Congressional Record, Volume 154 Issue 92 (Thursday, June 5, 2008)

[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 92 (Thursday, June 5, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H5034-H5040]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Courtney). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from California (Mr.
Rohrabacher) is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. First, I would like to identify myself with the
remarks that I have just heard from my two colleagues, and congratulate
them on presenting to the people the hard facts that have not been
faced in this country for over 30 years. And those hard facts are some
of the basic reasons that we are in trouble today.
Mr. Speaker, I will preface my remarks tonight, and what I have to
say tonight I would like to say totally is in parallel with the spirit
of what was just said. But I preface my remarks to underscore, just as
my colleagues would underscore their commitment.
While I adamantly reject the man-made global warming theory, I am
committed to a clean and healthy environment, to purifying the air, to
purifying our water and our soil, all of this for the sake of the
people of this planet, especially the children of this planet, and
especially my three children, Christian, Tristan, and Anika, and all
the children of the world who we hope will receive a world that we hand
them that will be a better world, a healthier world. And I have no
doubt that unless we thwart the onslaught of the nonsense being foisted
upon humankind in the name of man-made global warming, our next
generation will be deprived of freedom, prosperity, and a healthy
environment.
The radical environmental crusade behind the man-made global warming
theory may well be well motivated. Motives and good intentions,
however, do not count. What counts are facts. And when it comes to the
facts about so-called man-made global warming, the public has been
denied an honest debate.
Only 18 months ago, the refrain, ``Case Closed, Global Warming is
Real,'' was repeated as if a mantra of some religious sect. It was
pounded into the public's consciousness over the airwaves, in print,
and even at congressional hearings. This was obviously a brazen attempt
to end open discussion and to silence differing views by dismissing the
need to take seriously contrary arguments by anyone, no matter how
impressive his or her credentials might be, if that person happened to
doubt global warming.
Just a short time ago, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine,
the OISM, released the names of some 31,000 scientists who signed a
petition rejecting the claims of human-caused global warming. Of the
31,072 Americans who signed, 9,021 had Ph.D.s; many of the 31,000
signers currently work in climatology, meteorology, atmospheric,
environmental, and geophysical studies, astronomical studies, as well
as the biological fields that directly relate to the climate change
controversy. And note, of the 31,000 signatories, these signers are
American scientists.
There are many prominent scientists throughout the world who are
stepping up to expose the well-financed propaganda campaign behind the
man-made global warming theory. But the views of these American
scientists and those

[[Page H5035]]

of so many scholars and scientists throughout the world don't count.
The debate is over. It has been declared over. Al Gore has his Nobel
Prize, and the film An Inconvenient Truth has its Academy Award. So
shut up, case is closed.
So what is this theory that now is so accepted that no more debate is
needed or even tolerated?
Man-made global warming is a disturbing theory that the Earth began a
warming cycle 150 years ago that differed greatly from all the other
warming and cooling cycles in the Earth's primordial past. And over the
life of this planet over the millions of years, there have been many,
many such situations of warming and cooling, sometimes lasting 10
years, sometimes lasting hundreds of thousands of years, glaciers that
went back and forth.
This warming cycle that we are now talking about and we are being
told that it is unlike the warming cycle of all of those past warming
and cooling cycles, this one we are told is tied directly to mankind's
use of fossil fuels, as of course compared to all the other warming and
cooling cycles even before mankind was present on the planet.
Basically, they are saying that our use of fossil fuels, again,
basically oil and coal, are causing the Earth's temperature to change;
and they are blaming oil and coal, which happen to be fuels that have
powered our industries and made modern civilization possible. Fossil
fuels, we are told, are rapidly increasing the level of so-called
greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, the most prevalent of these
greenhouse gases being CO2, carbon dioxide. This increase in
CO2 we are told causes the warming cycle we are now
supposedly experiencing.
This man-made warming cycle, according to the theory, is rapidly
approaching a tipping point when the world's temperature will abruptly
jump and accelerate with dire consequences, perhaps apocalyptic
consequences, for the entire planet. Well, that is basically the global
warming theory.
For skeptics of this hypothesis, the consequences of accepting this
theory are far more dire than any of the predicted rise in temperature
predictions: We will live with the consequences of the social
engineering being touted as necessary to prevent man-made global
warming.

