters related to my research
knowledge. In 2005 I was appointed by the Australian Minister of the
Environment to the judging panel for the Eureka Prize in Environmental
Journalism, awarded annually by the Australian Museum, Sydney.
abstract
There is a strong conflict between current public alarm regarding
human-caused climate change and the science justification for that
alarm. The media serve to convey to the public the facts and hypotheses
of climate change as provided by individual scientists, government and
international research agencies and NGO lobby groups. In general, the
media have propagated an alarmist cause for climate change, and they
have certainly failed to convey to the public both the degree of
uncertainty that is characteristic of climate science and many
essential facts that are relevant to considerations of human causation.
Ways in which the public debate is directed along alarmist lines are
discussed. It is concluded that natural climate change is a hazard
that--like other similar natural hazards--should be dealt with by
adaptation. Attempting to mitigate human-caused climate change is an
expensive exercise in futility.
introduction--the three realities of climate change
Climate change knows three realities. Science reality, which is
what working scientists deal with on a daily basis. Virtual reality,
which is the wholly imaginary world inside computer climate models. And
public reality, which is the socio-political system within which
politicians, business people and the general citizenry work.
The science reality is that climate is a complex, dynamic, natural
system that no one wholly comprehends, though many scientists
understand different small parts. Science provides no unambiguous
empirical data that dangerous or even measurable human-caused global
warming is occurring (e.g. Khilyuk & Chilingar, 2006). Second, the
virtual reality is that deterministic computer models predict future
climate according to the assumptions that are programmed into them.
There is no ``Theory of Climate'', and the potential output of all
realistic GCMs therefore encompasses a range of both future warmings
and coolings. The difference between these outputs can be changed at
will, simply by adjusting such poorly known parameters as the effects
of cloud cover. And third, public reality in 2006 is that there exists
a widespread but erroneous belief amongst citizens, businessmen and
politicians that dangerous global warming is occurring and that it has
human causation.
Three main agents have driven the public to believe in dangerous
global warming. They are reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), incessant lobbying by environmental NGOs and
allied political groups, and the obliging conveyance of selectively
alarmist information by the media. Alarmist writing displays two
invariable characteristics. First, it is mostly concerned with the
minutiae of meteorological measurements and trends over the last 150
years and the absence of a proper geological context. Second, there is
an over-reliance on the outputs of unvalidated computer model scenarios
and attribution studies, i.e., virtual reality is favoured over
empirical testing.
I summarise first several arguments against the conventional IPCC
view that dangerous warming is occurring. I then comment on ancient
temperature records, greenhouse theory and computer modeling, and
conclude by discussing the role of the media in relaying science
information about global warming to the public.
four arguments against dangerous human-caused global warming
IPCC concentrates its analyses on climate over the last few hundred
years, and fails to give proper weight to the geological context of
modern climate change. The following facts, most of which draw on
geological data, all militate against the IPCC argument that dangerous
greenhouse warming is being caused by the accumulation of industrial
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere:
1. As recorded in Antarctic ice cores, changes in temperature
precede parallel changes in carbon dioxide by many hundred
years or more (Mudelsee, 2001).
2. As recorded in the Greenland GRIP core (Grootes et al.,
1993), the late 20th century warm period corresponds to a
cyclic warming peak within a 1500 year periodicity of probable
solar origin (Bond et al., 2001), and was cooler than the
preceding Minoan and Mediaeval Warm Periods.
3. In Antarctica, the late 20th century warming is as much as
5 C cooler than were recent interglacial climate optimums
(e.g., Watanabe et al., 2003).
4. As compared with high quality site-specific datasets such
as GRIP (Grootes et al., 1993), neither the rate of temperature
change nor the magnitude of the peak reached at the end of the
20th century lies outside the limits of recent natural climate
change (Davis & Bohling, 2001).
5. Using the global average surface temperature record
compiled by the Climate Research Unit of the U.K. Hadley Centre
from thermometer measurements, temperature at the Earth's
surface has flatlined since 1998 (Fig. 1). Temperature in the
troposphere is virtually unchanged since 1979 once El Ninos and
volcanic eruptions are taken into account (Fig. 2) (Gray,
2006).
the importance of ancient temperature records
The modern radiosonde and satellite MSU data provide an accurate,
truly global temperature statistic. But to compare the late 20th
century warm period with earlier geological warm events requires the
use of local proxy data, for no truly global temperature statistics are
available pre-1958 (or perhaps pre-1860, if you wish to trust the
earlier parts of the surface thermometer record). Meaningful
comparative judgements about climate change cannot be made on the basis
of the trivially-short, 150-year-long thermometer surface temperature
record, much less on the 26-year-long satellite tropospheric record,
for long-term climate change occurs over spans of many thousands to
millions of years.
One of the highest resolution proxy datasets that extends over an
adequate period of time to record natural climate change is the oxygen
isotope record from the Greenland ice core (Grootes et al., 1993).
These data show, first, that the 1-2 C/century rate of late 20th
century warming in Greenland falls well within the Holocene envelope of
rates of temperature change between ^2.5 and +2.5 C/century (Fig. 3).
And, second (Fig. 4), that in Greenland the late 20th century warm
period was cooler than the Mediaeval and Roman warm periods, and
reflects a regular millennial solar temperature cycle. In addition, ice
cores from Antarctica (Watanabe et al., 2003) show also that late 20th
century temperature is up to 5 C cooler there than temperature highs
associated with earlier but geologically recent interglacial periods
(Fig. 5).
