[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 130 (Monday, October 11, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11291-S11297]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE SCIENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, as chairman of the Committee on 
Environment and Public Works, I have previously addressed the Senate to 
discuss the issue of so-called global warming. I have taken a special 
interest in this issue because the gravity of what is at stake demands 
it. I have taken a simple, yet profound approach to dealing with 
environmental issues, working to

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ensure that the laws we pass represent sound public policy. Of my three 
guiding principles for all committee work, the first principle is that 
Government should rely on the most objective science.
  Unfortunately, a commitment to drawing conclusions based on science 
is not a popular approach. What has most galled my critics is that I do 
not ``spin the science'' to make it something it is not. Good science 
is and should remain the product of well designed and reproducible 
studies and research.
  All too often, however, the studies that are touted by my critics are 
tainted by political and ideological agendas and cannot be reproduced 
because the authors will not release the data that supposedly supports 
their conclusions--all of which raises the eyebrows of credible 
scientists. Such science has no place in our system of government and 
should not be used to drive major U.S. policy.
  When I led the congressional delegation to Milan last December, I was 
greeted by posters that quoted me as saying global warming is ``the 
greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.'' I thanked the 
green activists for uncharacteristically quoting me correctly. Global 
warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. 
It was true when I said it before, and it remains true today.
  Perhaps what has made this hoax so effective is that we hear over and 
over that the science is settled and that there is consensus that, 
unless we fundamentally change our way of life by limiting greenhouse 
gas emissions, we will cause catastrophic global warming. This is 
simply a false statement.
  Mr. President, 4,000 scientists, 70 of whom are Nobel Prize winners, 
signed the Heidelberg Appeal, which says that no compelling evidence 
exists to justify controls of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. 
Over 17,000 scientists signed another document that directly 
contradicts the false claims of consensus. The Oregon Petition, 
compiled by Dr. Frederick Seitz, a past president of the National 
Academy of Sciences and a professor emeritus at Rockefeller University, 
reads as follows:

       There is no convincing scientific evidence that human 
     release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse 
     gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause 
     catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption 
     of the Earth's climate.

  What a powerful, unequivocal statement that is. So powerful, in fact, 
that ideologues fraudulently sent in made-up names and belittled 
legitimate scientists on the Petition, such as Dr. Perry Mason, simply 
because he and a few others shared their names with famous fictional 
characters. Such immature acts belong on a grade school playground, but 
are simply shameful in a serious policy debate. Yet we have heard these 
baseless charges repeatedly. But these distortions only serve to 
underscore the fragileness of the myth that there is consensus. If 
there truly is consensus, why would so many renowned scientists sign 
such statements? If there truly is consensus, why would these 
environmental activists be so threatened by these documents that they 
would make fraudulent submissions? In short, if there is such 
controversy over whether there is consensus, how can there possibly be 
consensus? The controversy over its existence is itself proof that no 
consensus exists.
  This point was made succinctly by former Carter administration Energy 
Secretary James Schlesinger, who wrote in the Washington Post: ``There 
is an idea among the public that the science is settled. That remains 
far from the truth.'' He also wrote that the global warming theory has 
hardened into orthodoxy that searches out heretics and seeks to punish 
them.
  And that was James Schlesinger, Energy Secretary in a Democrat 
administration.
  Thankfully, despite the efforts to ``punish them,'' credible 
scientists continue to conduct well-designed, reproducible studies, and 
I will list some of them here today. Last year, I spoke at length to 
describe the great number of uncertainties surrounding claims of global 
warming. I described real science that contradicts the alarmists, who, 
wracked by fear, see a future plagued by catastrophic flooding, war, 
terrorism, economic dislocations, droughts, crop failures, mosquito-
borne diseases, and harsh weather--all caused by man-made greenhouse 
gas emissions.
  We cannot afford to forget that climate change alarmists' visions 
have been with us for decades. In 1972, the National Science Board, the 
governing body of the National Science Foundation, observed:

       Judging from the record of the past inter-glacial ages, the 
     present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end 
     . . . leading into the next glacial age.

  In 1974, Time magazine in an article entitled ``Another Ice Age?'' 
warned:

       However widely the weather varies from place to place and 
     time to time, when metrologists take an average of 
     temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere 
     has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. 
     The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological 
     Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the 
     weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger 
     of another ice age.

  These fears became the motivation of a drumbeat from 
environmentalists that we must fundamentally alter our way of living to 
avoid a cataclysmic ice age. Of course, these fears proved baseless.
  And when this 30-year cooling cycle ceased, these same alarmists 
again proclaimed we must fundamentally alter our way of living to avoid 
cataclysmic global warming. From the scientific literature, I believe 
these fears are equally baseless.
  I believe it would be unconscionable to heed the alarmists' cries for 
economic disarmament without subjecting these claims of doom to the 
scrutiny they deserve. Predictably, those who peddle fear do not want 
discussions of science. Hiding behind claims of ``the science is 
settled,'' they conjure ever more creative ways to market the myth.
  The most recent example is the movie, ``The Day After Tomorrow,'' in 
which the laws of physics are repeatedly violated to create fear of an 
ice age caused by global warming. First it was an ice age. Then it was 
global warming. Now it is an ice age caused within days because of 
global warming. Seems they can't make up their minds what they are 
afraid of--but their solution is always the same, restrict the economy 
and outsource American jobs overseas.
  Of course, the movie was widely panned, not simply as a ``bad'' 
movie, but a ``stupid'' movie. Even some environmentalists had to admit 
there was no science to support the movie. For instance, Dan Schrag, a 
paleoclimatologist, said:

       My first reaction was, ``Oh my God, this is a disaster 
     because it is such a distortion of science.