{time} 1830

It's a package. Accept the man-made global warming theory, and one is
expected to accept the controls, regulations, taxation, international
planning and enforcement, mandated lifestyle changes, the lowering of
expectations, the limiting of consumer choice, and personal as well as
family sacrifices that are necessary to save the planet from, well,
from us.
It really takes a lot to frighten people into accepting such personal
restrictive mandates that would result from implementing a global
warming based agenda. People's lives will be changed if we accept this
agenda as being real, and if we cave in to this onslaught of
propaganda. People's lives will change, but it won't be a change for
the better.
For example, jets are considered some of the worst CO2
polluters, according to the theory. So, how will our lives be different
when low-priced airfares are eliminated? Let me repeat that. Low-priced
airfares to be eliminated. How will that affect our lives? And how
about the restricting the number of flights, themselves? How will that
affect our lives?
Oh, I guess we never thought about that. Well, we never thought about
that because those clamoring for us to accept the man-made global
warming agenda never mentioned the price that we have to pay, not just
in dollars, but in the freedom that we have today to make such choices
in our lives, choices, for example, when and how many times we should
travel with our families and where we should travel.
What we do know about the man-made global warming fanatics is that
they don't want us using our cars. They've hidden the fact about the
airplane restrictions, but we do know they don't like us in our private
cars. Private automobiles will be on the way out. They want us to be
regulated into public transportation, and basically, we will have gone
out of our cars and have limited air travel.
But don't worry. Don't worry about it because the rich and high
government officials will still have private jets, Suburbans and
limousines, because they will just buy carbon credits, which Al Gore
will arrange for them, and he'll arrange it for them at a tidy profit
for himself, of course.
Global warming and global warming predictions appear to be designed
to strike fear into the hearts of those malcontents, those of us
malcontents who won't willingly accept these mandates and these changes
in our lifestyle that will be demanded of us. And who, for example,
among us, and we know that there will be people who just won't accept
the idea that we have to have higher food prices; or they won't accept
the fact that we need less meat in our diet.
That's right. Man-made global warming fanatics want us to change our
diet in a big way, not just low price airfare tickets, but our diet.
A 2006 report to the United Nations entitled Livestock's Long Shadow
focuses right on the hind parts of cows. Livestock, the report claims,
accounts for 18 percent of the gases that supposedly cause the Earth's
climate to change, the warming of the Earth's climate. Cows are
greenhouse gas-causing machines, according to this report.
Fuel for fertilizer and meat production and transportation, as well
as the clearing of fields for grazing, produced 9 percent of the
globe's CO2 emissions, according to the report.
Cows produce ammonia, causing acid rain. And if that's not bad
enough, all these numbers that I just mentioned are projected, in this
report, are projected in the report's computer models that they will
double by the year 2050. So not only is it bad today to eat meat, it's
going to be so much worse by 2050, we've got to act now to get meat out
of the diet.
Not only are they going to cut our personal transportation, but we
can't even stay at home and have a barbecue. Heck, they're not even
going to let us have a hamburger.
I'd point out that before the introduction of cattle to the United
States, millions upon millions of buffalo dominated the great plains of
America. They were so thick that you could not see where the herd began
or where it ended. One can only assume that the anti-meat, man-made
global warming crowd must believe that buffalo farts have some social
redeeming value that's better than the flatulence emitted by cattle.
I have to be very careful about such jokes. I was making light of
this supposition at a hearing about a year ago. And I suggested, in
jest, that perhaps dinosaur flatulence changed the climate back in
those ancient days. Well, it was reported, widely reported as if I was
serious, which demonstrates something that we should all understand
about the global warming debate.
The global warming debate has been totally dishonest. Anyone who
could suggest that I was saying that as a serious matter was either a
fool, or was intentionally portraying something that they knew was not
to be true.
Yes, what we have here, of course, is steely-eyed fanaticism by those
on the other side of this debate, and maybe they can't understand humor
when they see it or hear it. Yes, this is an absurd theory to be
talking about animal flatulence when we're talking about the future of
the planet and the restrictions, massive restrictions on our way of
life.
This would be absurd, but the deeper that one looks into this global
warming juggernaut, the weirder this movement becomes, and the more
denial in it is evident.
Ten years ago, for example, alarmists predicted that by now we would
be clearly plagued by surging temperatures. In testimony before
Congress 20 years ago, NASA's global warming guru, James Hanson,
predicted CO2 levels would shoot up the global temperatures
by more than a third of a degree Celsius during the 1990s.
Well, we were warned that we'd soon be seeing rising sea levels. And
you've all seen all of these predictions, rising sea levels, perhaps
even our cities under water, drought and famine and increase in
tropical diseases. Yeah, an increase in tropical diseases. Of course
the only increase in tropical diseases we've seen can be directly
traced to the success of environmental extremists in banning DDT, which
has resulted in millions of Third World children dying of malaria,
something else that they were wrong about.

