[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 111 (Thursday, July 31, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8626-S8627]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            CLIMATE SCIENCE

 Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, today our negotiators are 
gathering in Bonn, Germany to continue negotiations toward a new 
climate treaty, so it is appropriate to address the Senate on this 
issue.
  My comments today will focus on the issue of science, scientific 
certainty, and scientific honesty.
  During the Senate's debate on Friday there were some general and 
specific comments made about climate science that were simply wrong, 
and I'd like to begin by addressing some of the general 
misunderstandings that may exist.
  First, some of our colleagues seem to have it in their minds that 
there is scientific certainty and consensus over the issue of whether 
or not human activities are causing global warming. This is simply not 
true.
  While it is true that Undersecretary of State Tim Wirth said that 
``the science is settled,'' it is clear that there is not a broad 
scientific consensus that human activities are causing global warming.
  Don't take my own word for it:
  The prestigious journal Science, in its issue of May 16th, says that 
climate experts are a long way from proclaiming that human activities 
are heating up the earth.
  Even Benjamin Santer, lead author of chapter 8 of the 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] report admits as much.
  Here is what Dr. Santer says:

       We say quite clearly that few scientists would say the 
     attribution issue was a done deal.

  Indeed, the search for the ``human fingerprint'' is far from over 
with many scientists saying that a clear resolution is at least a 
decade away.
  Even the Chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 
Change, Dr. Bert Bolin, says that the science is not settled. When told 
that Undersecretary of State Tim Wirth had said the science was 
settled, Dr. Bolin replied: ``I've spoken to [Tim Wirth], I know he 
doesn't mean it.''
  Mr. President, the science is not settled. We continue to spend over 
$2 billion on the U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program for the 
simple reason that the science is not settled.
  We know human activities result in carbon emissions. We also know 
that land-based records indicate that some warming has occurred. We do 
not know that one has caused the other.
  Let me now turn to some specific statements that were made during the 
debate last Friday that simply don't agree with the latest scientific 
literature:
  My good friend, Senator Kerry, said (on page S8118 of the 
Congressional Record) that the ``global average temperature has changed 
by less than a degree Celsius up or down for 10,000 years--[and that] 
the projected warming is expected to exceed any climate change that has 
occurred during the history of civilization.''
  Unfortunately, the facts simply don't match up with Senator Kerry's 
statement. According to data from the Woods Hole Oceanographic 
Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, temperatures were up to 
3 deg.C higher than present values some 2500-3000 years ago. 
(Reference: L. Keigwin, Science, volume 274, p. 1504-1508, 1996.)
  In addition, independent studies using a different set of data 
indicate abrupt worldwide changes in temperature about 8000 years ago. 
(Reference: Stager and Mayewski, Science, volume 276, p. 1834, 1997.)
  Another statement made by Senator Kerry (on page S8137 of the 
Congressional Record) claims that ``. . . we are living in the midst of 
the most significant increase that we have seen in 130 years, and the 
evidence of the prognosis of our best scientists is that it is going to 
continue at a rate that is greater than anything we have known since 
humankind, since civilization has existed, civilization within the last 
8,000 to 10,000 years on this planet.''
  Well, the facts are somewhat different. The most significant 
temperature increase in the last 130 years occurred between 1900 and 
1940, and is generally believed to be a natural warming, a recovery 
from the Little Ice Age.
  In pointing these facts out, it is not my contention that Senator 
Kerry is trying to mislead anyone. He is merely repeating some of the 
information that has been provided to him by his staff or others, and I 
know he believes them to be correct.
  But they are not correct.
  I believe this makes my point that there is a great deal of 
misunderstanding about this issue, in addition to the lack of 
scientific certainty I alluded to earlier.
  I'd like to briefly turn my attention to a few statements made by 
others outside the Senate about the science of Climate Change.
  When I opened the newspaper on Saturday I was amused to see the level 
of ``spin control'' that some were attempting with respect to the 
Senate's actions of Friday.
  Indeed, on page A11 of Saturday's Washington Post, in an article by 
Helen Dewar, I read that Phillip Clapp, the President of the 
Environmental Information Center, said the Byrd resolution ``endorses 
the science on global warming . . .''
  Well, I hope the public and the press will follow the wise counsel of 
Senator Byrd and allow the resolution to speak for itself.
  Indeed, the resolution does not say anything about endorsing the 
science of global warming.
  If it had, it would not have passed the Senate at all . . . much less 
than by a vote of 95-0.
  Special interest groups will, I suppose, do their best to advance 
their special interests. But we should demand a certain level of 
integrity and scientific honesty in our public debate of this issue.
  This brings me to the final issue that I wish to address today--the 
issue of scientific honesty and integrity.
  As pointed out above, there is a great deal of scientific uncertainty 
about climate change. Well respected, highly qualified scientific 
experts disagree over this issue.
  The hearings held before the Energy Committee, the Foreign Relations 
Committee, and the Environment and Public Works Committee have all 
featured solid, respected scientists--some of whom question the link 
between human activities and a warming planet.
  Before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee which I chair, Dr.