  What disturbed me was not the movie, which after all is simply the 
vision of a German film producer with a dislike for Americans who says, 
``My secret dream is that this film moves politicians to act.'' No, 
what disturbed me was he may get his wish. Former Vice President Gore 
teamed up with the activist group, MoveOn.org, to use the movie as an 
opportunity to market their alarmist views and economy-capping 
solutions. This is exactly what is wrong with how alarmists discuss 
this issue. Rather than joining me and those like me in a commitment to 
using the best, nonpoliticized science--whatever it finds--politically 
motivated groups, such as MoveOn.org, pander to our worst fears to 
drive their political agenda.
  I would rather discuss what real science is showing. I said last July 
that:

       After studying the issue over the last several years, I 
     believe that the balance of the evidence offers strong proof 
     that natural variability is the overwhelming factor 
     influencing climate.

  After continuing to study the science over the last year, that belief 
has been strengthened. I submit, furthermore, that the scientific 
debate is shifting away from those who subscribe to global warming 
alarmism.
  IPPC incorrectly attributes ground station temperature rise to 
climate change instead of local activity. One of the areas that has 
caused global warming advocates the most heartburn has been the 
inconvenient, yet inescapable, fact that records from satellites using 
highly reliable microwave sounding units show little warming, on a 
globally averaged basis, in comparison to ground station records. This 
important discrepancy on its face would suggest the ground-based data 
is contaminated.

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It is now widely recognized that ground-based measurements are affected 
by such things as the ``heat island'' effect, large-scale land-use 
changes and problems with maintaining ground-stations.
  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, report 
published in 2001 is claimed to be the most authoritative source for 
claims that temperatures are rising due to climate change. The IPCC has 
become increasingly alarmist in its three successive reports. In its 
summary referring to globally averaged temperature data, it says only 
that ``These numbers take into account various adjustments, including 
heat island effects.'' The discussion within the body of the report to 
this important issue, which must be thoroughly explained if ground-
based data is to be considered of more importance than highly reliable 
satellite data, is disappointingly brief and uninformative as well. 
Moreover, it leaves the impression that everything except for 
temperature changes due to climate has been factored out.
  Thus, the entire validity of the conclusions from ground-station 
temperature data rests on the claim that these temperature bias effects 
in the data from such things as growing cities, construction, 
agricultural practices and other economic activities which potentially 
could impact temperature measurements have been completely subtracted 
out from the conclusions. But this may not be true.
  A new study by Drs. Ross McKitrick and Patrick Michaels that was 
presented in an article published in the May 25 issue of ``Climate 
Research,'' throws these assurances of the IPCC into serious doubt.
  The study examined temperature records for 218 individual stations 
located in 93 countries since 1979, when satellite data first began 
being collected. The study then compared these to the IPCC grid cells 
containing these 218 stations.
  The study concluded that the differences between the satellite data 
and the ground station data were almost completely explained by local 
economic and social factors, and data quality control. Moreover, it 
found that:

     outside the dry/cold regions the measured temperature change 
     is primarily explained by economic and social variables.

  In short, the IPCC's claims of increasing temperatures based on 
ground-based data appear to be greatly overstated. As the article puts 
it, non-climate-related variables ``add up to a significant net warming 
bias at the global level.''
  This finding is of tremendous importance, seriously eroding the 
foundation for the house of cards upon which the global warming 
hysteria is built. Moreover, the study is well-designed and 
reproducible.
  Mann's hockey stick is flawed and irreproducible. That study's design 
and reproducibility stands in stark contrast to another study heavily 
relied upon by global warming advocates--the famous, or perhaps I 
should say, infamous hockey stick chart published by Dr. Michael Mann. 
The conclusions of this study have become a rallying cry for alarmists 
who would have us believe this is final proof that 20th century 
temperatures have spiked up dramatically. These results are routinely 
used in presentations to corporate officers to demonstrate that they 
had better restructure their companies' operations and annual reports.
  But Mann's conclusions have come under intense criticism recently, as 
other researchers have challenged both the methodology he used and the 
reliability of the results.
  A team of scientists led by Dr. Willie Soon and Dr. Sally Baliunas, 
who are astrophysicists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center, surveyed 
240 articles concerning local and regional-scale climate 
reconstructions over the last 1,000 years. The proxy record they 
examined was far more extensive than that used by Mann. While Mann's 
analysis relied mostly on tree-ring data from the Northern Hemisphere, 
the researchers offer a detailed look at climate changes that occurred 
in different regions around the world over the last 1000 years using 
over 20 different proxies.
  As a result of this extensive survey, Drs. Soon and Baliunas 
concluded that:

     the 20th century does not contain the warmest anomaly of the 
     past millennium in most proxy records, which have been 
     sampled world-wide. Past researchers implied that unusual 
     20th century warming means a global human impact. However, 
     the proxies show that the 20th century is not unusually warm 
     or extreme.