Prompted by the invalidation of the Mann et al. hockey stick study,
there has been much dispute over statements like ``The rate and
magnitude of 20th century warming is unprecedented for at least the
past 1,000 years''. A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences
was able to conclude only that the 20th century warming was the
greatest for several hundred years, a scarcely surprising conclusion.
In summary, as judged against ice core and other high resolution
geological proxy records, the late 20th century warming (which as yet
has not continued into the 21st century) is unusual in neither rate nor
magnitude.
greenhouse theory
Carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless gas that has been present
in earth's atmosphere through time in trace amounts ranging from a few
hundred to a few thousand parts per million (ppm). Together with
oxygen, it is the staff of life for earth's biosphere because the
metabolism of plants depends upon its absorbtion. Increasing carbon
dioxide in the range of about 200-1000 ppm has repeatedly been shown to
be beneficial for plant growth, and to increase the efficiency of water
use. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is therefore a benefice.
The currently favoured hypothesis of dangerous global warming
includes the presumption that the warming is caused mainly by human
emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. This theory has failed
the three main tests that it has been subjected to. Namely:
late 20th century rates of temperature change and
magnitude do not exceed previously known natural limits;
no close relationship exists between the 20th century
pattern of increasing carbon dioxide and changing temperature; and
computer models using greenhouse radiation theory have
proved unable to predict the course of temperature change 1990-2005,
let alone to 2100.
Nonetheless, it is the case that carbon dioxide absorbs space-bound
infrared radiation, thereby increasing the energy available at Earth's
surface for warming or increased evaporation. This physical theory
accepted, there are four problems with turning a human-driven increase
in atmospheric carbon dioxide into global warming alarmism. They are as
follows.
The relationship between increasing carbon dioxide and
increasing temperature is logarithmic, which lessens the forcing effect
of each successive increment of carbon dioxide (Fig. 6).
In increasing from perhaps 280 ppm in pre-industrial times
to 380 ppm now, carbon dioxide has already produced 75 percent of the
theoretical warming of about 1 C that would be caused by a doubling to
560 ppm; as we move from 380 to 560 ppm, at most a few tenths of a
degree of warming remain in the system; claims of greater warming, such
as those of the IPCC, are based upon arbitrary adjustments to the
lambda value in the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, and untested assumptions
about positive feedbacks.
The ice core data show conclusively that, during natural
climate cycling, changes in temperature precede changes in carbon
dioxide by several hundred to a thousand or so years (Mudelsee, 2001).
In contrast to the 280 ppm levels indicated by averaged
ice-core results, measurements of fossil plant stomata indicate that
natural, pre-industrial carbon dioxide levels reached 350 ppm or higher
during the Holocene (Kouwenberg et al., 2005).
So, yes, there is agreement that carbon dioxide increases will
probably cause gentle feedback warming, but opinion remains strongly
divided as to how great the warming will be for a real world doubling,
and also whether any such warming is likely, on balance, to be
beneficial or harmful.
computer models
General circulation computer models (GCMs) are deterministic.
Because many climate processes occur at a scale below that of the
modelling grid, these processes have to be parameterized within the
model. The modellers themselves acknowledge that they are unable to
predict future climate, preferring the term ``scenario'' to describe
the output of their experiments. Individual models differ widely in
their output under an imposed regime of doubled carbon dioxide. In
2001, the IPCC cited a range of 1.8-5.6 C warming by 2100 for the
model outputs that they favoured, but this range can be further varied
to even include negative outputs (i.e. cooling) by minor adjustment of
some of the model parameters.
A second use of computer modelling is in climate attribution
studies, whereby the known 20th century meteorological record is
simulated using models fed with known or presumed forcings, such as
increasing carbon dioxide, volcanic eruptions and other aerosols. After
many years of trials, the IPCC in 2001 reported simulations that
mimicked the historic temperature record if and only if human emissions
were included in the forcings. These results have later been widely
misrepresented as being evidence for human-caused global warming. They
are, of course, evidence only that a curve matching exercise involving
many degrees of freedom has plausibly mimicked the 20th century
temperature curve. They are exercises in virtual reality, and not
evidence of any type.
A major problem with all GCMs is that they rest upon the Kelvin
fallacy, i.e., the assumption that the physics of the system is fully
known. Though computer modelling and attribution studies are valuable
heuristic tools, GCMs are not suitable for use as predictive tools for
climate policy.
In contrast with GCMs, other empirical computer models have been
trained using elapsed data up to the present. Such models have been
constructed using the 150 year-long surface temperature record
(Klyashtorin & Lyubushin, 2003), 3,500 year-long proxy records from a
Sargasso Sea marine core and a South African speleothem (Loehle, 2004),
and the 10,000 year-long Holocene proxy record from the GRIP ice core
(Kotov, 2001). Virtually all forward projections using these fitted
models project cooling during the early decades of the 21st century
(e.g., Fig. 7).
the role of the media
Given the many uncertainties and inadequacies in our understanding
of climate science, some of which are outlined above, and the lack of
empirical evidence for human causation, how has it come about that
public opinion in western nations is convinced that dangerous human-
caused warming is occurring? The answer is that the public have been
conditioned by the relentless repetition of alarmist climate messages
through the media, to whose role I now turn.