[[Page H5036]]

So what about Hanson's and others predictions of imminent global
overheating?
Well, forget case closed. The question needs to be answered. And the
answer is that Hanson's and the other predictions have turned out to be
dramatically wrong. Temperatures during this last decade rose only one-
third of the predicted jump, a modest 0.11-degree change.
Remember, Mr. Hanson has been so arrogant over the years that he has
insisted that his opinions be emblazoned on government documents as the
official position of NASA, rather than acknowledging that existing
other opinions may be worthy of consideration. And now, we are finding
out that the predictions made by Mr. Hanson, who doesn't want any other
people's opinions even to be considered as part of an official NASA
presentation, that this, Mr. Hanson and other self-anointed elitists
have been wrong, dead wrong in their predictions of what should be
happening right now.
Over the years, we've been led to expect an increased number of even
more powerful hurricanes, for example. There would also be drought and
melting ice caps. My beautiful Sierra Nevada mountains in California
were due to heat up, dry up, brown up and burn, burn, burn, and we've
been told this for almost 20 years now.
During the entire Clinton administration, scientists produced study
after study predicting the horrific impact of the unstoppable onslaught
of man-made global warming, which we were all led to believe by those
studies would be overwhelming us right now.
Of course, if there was even a hint that the conclusion of their
research wouldn't back up the man-made global warming theory, the
scientists and researchers wouldn't get one red cent from the Federal
research pool during the Clinton and Gore administration.
In a September 2005 article from Discovery magazine, Dr. William
Gray, now emeritus professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State
University and, more importantly, the former president of the American
Meteorological Association, said that he had paid a price for his
skepticism of man-made global warming. Quote, ``I had NOAA money for 30
years, for 30 some years,'' Dr. Gray said. ``And then, when the Clinton
administration came in,'' and this is still part of the quote, ``and
Gore started directing some of the environmental stuff, I was cut off.
I couldn't get any money, any NOAA money. They turned down 13 straight
proposals from me.''
Here's from one of America's great, eminent meteorologists, and the
Clinton administration just kept turning him down because he had
expressed some skepticism about whether man-made global warming was a
reality. Dr. Gray made the mistake of being a skeptic about global
warming. And however he was skeptic about that, that made him wrong
with the Clinton administration.
But he was right about hurricanes which were being blamed on global
warming. Remember, we were told that global warming was going to cause
more hurricanes. And Dr. Gray, one of the great meteorologists, said
there's no reliable data available to indicate increased hurricane
frequency or intensity in any of the globe's seven tropical cyclone
basins.''
So, with that type of skepticism, no matter what his credentials
were, no matter how preeminent a scientist and respected scientist he
was, he couldn't get a grant during the Clinton/Gore administration. So
Dr. Gray was cut off. The predictors of gloom and doom were left to
shout out their paranoid nonsense every time a hurricane was detected.
And just recently, one of those shouters, Tom Knutsen, research
meteorologist for the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration,
that's NOAA, that's the ones who ended up not being able to give Dr.
Gray any research grants, this gentleman, Mr. Knutsen, who was, during
that time when Dr. Gray said there wasn't a relationship, he was a
hurricane alarmist, suggesting there would be more and more hurricanes
because of global warming, has now published a study in the Journal of
Native Geoscience admitting that he was wrong.
For the record, he now says his studies indicate that warming is not
to blame for more hurricanes, and that warmer temperatures, if they do
come, will actually reduce the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic. He
unequivocally stated that his most recent finding argues against this
notion that we've already seen a dramatic increase in Atlantic
hurricane activity resulting from greenhouse warming gases.
So here is a scientist with integrity. Dr. Gray, of course, was
punished. He couldn't even get a research grant. But here we have a
scientist who did get the grant and made wrong conclusions, but now
he's stepping forward because he has integrity, to admit that he was
wrong and now he has openly changed his mind.
Unfortunately, such scientific integrity did not always rise to the
occasion. Perhaps it's because scientists saw the raw power exercised
during the Clinton/Gore administration, which may well revisit us in
the next administration if we don't watch out.
But there was raw power being exercised. Al Gore's first act as Vice
President was to insist that William Harper be fired as the chief
scientist at the Department of Energy. Why? Because he had uttered some
words indicating that he was open minded about the man-made global
warming theory, just like Dr. Gray.
Well, anybody who talks about that way, off with his head. No more
position for you. That was back in 1993, the first year of the Clinton-
Gore administration. So for over a decade, all we got was a drum beat
of one-sided research setting the stage for a false claim of scientific
consensus that we heard 18 months ago. Case closed. Case closed.