  Other studies that are devastating to Mann's conclusion focus not on 
its inconsistency with the results of work of a multitude of other 
researchers, but on his extremely questionable and improper methods. In 
an attempt last year to perform an audit of Mann's unique conclusions, 
Drs. McIntyre and McKitrick found that Mann's work was irreproducible 
without resorting to the use of flawed data sets, inappropriate data 
manipulation, or ill-advised statistical procedures. To quote the 
researchers, ``the dataset used to make [the Mann reconstruction] 
contained collation errors, unjustified truncation or extrapolation of 
source data, obsolete data, incorrect [methodological] calculations, 
geographical mislocations and other serious defects.''
  When the researchers corrected for these data and methodological 
flaws, they conclude that temperatures in the early 1400s rivaled those 
of today, indicating that human influences have not taken the climate 
to unprecedented territory.
  Dr. Esper, a paleoclimate researcher, and his colleagues published a 
paper that suggests that the tree-ring histories heavily relied upon by 
Mann in his temperature reconstructions were manipulated in such a way 
as to have most of the long term variability removed, making the 20th 
century temperatures appear much more unusual than they in fact were. 
Esper and his colleagues produced temperature reconstructions for the 
past 1,000 years using a more scientifically defensible approach to 
handling tree-ring records that preserves long-term variability.
  The study concludes that the past 1,000 years have been characterized 
by periods of warm and cold, and that as far back as about 1,000 years 
ago, temperatures were as warm or warmer than in the late 20th century.
  Of course, these studies show that the ``shaft'' of the hockey stick 
created by Mann is wrong. And it is intuitively true that the shaft is 
wrong. We have known for years about the Medieval Warm Period from 800 
to 1400 A.D. We have known for years about what has been called the 
Little Ice Age from 1600 to 1850 A.D. And the new studies I've just 
described confirm these well-established naturally occurring climatic 
events.
  In other words, in creating his so-called hockey stick, Mann 
deliberately eliminated the first blade of the hockey stick. By 
eliminating the blade he left the false conclusion that the 20th 
century temperatures are unprecedented. They are not. The fact is that 
the real temperatures spike far higher during the period he portrays as 
a straight shaft than current temperatures--despite that his 
extraordinarily flawed results indicate we are living in the hottest 
period in the last 1,000 years.
  Ironically, the often-criticized IPCC report itself contradicts 
Mann's findings. As I described earlier, a new reproducible study 
indicates the IPCC's estimates of temperature rise themselves appear to 
mistakenly attribute socioeconomic and data quality factors that affect 
temperature readings to climate change. Yet even so, the IPCC shows a 
far smaller temperature increase than Mann. The IPCC shows an increase 
of 0.6 degrees Celsius over the last 100 years, but the ``blade'' of 
the Mann hockey stick shows an increase of 0.95 Celsius--more than a 50 
percent larger increase.

  Moreover, the so-called hockey stick ``blade'' does not appear to be 
explained by the statistical techniques Mann claims he used. In a 
recent letter published in Geophysical Research Letters, Drs. Soon, 
Baliunas, and Legates closely examined the ``blade'' and found that it 
could not be reproduced using either the technique Mann says he used, 
or other common statistical techniques. Once again, this key 
requirement of reproducibility seems missing from the flagship study of 
those crying that the sky is falling.
  Most recently, Dr. Chapman and his colleagues commented on a 
comparison of borehole temperature measurements with Dr. Mann's proxy 
records and questioned Dr. Mann's analysis techniques, concluding they 
are ``just bad

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science'' and that Dr. Mann had undertaken a ``selective and 
inappropriate presentation'' of results.
  Thus, as Dr. Legates concluded in testimony before the Environment 
and Public Works Committee, this so-called flagship study:

     certainly does not conform to the requirements of open access 
     and reproducibility, required by the Data Quality Act, nor 
     does it meet even minimal quality standards.

  Dr. Legates went on to say in respect to the many problems inherent 
in Mann's study:

       This leads me to reject Dr. Mann's . . . conclusions . . . 
     that anthropogenic factors provide the overwhelming influence 
     on global and hemispheric temperatures in the last 1800 years 
     and that the 1990s are the warmest decade, and 1998 the 
     warmest year, of the last 1800 years.