The media play a primary role in reporting the results of
scientific research to the general public. They do this today against
the following background:
1. A rapidly changing media landscape. Formerly, there were three
neatly separated categories of print, radio and television. With the
late 20th century development of the world wide web there has been a
dramatic rise in the number of professional websites and blog sites,
and the development of parallel printed/web newspaper editions plus
interactive discussion sites.
With such a miasma of sources of information now competing for
public attention, the inevitable result has been an increasing
shrillness and a loss of nuanced expression across all media. This does
not serve science reporting well.
2. Because of the lack of legal libel restraint over blog sites in
particular, character assassination and ad hominem attacks on so-called
climate skeptics have become common. In the climate science area, sites
such as Exxon's Secrets, Source Watch and De Smog Blog have developed
such denigration into an art form, and apparently a well funded art
form at that.
3. Over roughly the same time period as the Internet developed,
western countries have seen the emergence of the public relations (PR)
industry as a powerful force in society. It has been estimated that in
the 1990s the USA had 130,000 media reporters and 150,000 PR personnel.
The job of these PR people is to ensure that their employers'
activities figure in the news in a positive way; a polite name for them
is spinmeisters, and Prime Minister Tony Blair's Alistair Campbell was
their acknowledged crown prince.
At the same time that they now employ PR professionals, large
scientific employers often exert further control over the message that
reaches the public by forbidding individual scientists to talk to the
press and requiring that all comment be channeled through chosen PR
representatives. Thus Nature's correspondent in Australia, Peter
Pockley, reported (Australasian Science, Dec. 2004, p. 45):
``CSIRO's marine scientists have been ``constrained'' on the
scientific advice and interoperation they can provide to the
government's conservation plans for Australia's oceans. Likewise,
climate scientists have been told not to engage in (public) debate on
climate change and never to mention the Kyoto Accord on greenhouse gas
emissions.''
Morrison (2006) reports a survey showing, not surprisingly, that
science stories provided with hyperbole rated 20 percent higher in
terms of news-worthiness compared with factual reports on what had
actually been achieved, and suggested that a Code of Conduct was needed
to help guide science communicators.
4. It was learned by all media proprietors long ago that
sensational or alarmist news sells. As one of Australia's most
experienced science journalists has remarked (Julian Cribb,
Australasian Science, August 2002, p. 38):
``The publication of `bad news' is not a journalistic vice. It's a
clear instruction from the market. It's what consumers, on average,
demand. . . . As a newspaper editor I knew, as most editors know, that
if you print a lot of good news, people stop buying your paper.
Conversely, if you publish the correct mix of doom, gloom and disaster,
your circulation swells. I have done the experiment.''
It is a rare day that any metropolitan newspaper now fails to carry
one or more alarmist stories on climate change and other like
environmental causes.
5. A belief that good reporting is ``balanced'' reporting, and that
the balance is discharged by providing ``both'' sides of any particular
story.
Unfortunately, though taught in every journalism school, this
technique is a travesty when applied to matters of science--which deals
with testable hypotheses not ``balance''. First, because there are not
two but usually a multiplicity of sides to any complex scientific
debate, such as that regarding global warming. Second, because--as
practised--such journalistic balancing quickly becomes an excuse for
not exercising personal knowledge and judgement about complex topics.
``He says, she says'' substitutes for ``I, the reporter, judge that the
data best support . . .''.
6. A belief that environmental reporting is different from science
reporting. Nearly all major media sources today employ an environmental
reporter, but only a handful have a science reporter as well.
A little thought shows that there is a critical difference between
the jobs of these two types of reporters. It goes without saying that a
science reporter is charged with narrating the science truth, so far as
that can be identified. But what is the primary role of an
environmental reporter? Judging from their giddy effusions in the daily
press, one might infer that their job description reads: ``identify the
baddies (alleged polluters or desecrators), and support the goodies
(office-bearers in environmental NGOs) in pursuit of ever stricter
public environmental regulation of all types''.
It is my experience that the typical environmental reporter is
marked less by her scientific expertise and more by her zeal for
politically correct environmental causes. That is not a good recipe for
objective reporting.
The result of this media landscape is that, with some exceptions,
science reports in the news often lean heavily on PR copy provided by
the employing agency of the scientists. Busy journalists are
understandably pleased when they receive an interesting and well-
written story on a topic identified as of public importance. The
outcome--which I term frisbee science--is that the results delivered to
the public carry a strong spin which, in the case of global warming, is
invariably alarmist in nature.
playing the man and not the ball
The means by which the public has been convinced that dangerous
global warming is occurring are therefore not subtle. Indeed, the
combined alarmist activities of the IPCC, crusading environmental NGOs,
some individual leading climate scientists and many science academies
can only be termed a propaganda campaign. But because all of these
interest groups communicate with the public primarily through the
press, it is the press that carries the prime gatekeeper responsibility
for the unbalanced state of the current public view.
When doubts are raised about the legitimacy of a particular piece
of climate alarmism--say that Tuvalu is being swamped by a rising sea-
level--it is vanishingly rare for any ensuing press discussion to be
primarily about the science question at issue. Rather, rhetorical
devices are used to negate the doubts or the doubter. Assertions
commonly made about skeptics or their views include the following.
1. ``The science is settled''; or, there is a ``consensus'' on the
issue.
A typical recent statement of this type by Governor Schwarzenegger,
on Sunday Meet the Press, reads: ``The science is in, we know the
facts, there's not any more debate as to global warming or not''.
The Governor is deluding himself, because the science of climate
change has never been more uncertain. Furthermore, science is about
facts, experiments and testing hypotheses, not consensus; and science
is never ``settled''.