{time} 1845

The argument is over. Global warming is real.
How many times did we hear that? Let us remember that refrain and how
false it was and how dishonest it was.
Unfortunately, for all of those scientists who went along with the
scheme back in the 1990s, now over a decade later there is a big
problem. Contrary to what all of those scientists living on their
Federal research grants predicted, the world hasn't been getting
warmer. In fact, for the last 7 years when we were told there would be
this dramatic increase in temperature, there has been no warming at
all. Last year was colder, not hotter. Snow levels were high,
temperatures have been low, and there are fewer hurricanes.
Furthermore, while there is some melting in the Arctic, which we hear
about over and over and over again about the melting in the Arctic,
which we need to sort of compensate that and balance that off with the
fact that there is an actual ice buildup in the Antarctic, which is
almost never stated during those global-warming's-real-the-Arctic-is-
melting. What is happening, of course, in the Arctic is probably
based--I can't say for certain; we need studies on this--but is
probably based on ocean currents. But it is not CO2-related
global warming; otherwise, it would be a global impact on both ends of
the planet.
After hearing about the extinction of the polar bear again and again,
and it has been drummed into our heads, the polar bear--all of the
things about the Arctic out there, showing the poor polar bears. A few
weeks ago, we were treated to the spectacle of our government placing
polar bears on the Endangered Species List even though almost every
article about placing the polar bears on the Endangered Species List
contained a caveat that the number of polar bears is actually
expanding, and with some of the species of polar bears, it's a dramatic
expansion.
There are more, not fewer, polar bears. Let me repeat that so
everyone knows. There are more polar bears. Yet we are, because of the
onslaught of this global warming nonsense that has colored people's
vision by words rather than reality, we put the polar bear on the
Endangered Species List even though their numbers are expanding.
Unfortunately, the debate is over and the case is closed. So explaining
the emerging obvious differences between reality and the theory need
not be addressed.
Maybe that's why they kept saying ``case closed'' because the
observable data that was going on was in such contrast to the
predictions that were being made, this was the time they had to declare
the case was closed or we would basically be able to see with our very
eyes the contradiction in what they had predicted.