[[Page S8627]]

Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for astrophysics 
questioned the link between human activities and climate change.
  Before the Environment and Public Works Committee, Dr. Richard S. 
Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, pointed out problems with the 
General Circulation Models that are the basis for the predictions of 
warming.
  My Committee also heard from Dr. V. Ram Ramanathan of the Scripps 
Institute of Oceanography, about the role of water vapor as a 
confounding factor in these models.
  In the Environment and Public Works Committee, Dr. John R. Christy of 
the Earth System Science Laboratory at the University of Alabama in 
Huntsville discussed the satellite temperature records that conflict 
with ground-based data.
  Before the Foreign Relations Committee, Dr. Patrick Michaels, 
professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, 
directly challenged the links between human activities and observed 
warming.
  These are all respected scientists. They are not crackpots, nay-
sayers, or as some press accounts have branded them, a ``small and 
noisy band of skeptics.''
  Instead, they are scientists, doing what scientists do. Consistent 
with the scientific method, they are challenging the findings of other 
scientists, in an open, intellectually honest manner, using all the 
data and analysis that they can bring to bear.
  That is how the system is supposed to work.
  Unfortunately, the proponents of the view that we must take extreme 
actions now to address climate change have been attacking the 
credibility and the reputations of some scientists who do not share 
their view.
  Instead of attacking their science, they attack the scientist.
  They claim that scientists who disagree with the so-called consensus 
view of climate change are part of some kind of anti-science 
conspiracy, funded by big oil and big coal to deliberately mislead the 
American public.
  That sounds silly, doesn't it?
  Yet, on the Diane Rehm radio program which aired locally on WAMU-FM 
on July 21, a prominent guest made some pretty remarkable assertions. 
Let me quote from the transcript of this radio interview:
       . . . it's an unhappy fact that the oil companies and the 
     coal companies in the United States have joined in a 
     conspiracy to hire pseudo scientists to deny the facts . . . 
     the energy companies need to be called to account because 
     what they are doing is un-American in the most basic sense. 
     They are compromising our future by misrepresenting the facts 
     by suborning scientists onto their payrolls and attempting to 
     mislead the American people.
  A ``conspiracy,'' Mr. President.
  ``Pseudo scientists.''
  ``A deliberate attempt to mislead the American people.''
  ``Un-American.''
  These are serious charges.
  Who was the guest who was making these charges of a conspiracy 
designed to deliberately mislead the American people?
  Was this guest calling Dr. Lindzen a pseudo scientist? Or Dr. 
Baliunas? Or any of the others I mentioned?
  Are they part of this conspiracy?
  Sadly, a member of the President's Cabinet--the Secretary of the 
Interior--was responsible for these remarks.
  Here is a political appointee who appears to be making judgments 
about the scientific integrity of others.
  Those were unfortunate remarks, Mr. President. And they are the sort 
of remarks I hope that the Senate will avoid as we continue the debate 
on climate change.
  Let us keep to the high road.
  Let us appreciate the fact that scientists, and indeed, all 
Americans, are free to disagree and to challenge the views of others in 
honest, public debate.
  There will be disagreements. Just as I challenged the scientific 
understanding of Senator Kerry on several issues earlier in my remarks, 
others will surely challenge my understanding of the science at some 
point in the debate.
  And in the process, we will all learn. That is the way it should be.
  But there will be some, Mr. President, who will attack the scientist 
instead of the science.
  There will be some who say that you must agree with me, or you must 
be part of some conspiracy that is trying to mislead the American 
people.
  That, to use Secretary Babbitt's words, strikes me as un-American.
  Let's not fear a healthy scientific debate. Instead, let's depend on 
it.

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