As Margaret Thatcher famously observed (``The Downing Street
Years'', p. 167):
``Consensus is the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles,
values and policies in search of something in which no one believes,
but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues
that have to be solved, merely because you cannot (otherwise) get
agreement on the way ahead''.
2. He is paid by the fossil fuel industry, and is merely repeating
their desired story.
An idea is not responsible for those who believe in it, and neither
is the validity of an scientific hypothesis determined by the character
or beliefs of the person who funded the research. Science discussions
are determined on their merits, by using tests against empirical or
experimental data. Who paid for the data to be gathered and assessed is
simply irrelevant.
3. She works for a left wing/right wing think tank, so her work is
tainted.
Think tanks serve an invaluable function in our society. On all
sides of politics they are the source of much excellent policy
analysis. They provide extended discussion and commentary on matters of
public interest, and have made many fine contributions towards
balancing the public debate on climate change. To be associated with a
high-quality think tank, as I am with the Melbourne Institute of Public
Affairs, is a privilege and a matter for pride, not shame.
That think tanks receive funding from industry sources is an
indication that those that survive are delivering value for money, and
does not impugn their integrity.
4. He is just a climate sceptic, a contrarian, a denialist.
These terms are used routinely as denigratory badges. The first two
are amusingly silly.
First, because most people termed climate ``skeptics'' are in fact
climate ``agnostics'', they have no particular axe to grind as to
whether or not humans are having a dangerous influence on global
climate. However, they prefer not to raise unnecessary alarms about
dangerous climate change unless and until there is some solid empirical
evidence in support. And, second, because all good scientists are
skeptics: that is their professional job. To not be a skeptic of the
hypothesis that you are testing is the rudest of scientific errors, for
it means that you are committed to a particular outcome: that's faith,
not science.
Introduction of the term ``denialist'' into the public climate
debate, with its deliberate connotations with holocaust denial, serves
only to cheapen those who have practiced the custom.
5. ``Six Nobel Prize winners, and seven members of the National
Academy of Sciences say . . .''.
Argument from authority is the antithesis of the scientific method.
That earlier this year the Royal Society of London tried to restrict
the public debate on climate change through intimidation of Esso U.K.
is a complete betrayal of all that the Society stands for. As John Daly
commented on his website regarding a 2001 U.S. National Academy of
Sciences report on global warming:
``The (2001) NAS committee made many assertions, none of which they
chose to justify or explain other than to state it was ``their view''--
as if their mere authority as representing the National Academy of
Science were enough to prevail in the argument.
Well it isn't. The days when mere `authority' could win an argument
or debate are long gone. Such deference is more characteristic of a
mediaeval priesthood, not a modern science where every important claim
must be justified and explained. Only evidence counts in this modern
world.''
6. The ``precautionary principle'' says that we should limit human
carbon dioxide emissions because of the risk that the emissions will
cause dangerous warming. Thus the science argument should be
subservient to the risk argument.
The precautionary principle is intended to assist governments and
peoples with risk analysis of environmental issues. First formulated at
a United Nations environment conference at Rio de Janiero in 1992, it
stated that ``Where there are threats of serious or irreversible
damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason
for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental
degradation''.
In order to take precautions, it is necessary to understand what
one is taking them against. But at the moment global average
temperature is flat-lining, and empirical predictions are for cooling.
As Dick Lindzen recently pointed out in an article in the U.K.
Telegraph: ``After all, like Hurricane frequency or the price of oil,
global mean temperature is as likely to go down as up''.
The precautionary principle is oftentimes a moral precept
masquerading under a scientific cloak. True scientific principles
acknowledge the supremacy of experiment and observation, and do not bow
to untestable moral propositions. Adhering to a moral principle through
thick and thin is certainly a part of the precautionary principle as
practiced by many environmentalists, and as such it is a principle of
the wrong type to be used for the formulation of public environmental
policy.
After comprehensive analysis, the Science and Technology Committee
of the U.K. House of Commons recently came to a similar conclusion,
commenting that ``we can confirm our initial view that the term
``precautionary principle'' should not be used, and recommend that it
cease to be included in policy guidance''. The committee added that
``In our view, the terms ``precautionary principle'' and
``precautionary approach'' in isolation from . . . clarification have
been the subject of such confusion and different interpretations as to
be devalued and of little practical help, particularly in public
debate''.
7. The Kyoto protocol is only a small first step towards a more
comprehensive carbon emission regimen.
This argument has always been ridiculous. To expend trillions of
dollars on measures that are predicted only to delay by 6 years a small
fraction of a degree rise in hypothetical temperature is irrational
behaviour. If it is a step, it is a step in the wrong direction, for--
as Bjorn Lomborg never tires from pointing out--the same monies could
be applied with much greater effect to other pressing environmental
problems. The futility of the Kyoto approach has recently been
underlined by the complete failure of the COP-13 talks at Nairobi to
make progress towards a post-Kyoto carbon emissions agreement.
8. It is irresponsible of the press to be playing up the views of a
small handful of contrarian scientists. In searching for formulaic
``balance'', the press overemphasizes the views of a few maverick
scientists, and thereby delays the public acceptance of essential
mitigation measures.
Quite to the contrary. Not only are there thousands of such
``mavericks'', including many of high scientific ability, but press
coverage of climate change is generally dominated by one-sided alarmist
reports which pay little or no attention to contrary views.