  Some may try to defend the Mann conclusions, and believe his work is 
unimpeachable. But a recent article published in the July 1st, 2004 
issue of Nature magazine repudiates that belief. In a brief 
``corrigendum,'' Mann makes a clear admission that the disclosure of 
data and other methods supporting the hockey stick was materially 
inaccurate. This corrigendum was ordered by the Editorial Board after 
two other scientists, Dr. McIntyre and Dr. McKitrick filed a 
``Materials Complaint.'' According to these scientists, the on-line 
supplemental information accompanying Mann's correction notice 
essentially concedes for the first time that key steps in the 
computations behind his conclusions were left out of and conflict with 
the description of methods in the original paper.
  Despite this, Mann continues to assert that these errors do not 
affect his results, saying: None of these errors affect our previously 
published results.

  But as McIntyre and McKitrick point out:

     if this were true, then a simple constructive proof could 
     have been provided, showing before and after calculations. 
     This is conspicuously missing . . . We have done the 
     calculations and can assert categorically that the claim is 
     false. We have made a journal submission to this effect and 
     will explain the matter fully when that paper is published.

  While this sad spectacle clearly is not yet over, three things are 
clear. Mann's hockey stick has never been reproduced, efforts to do so 
showed that the study was replete with errors and miscalculations, and 
despite his continuing faith in his hockey stick conclusions, Mann has 
yet to offer any proof whatsoever that they are correct. And yet the 
alarmists continue to claim we should unilaterally disarm America's 
economy based on Mann's unbelievable--literally unbelievable--results.
  Another controversial claim is that sea level is rising, and that 
this is due to climate change. It has been claimed for years that sea 
level was rising rapidly, yet again fueling the call for action. Based 
on modeling, the IPCC estimates that sea level will rise 1.8 
millimeters annually, or about one-fourteenth of an inch.
  In a study published this year in Global and Planetary Change, Dr. 
Nils-Axel Morner of Sweden found that sea level rise hysteria was 
overblown. In his study, which relied not only on old observational 
records, but satellite altimetry as well, he concluded that:

     there is a total absence of any recent ``acceleration in sea 
     level rise'' as often claimed by IPCC and related groups.

  Morner's findings go to the heart of the debate--the reliance by 
global warming advocates on faulty models that conflict with 
observational records instead of observational records themselves. 
According to Morner, the:

       IPCC made an estimate of all variables and their possible 
     contribution to sea level rise. They arrived at a mean value 
     of 0.9 millimeters per year. This value is in harmony with 
     the records of the present and near-past . . . Still--and 
     this is remarkable, [says Morner,]--IPCC compared their own 
     value with a model value of 1.8 millimeters per year and 
     discarded their own estimate as unrealistic.

  Morner has blunt words for the IPCC approach, saying that he 
``discard[s] the model output of IPCC as untenable, not to say 
impossible.''
  Using satellite altimetry and other observational data, Morner finds 
that the late 20th century lacks any sign of acceleration of sea rise, 
including the last decade. He concludes that, based on long-term 
observational data as well as the newest technology, sea level in a 
century can be expected to be within the range of a 10 centimeter sea 
level decline to a 20 centimeter sea level rise, which translates to 
about a four inch sea level decline to an eight inch sea level 
increase.
  Yet, remarkably, we still hear fears that the world will become 
flooded due to global warming. Such claims are, to be blunt, completely 
out of touch with most comprehensive science. As Sweden's Morner puts 
it, ``there is no fear of massive future flooding as claimed in most 
global warming scenarios.''
  Something else I am told is that there has been an increase in the 
number and intensity of severe weather events. Typically these 
doomsayers point to the droughts in the Southwest or point to more 
violent hurricanes to prove that global warming is occurring.
  In response to the current 5-year drought in the southwest, the New 
York Times proclaimed on May 10 that ``Drought may be normal, but there 
may be nothing normal about this drought.'' Of course, the paper 
inserted a weasel word to avoid actually describing how it was 
abnormal.
  This is one of those claims that makes me want to utter the old 
insult, ``You are so wrong, I don't know where to begin.'' If an 
increased number of severe droughts is to prove global warming, it 
would have to be true that the number and severity of these droughts 
are, in fact, increasing. But nothing could be farther from the truth.
  Drought is a serious and damaging climate-related hazard. But this 
fact should not obscure the fact that carbon dioxide is not the cause 
of this recurring disaster that plagued even the Ancient Egyptians. The 
two worst droughts to hit this country in the last century occurred in 
the 1930s--known as the Great Dustbowl--and the 1950s. But they were 
neither the longest droughts to afflict this country, nor the most 
severe.
  According to an article published in the December 1998 Bulletin of 
the American Meteorological Society, Dr. Connie Woodhouse and Dr. 
Jonathan Overpeck conducted tree-ring reconstructions in the Southwest 
that suggest the lengths and severity of droughts of the 1930s and 50s 
have been equaled or, in some regions, surpassed by droughts in the 
past several centuries.
  They further concluded that it is clear that major multi-year Great 
Plains droughts have occurred naturally once or twice a century over 
the last 400 years. And there is evidence that during the 13th and 16th 
centuries, there were two megadroughts that exceeded the severity, 
length and spatial extent of 20th century droughts.
  Of course, this study was published before the onset of the most 
recent 5-year drought in the Southwest. More recent studies published 
just last year, however, confirm its findings. In a 2003 article in 
Geophysical Research Letters, Dr. Stephen Gray and his colleagues 
stated that:

     like the 1950s drought, the late 16th century megadrought was 
     followed by a wet period, and both events were associated 
     with intense La Nina episodes typical of southwestern U.S. 
     and Great Plains droughts.