[[Page H5037]]

So what we need to do is to close our eyes, close our eyes and
pretend that there are fewer polar bears. That's the way to do it.
That's the way we should make policy, according to the scare-mongers.
But the case is not closed. The gnomes of climate theory are now coming
up with self-serving explanations and verbal maneuvers.
The first attempt to cover their tracks has been slow but ever so
clever. The words ``climate change'' have now replaced the words
``global warming.'' Now, if we accept this, no matter what happens with
the global weather pattern, whether it be cooler or hotter for 4 years
or 5 years, could be cooler, could be hotter, it will still be
presented by the global warming crowd as further verification of human-
caused change. Thus, they can claim credit that no matter what happens,
no matter what happens in the climate, their predictions are correct
because it's climate change now and not global warming, even though for
over a decade and a half that was drummed into us that they were so
certain that it was going to be global warming.
Well, if we accept this shift of words, we know that we will be in a
position now of being unable to intellectually say, well, there's not
global warming like you predicted, so we actually are going to oppose
and reject the oppressive policies that you are advocating to deal with
the issue that you are describing.
But if they use the words ``climate change,'' how are we going to
counteract their policy recommendations when now whatever happens to
the climate, they can justify it based on climate change? Sorry,
fellows. Do you really think the world and the United States is filled
with morons? I mean, bait-and-switch is an old game, and we've seen it
in car salesmen; and car salesmen, I might add, are paragons of virtue
compared to this global warming crowd.
We just need to ask ourselves if a salesman keeps giving a strong
pitch and claims something that later is found to be totally wrong,
when does one stop trusting him? If he starts playing word games rather
than admitting an error, isn't it reasonable to stop trusting him? If
his prediction is that, well, this car is going to get 50 miles to the
gallon and it only gets 5 miles to the gallon, isn't that really when
we should stop trusting that used car salesmen?
Well, yes, Al Gore and Company, we need to let Al Gore and Company
know that we have noticed that they are now using the words ``climate
change'' instead of ``global warming.'' And they're not just sort of
slipping it in. They are trying to, but we've noticed, and that has
important meaning.
In and of itself that is an admission that they were wrong for over a
decade in claiming that there would be global warming. Now it's climate
change. Every time they use the word, it indicates they were wrong or
they were lying before about how absolutely sure they were about what
their predictions were and about what all of the statistics and what
all of the research indicated. They were either lying or they were
wrong. And every time they use the words ``climate change,'' it should
reinforce us in understanding they were wrong or they were lying.
Perhaps instead of word games, they need to explain why what is
happening in the real world today doesn't match what they all said was
going to happen based on their case-closed, man-made global warming is
real. Okay. They must realize that someone is bound to notice that last
winter was a really cold winter. I mean, it was a cold winter and it
has been unusually chilly. And now chilly weather seems to be the norm,
and where we've not yet had a full analysis of last year's winter, full
winter, and we are looking forward to seeing exactly what a full study
of the temperature ranges around the world had for us last winter.
According to the global warming crowd, we should have seen a dramatic
increase in the temperatures last winter. We will see.
We are now seeing, of course, a beehive of activity. Those federally
funded scientists who we mentioned are trying to save a modicum of
credibility by readjusting their computers and coming up with some
explanations that will keep the man-made global warming theory from
being totally rejected but at the same time trying to explain away the
current dichotomy between what they said would happen and then what is
actually happening.
Some scientists have simply adjusted their computer models and are
now claiming that the warming isn't going to happen now, it's going to
happen 10 to 15 years from now. Oh. So we can keep giving them their
research grants for the next 10 to 15 years and then something else may
happen.
In fact, a much-detailed report is now predicting that the
temperature of the sea around Europe and North America will slightly
cool off in the next decade and the Pacific will be the same in its
temperature. One recent article about the shift in scientific position
heralded it's a ``10-year timeout'' for global warming. Well, however,
we are warned, however, that after that 10 years, the global warming
will start again.
You see, they don't ever have to admit their original theories were
wrong. We had one scientist at NOAA who stood up and had the integrity
to say, I was wrong. I applaud him for it. These other scientists, we
need to take note that they seem to be incapable of suggesting that
perhaps the research grants that they took during the Clinton
administration had skewed their vision of what the reality was in terms
of climate and the world.
To understand all of this nonsense, we need to seriously examine the
basic assumptions of this gang of global alarmists who have been
pushing this paranoid theory.
They believe excess amounts of man-made CO2 are being
deposited into the air and that this is what causes the greenhouse
effect that warms the atmosphere. The carbon footprint that we hear
about is referring to the amount of CO2 released by any
specific activity. The CO2 causes the planet to warm, as we
are told, until it reaches that darn tipping point when all hell breaks
loose. That's what we're being told. That is the concept that every
other extrapolation is based on. But it's wrong. It's dead wrong. It's
absolutely wrong. It's based on CO2 and its impact on the
temperature of the planet.
Yet what we find more and more evidence of is that the rise in
CO2 in the past came after the rise in global temperatures.
Not before. The increases that there have been in CO2 on the
earth and in the earth's history happened after the earth had warmed,
and the scientists are trying to tell us it was the other way around.
The reality has been observed in ice cores by prominent scientists, yet
this fundamental challenge to the validity of the man-made global
warming theory has gone unanswered by those who are screaming that this
case is closed and that all discussion is off.
So let's talk about that. Why aren't these scientists like Mr. Hansen
and others willing to debate the CO2 issue? Why is it
instead that they simply call names of people who are trying to ask
questions and are skeptical about their theories? Well, they just keep
repeating ``case closed'' or attacking not what the presentation of the
ideas being presented, but instead attack, for example, myself in some
nonsensical way as if I believe dinosaur farts changed the world's
climate. That is about as dishonest a debate as you can have, yet we
are told the issue of climate change now, global warming, is so
important to the future of the world. Well, okay. Let's talk about the
CO2. Let's have a debate on that issue.
To cite one expert's findings, and we will just leave that for the
record, Tom Scheffelin of the California Air Resources Board stated on
November 5, 2007, that ``CO2 levels track temperature
changes between 300 to 1,000 years after the temperature has changed.
CO2 has no direct role in global warming; rather, it
responds to biological activity which responds to climate changes.''
So what causes this warming in the first place? If it is not the
CO2, all of these people were telling us that it is the
CO2 that's caused the temperature to change and now we're in
for it because the levels of CO2 are going up. Well, what
did cause the temperatures to change if it wasn't CO2?
Well, the best explanation I have heard is activity on the sun, and
that would explain why we see parallel temperature trends as those
trends that are on earth; we see those same trends going on on Mars and
Jupiter. Are these people trying to tell us that they've got a problem
with some sort of CO2 on Jupiter and Mars as they