The small handful of quality newspapers that provide balanced
coverage of the climate change issue include the U.S. Wall Street
Journal, the U.K. Telegraph and the Australian. These publications are
playing both a responsible and an essential role in keeping the public
informed.
other techniques used to influence the public debate
Most of the matters just discussed relate to the denigration or
neutralization of arguments from climate skeptics. In addition to these
techniques, environmental writers and editors have developed their own
armoury of weapons for influencing the public debate on climate change.
These weapons include the following.
1. Couldism, mightism and perhapsism, fuelled by computer modelling
If, could, may, might, probably, perhaps, likely, expected,
projected . . .
Wonderful words. So wonderful, in fact, that environmental writers
scatter them through their articles on climate change like confetti.
The reason is that--in the absence of empirical evidence for damaging
human-caused climate change--public attention is best captured by
making assertions about ``possible'' change. And, of course, using the
output of computer models in support, virtually any type of climatic
hazard can be asserted as a possible future change.
As an example, a 2005 Queensland State Government report on climate
change used these words more than 50 times in 32 pages. That's a rate
of almost twice a page. A typical ``could probably'' run in this report
asserts that Queensland's climate could be more variable and extreme in
the future ``with more droughts, heatwaves and heavy rainfall'' and
probably with ``maximum temperatures and heavy downpours . . . beyond
our current experiences''.
Reading further into the report reveals that these statements are
all ``climate change projections . . . developed from a range of
computer-based models of global climate, and scenarios of future global
greenhouse gas emissions''.
In another similar example from Australia, Dr Penny Whetton, Leader
of the Climate Impacts Group, was quoted in a CSIRO press release as
saying ``By 2070 Victoria is likely to be 0.7 to 5.0 C warmer,
compared to 1990. . . . Climate change in Victoria is likely to lead to
more hot days, fewer frosts, more heavy rainfall and drier conditions
leading to greater bushfire risk.''
All this might be well and good if it had been established that the
models being used possessed actual skill in predicting regional
changes. That that is not the case is confirmed by the disclaimer that
the CSIRO puts in all their climate modeling reports (e.g. ``Climate
Change in Queensland Under Enhanced Greenhouse Conditions'' Final
Report 1997-2002, 84 pp.).
``This report relates to climate change scenarios based on computer
modelling. Models involve simplifications of the real processes that
are not fully understood. Accordingly, no responsibility will be
accepted by CSIRO or the QLD government for the accuracy of forecasts
or predictions inferred from this report or for any person's
interpretations, deductions, conclusions or actions in reliance on this
report.''
Needless to say, despite such caveats the press treat the outputs
of modeling exercises as firm predictions of future climate. In truth,
they are exercises only in virtual reality.
2. Data that are judged to be harmful to the global warming cause
are simply ignored.
From amongst many possible examples, I note the two that I have
discussed in more detail earlier. They are (i) that ice core data from
Greenland show that neither the magnitude nor the rate of late 20th
century warming falls outside previous natural limits; and (ii) that in
ice cores generally, changes in temperature lead their parallel changes
in carbon dioxide by at least several hundred years.
3. Enthusiastic reporting is undertaken of new science with
alarmist implications, and no reporting of counter arguments.
In 2005, in a paper in Nature, Bryden and co-authors reported
observations of flow-speeds in the Overturning Meridional Circulation
in the North Atlantic ocean, and inferred a significant slowdown of the
overturning circulation. The paper received wide publicity in the
press, with much attention to the alarmist possibilities that it opened
up. This year, papers by Schott et al. (2006) and Meinen et al. (2006)
have described in more detail some of the natural fluctuations in flow
strength of the Atlantic DWBC system, and Schott et al. conclude that
their results ``do not support suggestions of a basin-wide ``slowdown''
of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation''. This revision of
interpretation, not raising any alarm, was predictably largely ignored
by the press.
A second recent example of press selectivity is provided by the
enormous press coverage accorded to North Atlantic storms in 2005--a
year which saw 15 hurricanes develop, including Katrina, accompanied by
a tremendous amount of alarmist speculation that human-caused global
warming was the cause. In contrast, 2006, with only 5 hurricanes,
turned out to be a quiet year both for hurricanes and for press
speculation about global warming being their cause.
4. Award winning journalists or public celebrities, mostly with no
expertise in science, write ignorant polemics that are designed to
encourage public alarm on climate change.
For example, Ian Henschke, a current affairs journalist with the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and holder of a Reuters Fellowship
to study global warming at Oxford University in 1999, wrote recently
(Adelaide Review, March 2004, p. 7):
``The long-term effects of global warming are just beginning to
become evident. . . . The impact of global warming means a warmer,
wilder, wetter world where there will be winners and losers. We are
carrying out an unauthorized experiment with the planet's weather
system . . . that is and will continue to bleach and kill the Great
Barrier Reef and gives us even bigger El Nino events that saw our
national capital's suburbs ablaze last year. The rest of the world will
also have its own chaotic response, from increasing heat waves in
Europe to worse snow storms in Texas. Australia has become a pariah on
this issue. Along with the U.S. we are seen as coming out with
incoherent and inconsistent policies that make us part of the problem,
not part of the solution.''
This farrago of nonsense, which has been customized to stir
particular local environmental fears, is of a genre that can be read in
newspapers or watched on television around the world. Such pieces are
presented by reporters whose political correctness and moral pretension
greatly outstrips their scientific understanding.
5. Discrimination is exercised by both the popular and specialist
scientific press against articles on climate change that are written
from a balanced, rationalist or skeptical point of view.