  In an article in the July 2003 issue of the American Meteorological 
Society, Dr. Falko Fye and his colleagues found that:

       There appear to have been at least 12 droughts since 1500AD 
     that were analogous to the 1950s drought in terms of 
     location, intensity, and duration. . . . [and] the 16th 
century megadrought lasted some 18 years and the tree-ring data 
indicate it was the most severe sustained drought to impact North 
America in the past 500 to perhaps 1000 years.

  What is also worth noting is that the global temperature record 
doesn't provide any useful information concerning drought conditions.
  In the wake of this year's successive hurricanes hitting Southeast 
and Gulf States, some have even had the gall to claim it is due to 
global warming. Credible meteorologists have been quick to dismiss such 
claims. As Hugh Willoughby, senior scientist at the International 
Hurricane Research Center of Florida International University stated in 
the plain language we non-scientists can understand:

       This isn't a global-warming sort of thing. . . . It's a 
     natural cycle.

  Benjamin Preston, senior research fellow at the Pew Center on Global 
Climate Change--a green activist organization that promotes the global 
warming theory echoed his sentiments, saying about the link between 
hurricanes and global warming:


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       The general consensus is that it's unlikely. . . . We can 
     actually explain an active hurricane season using natural 
     variability.

  If even the Pew Center has said that, it seems pretty obvious that 
the activists and writers who have been quick to implicate global 
warming should be dismissed as the opportunists they are. Weather 
simply changes. In the words of Professor Perry Samson, associate chair 
of the Department of the Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences at 
the University of Michigan:

       Abnormal weather is normal.

  When it comes to the argument that hurricanes are getting worse, it 
is typical to hear statistics about increasing costs due to hurricane 
damage. Of course, we can expect monetary damage from hurricanes to 
increase in the future, ``not as a result of anthropogenic climate 
change, but from natural climate cycles, and . . . increasingly 
expensive properties along the coast.''
  These are not my words, but of a top U.S. Government scientist named 
Dr. Christopher Landsea.
  Science simply doesn't support the claims that there is a link 
between hurricanes and global warming. A team led by the National 
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Dr. Landsea concluded that the 
relationship of global temperatures to the number of intense 
landfalling hurricanes is either not present, or is very weak. In fact, 
if we examine hurricane records for which we have good data going back 
to the 1800s, there is much evidence supporting the conclusion that we 
have had more hurricane activity historically than in the last few 
decades, so an increase the last several years should perhaps be 
expected as part of natural variability. The overall number of 
hurricanes and the number of the strongest hurricanes fluctuated 
greatly during the last century, with a great number in the 1940s. In 
fact, through the last decade, the intensity of these storms has 
declined somewhat.
  Hopefully, we can finally put to rest the unsubstantiated claim that 
global warming is leading to more severe and unpredictable weather. 
What is certain is that the drought record in the Southwest over the 
last 1,000 years and the hurricane record flatly refutes that claim.
  Global warming advocates will often recite statistics that glaciers 
are in retreat. For instance, it is said that the number of glaciers in 
Glacier National Park has dwindled from 150 more than a century ago to 
about 35 today and that the part of the Arctic Ocean that remains 
frozen year-round has been shrinking.

  But what do these examples really say about global warming? 
Scientists know very little about glacial activity, but what they do 
know suggests there are as many expanding glaciers as there are 
shrinking ones--this even happens with two glaciers within a few miles 
of each other--and that there is no universal trend either way. There 
are more than 160,000 glaciers on the planet. Scientists have good, 
long-term mass balance measurements on a comparative handful of them. 
So how can someone assert that glaciers are shrinking?
  Dr. Roger Braithwaite last year looked at mass balance trends in 246 
glaciers worldwide from 1946 to 1995. He found that ``there are several 
regions with highly negative mass balances in agreement with a public 
perception of ``the glaciers are melting,' but there are also regions 
with positive balances.'' This holds true even within continents. In 
Europe, ``Alpine glaciers are generally shrinking, Scandinavian 
glaciers are growing, and glaciers in the Caucasus are close to 
equilibrium for 1980-95.'' Globally, adding all the results together, 
``there is no obvious common or global trend of increasing glacier melt 
in recent years.''
  Indeed, the observed variability of Arctic sea ice thickness, which 
shows that the sea ice mass can change by up to 16 percent within one 
year, contrasts with the concept of a slowly dwindling ice pack, 
produced by global warming.
  But if global warming is not the cause, what is? In 2002, work done 
by Dr. Greg Holloway and Dr. Tessa Sou, showed that the decadal-scale 
wind pattern changes were responsible for rearranging the ice, giving 
some regions thinner and others thicker amount of ice. Research by Dr. 
Ignatius Rigor in 2002 confirmed this, finding much of the so-called 
Arctic ice thinning is caused by decadal variations in wind patterns 
over the Arctic.
  Alarmists also speak eloquently about Kilimanjaro, and like to show 
two pictures--one from the early 1990s with a modest snow cap on it, 
and another from 2000 showing the snow caps had shrunk.
  Of course, those are just two pictures. Let me tell you about three. 
Yes, Kilimanjaro's snows were smaller in the late 90s than the 80s, but 
they were bigger in the 80s than in the 70s. In fact, the snows of 
Kilimanjaro in 1997 appear to resemble the snows of Kilimanjaro in 
1976.
  This makes a simple point. If you are given only partial facts, you 
can easily be misled into thinking you see something when in fact you 
are seeing a very different thing indeed. The pictures you have been 
shown are simply transient snows and are meaningless. To quote an April 
white paper from the Center for Science and Public Policy entitled The 
Consensus on Kilimanjaro is Wrong, ``though a photograph may be worth a 
thousand sound bytes, those words and photos do not go together.''
  Of course, the real question is what does the issue of melting 
glaciers on Kilimanjaro have to do with man-induced global warming? Not 
much. On November 26, the New York Times had some interesting insights 
into Kilimanjaro and global warming. Here's what the Times had to say:

       The glaciers on Kilimanjaro have been in retreat for at 
     least a century, shrinking by 80 percent between 1912 and 
     2000. Although it is tempting to blame global warming, the 
     most likely culprit is deforestation.

  As explained in Nature's Science update, with forest present, the 
natural updraft from the slopes carried moist air to the summit and 
helped reinforce and sustain the ice cap. Without those forests, the 
updrafts are dry and fail to replenish the ravages of the sun on the 
summit ice cap. And since the equatorial sun is extremely hot, 
deforestation also means the updrafts are warmer than they were when 
Kilamanjaro's forests were abundant.
  Conjuring up fears of global warming because of Kilimanjaro's 
glaciers--to my mind--represents exactly the kind of misuse of science 
that leads to increased misunderstanding instead of understanding. If 
the problem is deforestation and there is public will to fix the 
problem, fix it. Don't try to mislead people into thinking the problem 
is something else simply because that fits your agenda.
  This is a point I have made repeatedly. I believe it is extremely 
important for the future of this country that the facts and the science 
get a fair hearing. Without proper knowledge and understanding, 
alarmists will scare the country into enacting its ultimate goal: 
making energy suppression, in the form of harmful mandatory 
restrictions on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions, the 
official policy of the United States.
  While the science underlying hysterical claims of catastrophic global 
warming is thin, the analyses showing the costs of capping our economy 
are not. Perhaps the most well known study examining the Kyoto Protocol 
came from Wharton Econometric Forecasing Associates, or WEFA. According 
to WEFA economists, Kyoto would cost 2.4 million American jobs and 
reduce GDP by 3.2 percent, or about $300 billion annually, an amount 
greater than the total annual expenditure on primary and secondary 
education.
  It is hard to imagine such huge amounts, so I will put the findings 
in context. Because of Kyoto, American consumers would pay 11 percent 
more for food, 14 percent more for medicine, and 7 percent more for 
housing. Electricity prices would nearly double and gasoline prices 
would go up an additional 65 cents per gallon.
  New studies that have come out since my last speech on global warming 
examining the consequences of unilaterally putting a cap on the economy 
through carbon restrictions are also revealing. Using perhaps the most 
sophisticated model to assess the issue--what is known as a dynamic 
model that incorporates future changes in behavior--the renowned 
economic forecasting firm of Charles River Associates has concluded 
that under the McCain-Lieberman bill, S. 139, economic growth would 
slow.
  The Nation would lose up to a quarter million jobs by 2010, 
increasing to

[[Page S11296]]