Most long-standing climate skeptics have experienced this type of
discrimination, and there are many examples listed on the internet.
Particularly worrisome is that two leading general science
publications, Science and Nature, have developed a habit of not
accepting short papers that are critical of earlier (demonstrably
unsound) environmental papers that they have published. Three more
popular and very widely distributed magazines, namely National
Geographic, New Scientist and Scientific American, also display a great
lack of balance in the material that they publish on climate change
issues.
discussion and conclusions
I have discussed briefly above a number of arguments and practices
that are applied widely throughout the public media in order to
influence the public debate on climate towards alarmism. These
techniques are used most often by doctrinaire persons who are bereft of
scientific support for their strong personal belief that damaging,
human-caused warming is occurring.
With some rare exceptions, the performance of the media, and
especially the scientific press, on the global warming issue has been
lamentable. Editors need to resist the daily temptation for alarmism,
greatly improve their vigilance over publishing such weak rhetorical
arguments as those outlined above, and insist that their reporters
assess mainly the science issues at hand.
Driven by their addiction to alarmism, and a false belief that the
causes of climate change are understood, environmental lobby groups
worldwide urge the adoption of the precautionary principle to solve the
``global warming problem''. They argue that the world needs to move to
a ``post-carbon'' economy as soon as possible, in order to curtail
drastically the carbon dioxide emissions that they allege are causing
warming. Yet it is only unvalidated computer models that suggest
dangerous warming will occur, the observable facts being quite
implacable that additional carbon dioxide brings mild warming only,
most of which has already occurred because of the logarithmic nature of
the relationship between increased carbon dioxide and increasing
temperature.
Environmental campaigners for the mitigation of human greenhouse
emissions appear to be blind to facts such as:
that no amount of precaution is going stop natural climate
change;
that there is a 100 percent risk of damage from natural
climate events, which happen every day;
that we cannot measure, much less isolate, any presumed
human climate signal globally;
that extra atmospheric carbon dioxide causes mild warming
only, and given its other properties is at least as likely to be
beneficial as harmful; and
that the causes of climate change are many, various and
very incompletely understood.
It is a remarkable fact that despite the worldwide expenditure of
perhaps U.S. $50 billion since 1990, and the efforts of tens of
thousands of scientists worldwide, no human climate signal has yet been
detected that is unambiguously distinct from natural variation. After
the discrediting of the iconic ``hockey stick'' curve of recent
temperature change, the IPCC's alarmist case for dangerous human
climate change now rests not on empirical data of any sort but on
misunderstood computer attribution models, failed greenhouse theory,
and anecdotal accounts of climate changes--such as glaciers melting--
that may well be of wholly or largely natural origin.
A goal to ``stabilise world climate'' is misplaced, not to mention
unattainable. Climate is a dynamic system within which extreme events
and dramatic changes will always occur, irrespective of human actions
or preferences. Witness hurricane Katrina. The real danger of the
current public global warming hysteria is that it is distracting
attention and resources away from the need to develop a sound policy of
adaptation to future natural climate vicissitudes.
Climate change is as much a geological as it is a meteorological
issue. Geological hazards are mostly dealt with by providing civil
defense authorities and the public with accurate, evidence-based
information regarding events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions,
tsunamis and floods, and by adaptation to the effects when an event
occurs.
As for other major natural disasters, the appropriate preparation
for extreme climate events is to mitigate and manage the negative
effects when they occur. Careful planning will be needed to identify
when a dangerous weather or climate event is imminent (or has started),
and to foster ongoing research for the development of predictive tools
for both sudden and long term climatic coolings and warmings. Climate
impacts are generally slower to appear than those of other
``instantaneous'' disasters like earthquakes, tsunami, storms, volcanic
eruptions, landslides or bushfires. This difference is not one of kind,
and neither should be our response plans.
NOTE: Opinions, findings and conclusions expressed in this
testimony are those of the author, and are not attributable to either
his organization (James Cook University) or research fund provider
(Australian Research Council).
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Atmospheric CO2 fluctuations during the last millennium
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__________
Statement of Naomi Oreskes, Professor, University of California,
San Diego, CA
Thank you very much. It is an honor to have the opportunity to
speak to you today about the history of climate science. I am a
professor of history at the University of California, San Diego, where
I teach, and research, the history of modern science. I hold a Bachelor
of Science in Mining Geology from the Royal School of Mines, part of
the University of London, and a Ph.D., from Stanford University, where
I completed a graduate special program in geological research and
history of science.
In recent months, the suggestion has been made that concern over
anthropogenic global warming is a just a fad or a fashion. The history
of science shows otherwise. Scientific attention to global warming has
lasted over a century, involved thousands of scientists, and extended
across six continents. It has spanned the disciplines of physics,
chemistry, meteorology, and oceanography, and included some of the most
illustrious and trusted scientists of the 20th century. And it has
included scientific advisors to several U.S. Presidents--both
Democratic and Republican.
Let me explain.
Scientists have been studying carbon dioxide and climate for a long
time. John Tyndall first established in 1859 that carbon dioxide is a
greenhouse gas. From this, Swedish geochemist Svante Arrhenius deduced
in the 1890s that CO2 released to the atmosphere by burning
fossil fuels could alter Earth's climate. By the 1930s British engineer
Guy Callendar had compiled empirical evidence that this effect was
already discernible.\1\
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\1\ Callendar, G.S. (1938). ``The Artificial Production of Carbon
Dioxide and Its Influence on Temperature.'' Quarterly J. Royal
Meteorological Society 64: 223-40. See also James Roger Fleming (2006).
The Callendar Effect: The Life and Work of Guy Stewart Callendar, the
Scientist Who Established the Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change,
Boston: American Meteorological Society.
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Callendar's concern was pursued in the 1950s by American physicist
Gilbert Plass, a pioneer in upper atmosphere spectroscopy, by
geochemist Hans Suess, a pioneer of radiocarbon dating who worked
closely with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, and by oceanographer
Roger Revelle, a one-time commander in the U.S. Navy Hydrographic
Office. By the 1960s, Charles David Keeling's systematic measurements
demonstrated that atmospheric CO2 was, indeed, steadily
rising. (For this work, Keeling was awarded the National Medal of
Science in 2002).
These basic facts of history are well known.\2\
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\2\ James Rodger Fleming (1998). Historical Perspectives on Climate
Change. New York: Oxford University Press; Weart, Spencer R. (2004).
The Discovery of Global Warming. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
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What is less well known is that by the mid 1960s, a number of
scientific advisory panels had expressed concern about global warming,
and this concern was communicated by some of America's most illustrious
scientists to Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Jimmy
Carter.
One early warning came in 1965 from the Environmental Pollution
Board of the President's Science Advisory Committee, who warned that
``by the year 2000 there will be about 25 percent more CO2
in our atmosphere than at present [and] this will modify the heat
balance of the atmosphere to such an extent that marked changes in
climate could occur.''\3\ Accordingly, President Lyndon Johnson stated
In a Special Message to the Congress: ``This generation has altered the
composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through . . . a steady
increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.''\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Restoring the Quality of Our Environment, Report of the
Environmental Pollution Panel, President's Science Advisory Committee,
The White House, December 1965, on p. 9.
\4\ President Lyndon B. Johnson's ``Special Message to the Congress
on Conservation and Restoration of Natural Beauty'' on Feb. 8, 1965.
see: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=27285. This
appears to be the first time ``carbon dioxide'' appeared in a
presidential speech; thanks to Professor Zuoyue Wang of California
State University, Pomona, for drawing my attention to this.
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A second warning came in 1966 from the U.S. National Academy of
Sciences Panel on Weather and Climate Modification, headed by
geophysicist Gordon MacDonald, who later served on President Nixon's
Council on Environmental Quality (1970-1972).\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ ``Weather and Climate Modification Problems and Prospects,''
Vol I. Final report of the Panel on Weather and Climate Modification,
NAS-NRC Publication 1350, Washington, DC: NAS Press, 1966, particularly
discussion on p. 10. See also ``Scientific Problems of Weather
Modification,'' A report of the Panel on Weather and Climate
Modification, Committee on Atmospheric Sciences, NAS-NRC Publication
1236, Washington, DC: NAS Press, 1964. On Gordon MacDonald, see Munk,
Walter, Naomi Oreskes, and Richard Muller, 2004. ``Gordon J.F.
MacDonald,'' National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs 84: 3-
26.
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In 1974, in the wake of the Arab Oil Embargo, Alvin Weinberg,
Director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, realized that
climatological impacts might limit oil production before geology
did.\6\ In 1978, Robert M. White, the first administrator of NOAA and
later President of the National Academy of Engineering, put it this
way:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Weinberg, Alvin (1974). ``Global Effects of Man's Production of
Energy.'' Science 186: 205.
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We now understand that . . . carbon dioxide released during
the burning of fossil fuels, can have consequences for climate
that pose a considerable threat to future society. . . . The
potential . . . impacts [are] ominous.''\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ White, Robert M. (1978). Oceans and Climate: An Introduction,
Oceanus 21: 2-3.
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In 1979 the subject was addressed by the JASON committee--the
reclusive group of highly cleared scientists who gather annually to
evaluate scientific and technical problems for the U.S. Government--and
whose members have included some of the most brilliant scientists of
our era, including physics Nobel Laureates Hans Bethe and Murray Gell-
Mann.
The JASON scientists predicted that atmospheric CO2
might double by the year 2035, resulting in mean global temperature
increases of 2-3 C, and polar warming of as much as 10-12 C. This
report also reached the White House, where Frank Press, Science Advisor
to President Carter, asked the National Academy of Sciences for a
second opinion. An Academy committee, headed by MIT meteorologist Jule
Charney, affirmed the JASON conclusion: ``If carbon dioxide continues
to increase, [we] find no reason to doubt that climate changes will
result, and no reason to believe that these changes will be
negligible.''
It was precisely these concerns that led in 1992 to the U.N.
Framework Convention on Climate Change, which called for immediate
action to reverse the trend of mounting greenhouse gas emissions. One
early signatory was U.S. President George H.W. Bush, who called on
world leaders to translate the written document into ``concrete action
to protect the planet.'' Three months later, the Convention was
unanimously ratified by the U.S. Senate.
Since then, scientists around the world have worked assiduously to
flesh out the details of this broadly affirmed picture. The purpose of
my 2004 study of the scientific literature, published in the peer-
reviewed journal Science, was to assess how much disagreement remained
in the scientific community about the basic reality of global warming
and its human causes. The answer surprised me: not one scientific paper
in the random sample disagreed with the consensus position. Scientists,
my study showed, are still arguing about the details, but the overall
picture is clear. There is a consensus among both the leaders of
climate science and the rank and file of active climate researchers.