up to 610,000 jobs by 2020. Energy-intensive industries would be the 
hardest sector hit. Natural gas prices would increase by up to 82 
percent, driving thousands of companies overseas, as we have already 
seen happen to fertilizer manufacturers, who cannot afford to make 
their product at even today's natural gas prices. Production from these 
energy-intensive industries alone would decline annually by up to $160 
billion.
  The bill would hit specific state economies harder. For instance, 
Ohio and West Virginia, both with economies that rely on coal 
production, would see their industries decimated, with production 
decreasing by as much as 73 percent.
  Average households in the United States would incur a financial cost 
up to $1,300 in the year 2010, with the annual cost rising up to $2,300 
by 2020. Families' direct costs in the form of higher electricity and 
gasoline prices would increase dramatically. Within 6 years, 
residential electricity prices would rise by up to 30 percent, 
dramatically increasing families' monthly electricity bills. By 2020, 
those prices would rise by up to 43 percent due to carbon restrictions.
  Regardless of which study one looks at, gasoline price increases will 
be substantial. According to the Energy Information Administration, gas 
prices will increase by 27 percent, or 40 cents. The more sophisticated 
Charles River Associates assessment puts the cost even higher, with 
gasoline prices increasing by up to 50 cents.
  Of course, for many wealthier people, these may seem like trivial 
costs. Rich people don't think about their electric bills or the cost 
of gasoline at the pump. But average Americans do. And the elderly 
living on fixed income, and the poor, pay attention to these costs even 
more. What is worse, these costs are regressive, which means that poor 
people will bear a bigger burden because they spend a larger share of 
their income on energy, such as gasoline and electricity. When the 
costs go up, they must give up something else important to them.
  And what do we buy for costs?
  As even James Hansen, the NASA scientist who popularized the global 
warming theory, admits, it would take massive reductions in carbon 
emissions to have any appreciable impact on climate change. And, of 
course, his views are based on the assumption it even exists. 
Calculating what affect implementing the Kyoto Protocol would have, 
Martin Parry and other researchers concluded in Nature that Kyoto would 
only reduce global surface temperatures by 0.06 Celsius by 2050. Coming 
to a nearly identical conclusion, U.S. Global Change Research Program 
researcher Tom Wigley estimated in Geophysical Research Letters that 
implementing the Kyoto Protocol would reduce global surface 
temperatures by 0.07 Celsius by 2050. The temperature differences 
within this room exceed such a minuscule amount.
  Despite these studies which increasingly suggest that precipitous 
action to combat global warming is unjustified, alarmists often trot 
out a concept known as the precautionary principle--which is that it is 
better to be safe than sorry. But they misunderstand or at least, 
misapply this concept. From all I have learned about the subject of 
global warming, I believe that the safest course is to reject the 
hypothetical claims of those who fear planetary doom is around the 
corner and are willing to doom the economy to avert it. The science of 
global warming is uncertain, the costs of capping our economy with 
carbon restriction are high, and even if the doomsayers were correct, 
it would do little to nothing to reduce the temperature increases.
  But there is more to the story. Taking precipitous action will 
actually do more harm than good.
  A 2003 study by Indur Goklany of the Department of Interior examined 
this question in some depth. In the study, which did not challenge the 
validity of global warming's existence and its consequences in its 
assumptions, Goklany examined the benefits and opportunity costs of 
taking action to mitigate global warming. In essence, the study 
examined whether humanity would be better off if we tried to avert or 
otherwise mitigate global warming or whether humanity would better off 
adapting to it.
  What the study concluded was remarkable. Even if global warming were 
real, money spent to combat global warming would do comparatively 
little--as a percentage of the problem to reduce the afflictions of 
hunger, malaria, and water shortages versus if no action were taken at 
all. Yet it went farther--it then examined the benefits of diverting 
the money spent on global warming and using the monies to directly 
fight these afflictions through such activities as agricultural 
research and development and investments in treatment and prevention in 
combating malaria. The final results? Fewer people would go hungry, 
fewer would suffer from malaria, and fewer would lack access to 
adequate supplies of water if we simply adapted rather than attempted 
to combat global warming. And at far less cost, meaning those resources 
can be invested productively.
  So rationing our energy supply would make the world not safe, but 
sorry. And that is assuming global warming is happening. How much 
sorrier will we be if it isn't?
  British Prime Minister Tony Blair's goal of serious investment in 
public health and infrastructure for energy and water, and delivering 
real progress on African development is in conflict with his aims on 
global warming. His Science Advisor, Sir David King, has stated that 
choices won't have to be made as to how to spend resources. But that 
flies in the face of basic economics. If resources are spent in one 
way, they are not available to be spent another. In short, even a 
wealthy future world will have constraints on the resources it can 
devote to disease and other problems. How much more will those 
constraints be in a poorer world.
  The point is clear. Back in the earlier part of the last century, 
when Asia was far poorer than it is today, deaths from climate events 
were far higher than now, when the region is wealthier. And let's look 
at the hurricanes from this hurricane season. Unfortunately, 100 
Americans died during four naturally occurring hurricanes to hit land. 
But compare the fate of this wealthy country to that of Haiti, where in 
that small, terribly poor country 2,000 people died and 300,000 become 
homeless from a single hurricane--Hurricane Jeanne.
  It is not simply common sense, its backed up by data. Capping carbon 
will cap the economy. There is an incredibly strong relationship 
between a country's GDP growth rate and its carbon dioxide growth rate. 
Because carbon is synonymous with economic activity. While we can and 
should increase our energy efficiency because its good business, we 
must realize that we are tied to carbon.
  Fossil fuel is the energy base of this country. And while some may 
claim we can simply and easily move to a non-carbon based society, they 
are not being honest. We have an enormous infrastructure reliant on 
fossil energy that will be with us for many, many decades to come. And 
for those few alternatives that could replace older units such as 
building wind-farms off Nantucket or building new dams or new nuclear 
plants, green activists bring efforts to a grinding halt. As the chart 
shows, technology will not quickly restructure our energy 
infrastructure.
  Unfortunately, despite the many studies, facts and figures I have 
shared with you today demonstrating that the science does not support 
catastrophic global warming claims, well-designed, reproducible studies 
are not the driving force behind today's climate science debate. 
Rather, ideology is.
  This point was made by Dr. Richard Lindzen in regards to his 
contributions to the preparation of the United Nations IPCC report. 
Lindzen stated:

       I personally witnessed coauthors forced to assert their 
     `green' credentials in defense of their statements.