I should acknowledge that one skeptic has challenged my study, and
others have repeated his claim. This man is a social anthropologist in
Liverpool, who, to my knowledge, has never published his arguments
regarding my study in a peer-reviewed journal. This past October, he
admitted that he made significant mistakes in his criticisms, and he
now agrees with my general conclusion about the state of climate
science.\8\ In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting
Commission, he acknowledged, ``I do not think anyone is questioning
that we are in a period of global warming. Neither do I doubt that the
overwhelming majority of climatologists is agreed that the current
warming period is mostly due to human impact.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ This was recently reported by the Australian Broadcasting
Commission, see http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/
s1777013.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The scientific evidence is clear: the predictions made decades ago
by Arrhenius, Callendar, Plass, Suess, Revelle, Charney, MacDonald,
Weinberg, White, the JASON committee, and many others, have come true.
One prediction, however, did not come true.
In 1983, the National Academy formed a committee chaired by
physicist William Nierenberg to look in greater detail at the issues
raised by the JASON and Charney reports. The Nierenberg committee
accepted their scientific conclusions, but declined to view global
warming as a problem, predicting that any adverse effects would be
adequately remedied by technological innovation driven by market
forces.
This prediction, I think it is fair to say, has not come true.
Technological innovation has not saved the homes of the citizens of
Shishmaref, Alaska, nor stopped the acidification of the world's
oceans, nor prevented the melting of polar ice.
Thank you very much for your time.
__________
Statement of Dan Gainor, The Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow,
Director, Business & Media Institute
Thank you Mr. Chairman, Senators, ladies and gentlemen. We're here
to discuss the media coverage of the climate change debate. But there's
only one problem, there is almost none of that debate actually in the
media.
Journalists pledged to be neutral, long ago gave up their watchdog
role to become lapdogs for one position. The media became alarmist
claiming the planet is at a ``tipping point'' as if at any moment
everything would go over the edge. An April 2006 issue of Time magazine
pushed readers over that edge with 24 pages of advocacy, claiming:
``The debate is over. Global warming is upon us with a vengeance.''
CBS's Scott Pelley, who covers the environment, actually compared
climate change skeptics with Holocaust deniers and claimed: ``There
becomes a point in journalism where striving for balance becomes
irresponsible.''
In an effort to provide balance to that irresponsible position,
let's recall the media's record on climate change. Reporters told us
roughly 30 years ago that a similar fate awaited mankind. Then,
journalists were convinced we would all freeze to death.
In an April 1975 article entitled ``The Cooling World,'' Newsweek
advised us that ``the earth's climate seems to be cooling down.'' A May
1975 New York Times piece cautioned: ``Scientists Ponder Why World's
Climate is Changing: A Major Cooling Widely Considered to Be
Inevitable.''
The Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report and Science News all
chimed in that cool was suddenly very hot. One award-winning piece in
Fortune said if the trend continued, it could ``affect the whole human
occupation of the earth.''
The irony of this scare is that just years before, we had been
warned the earth was warming. In March 1929, the Los Angeles Times told
readers ``Most geologists think the world is growing warmer, and that
it will continue to get warmer.'' The New York Times took a similar
approach with a headline that said ``America in Longest Warm Spell
Since 1776.'' And less than 10 years before that, the Times had
detailed the exploits of Capt. Donald MacMillan's Arctic expedition and
how ``MacMillan Reports Signs of New Ice Age.''
In more than 100 years, the major media have warned us of at least
four separate climate cataclysms--an ice age, warming, another ice age
and another bout of warming. If you count the current catch-all term of
``climate change,'' that would be five separate media predictions. Even
by their count, they're 0-3.
The hubris that convinces supposedly unbiased journalists they are
providing the ``truth'' on climate change has led them to criticize
America for its stance on the issue including the Kyoto treaty. But
they typically leave out the 95-0 vote against Kyoto by this very
Senate or the many billions of dollars such an agreement would cost
America. This attitude has resulted in a media obsession with Al Gore's
film ``An Inconvenient Truth.'' At least 75 TV shows covered Gore or
the film in just 3 months this summer--more than 3\1/2\ times the
length of his movie.
The Today Show's Matt Lauer even lent his status to a Sci-Fi
Network program that listed global warming among other potential
threats to our species including asteroids, aliens and evil robots.
Scientists who dare question the almost religious belief in climate
change, and yes, they do exist, are ignored or undermined in news
reports as are policymakers and pundits who take similar views. The few
journalists who sometimes give another side, like the New York Times'
Andrew Revkin, emphasize funding sources for that side of the debate
and rarely bother to question the billions of dollars that go into
promoting global warming.
This goes against the basic tenets of journalism to be skeptical of
all sides of an issue. It also violates the ethical code of the Society
of Professional Journalists which urges the media to ``Support the open
exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.'' That code calls
for reporters to ``Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting.''
But that wasn't the media response when Chairman Inhofe read some
of our report ``Fire & Ice'' on the Senate floor in September. Newsweek
responded with a roughly 1,000 word clarification of its 1975 global
cooling report, but added it made the mistake as recently as 1992.
Newsweek still claimed ``the story wasn't `wrong' in the journalistic
sense of `inaccurate.' '' But at least it owned up to the error--after
31 years.
In the New York Times editorial that responded to Sen. Inhofe's
comments, the Times summarized: ``Cooling, warming--we never get it
right.''
That's the inconvenient truth.
Thank you.
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