  But Lindzen's words are tame compared to those spoken earlier this 
year in Russia. At a press conference on global warming and the Kyoto 
Protocol, Russian Presidential Economic Advisor Andrei Illarionov made 
some comments about ideology that are nothing short of remarkable. Let 
me share with you what he says is driving the global warming debate. 
Illarionov stated:

       There have been examples in our fairly recent history of 
     how a considerable portion of Europe was flooded with the 
     brown Nazi ideology, the red Commie ideology that caused 
     severe casualties and consequences for Europe and the entire 
     world. Now there is a big

[[Page S11297]]

     likelihood that a considerable part of Europe has been 
     flooded with another type, another color of ideology--[and he 
     is speaking of global warming here--again, another type, 
     another color of ideology]--but with very similar 
     implications for European societies and human societies the 
     world over.

  He also said that imposition of the Kyoto Protocol ``would deal a 
powerful blow on the whole humanity similar to the one humanity 
experienced when Nazism and communism flourished.''
  And that was the chief economic advisor to Russian President Putin. 
The world has certainly turned on its head that we Americans must look 
to Russians for speaking out strongly against irrational authoritarian 
ideologies. Putin's economic advisor's words are underscored by the 
conclusion of the Russian Academy of Science which this last May 
concluded that there is a high degree of uncertainty that global 
warming is caused by anthropogenic factors, that the Kyoto Protocol 
does not have a scientific basis and it would not be effective in 
achieving the IPCC's aims.
  And while the Russia legislature may well indeed ratify the Kyoto 
Protocol, Illarionov has stated that it would occur for political 
considerations, not scientific or economic. Last May, it was reported 
that the European Union had promised to help Russia enter the World 
Trade Organization and would smooth over WTO requirements in exchange 
for signing the Kyoto Protocol. Additionally, there is speculation 
within Russia that the Kyoto Protocol will fail of its own weight since 
only two European countries will meet their carbon emission targets. 
So, clearly, Russia is playing politics with the issue for its purposes 
just as others have for their own.
  That much of this debate is about world governance and not science is 
not news. At the Hague in November 2002, French President Jacques 
Chirac stated that Kyoto represents ``the first component of an 
authentic global governance.''
  Those are his words, not my characterization of his words.
  To summarize my remarks today, it makes no sense to take action on 
climate change when the costs are so profound and the benefits are non-
existent.
  Last year, I spent two hours addressing the Senate about the state of 
science regarding the global warming debate. And today, I have spent 
another two hours providing the latest, most up-to-date information on 
the science about global warming--or more to the point--the lack of 
credible science supporting it.
  I have been told many times that the science is irrelevant--that we 
have moved beyond the science, and that we must now concentrate on what 
to do to stop global warming from happening. I, for one, would hope 
that we never abandon the science. Those who are afraid of the newest 
and best science are usually the same people who are afraid that the 
more the public actually knows, the more it will interfere with their 
grand geopolitical plans to ration America's energy.
  I believe we should be held accountable for the actions we take, and 
not bet the American economy on something unless it is firmly rooted in 
science, and our actions can have some beneficial effect. Global 
warming ideology has no place in policy debates regarding scientific 
issues. Credible, reproducible studies should be our gold standard--our 
minimum standard. By that standard, carbon restrictions fail the test.
  Unfortunately, we are in a political season and some legislators 
believe that they can score political points with this issue. Last 
year, when Senator John Kerry was focusing on the liberal base in his 
primary, he criticized President George Bush on his campaign website 
for rejecting the global warming treaty, stating:

       Dropping out of international implementation of the Kyoto 
     Protocol was foolhardy then, and it is even more obviously 
     foolhardy today.

  But now that John Kerry is trying to be more mainstream he has 
removed that statement from his website and replaced it with the 
following:

       John Kerry and John Edwards believe that the Kyoto Protocol 
     is not the answer. The near-term emission reductions it would 
     require of the United States are infeasible, while the long-
     term obligations imposed on all nations are too little to 
     solve the problem.

  Yet in the September 30 presidential debate, he criticized President 
Bush when he said:

       You don't help yourself with other nations when you turn 
     away from the global warming treaty, for instance, or when 
     you refuse to deal at length with the United Nations.

  I am trying to figure out what he means by those statements.
  And unless he is simply doing another of his all-too-familiar flip-
flops, I can only conclude that while he does not believe the Kyoto 
Protocol is the answer, he would support it anyway. If I lived in the 
Midwest, I would find his shifting stances worrisome.
  I have laid out my case today for why capping our economy with carbon 
restrictions is wrong-headed and rash. And I believe that the future 
health of our great Nation and the world is too important to have an 
issue as vital as this one relegated to the status of a political 
football. My hope is that the legislators who have moved beyond the 
science will, once again, develop a healthy respect for what it has to 
say in guiding our actions.

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