[[Page H5038]]

have their changes in the climate that sort of parallel what's going on
in the earth? Well, Mars and Jupiter have something in common with us.
They're part of our planetary system, and if something is happening on
the sun, it will affect them as well as us.
So that, too, is an argument, by the way, that's totally being
ignored by the alarmists. After all, what new controls or new taxes or
new regulations will they be able to foist on us if it's determined
that the sun and not our sports cars are causing the problem of a
warmer weather, if there is warmer weather.

{time} 1900

The fact is that man-made global warming and the community that
supports man-made global warming are jumping through hoops, bending
over backwards, struggling to find one glint of new information to
cover for their arrogant attempt to stampede humankind into Draconian
policies.
The government-financed man-made global warming propaganda campaign
has been, and continues to be, a cacophony of gibberish presented as
scientific explanation. I've already given specifics as to what needs
to be discussed, and instead, they ignore any type of specific
challenge and go to personal attacks.
And their explanations, for example, are left to people like Al Gore,
and, let's face it, Al Gore is having a little trouble right now in
telling us why his predictions have been wrong.
The CO2 premise has been based that the whole global
warming theory is wrong. Al Gore needs to confront that and argue his
case. The methodology, by the way, that has determined ``global
warming'' has been wrong. The observations have been wrong, and let me
add, the attempt to shut down the debate has been wrong.
Now, I remember Al Gore labeling me as a Stalinist. He used the word
``Stalinist'' to refer to me, because when I chaired the Subcommittee
on Research and Science in the House, I insisted that both sides be
presented and that expert witnesses be expected to address each other's
points and contentions. To him, that's Stalinism, and I would suggest
that the propaganda campaign of the man-made global warming alarmists
has much more in common with Stalinism than does insisting that both
sides of the issue be heard at a congressional hearing. One has to
really believe that he or she has a corner on the truth to make such a
complaint that Stalinism is having both sides presented and addressing
each other's points.
Of course, Al Gore's documentary, ``An Inconvenient Truth,'' as
suggested by its own title is to be taken as the truth. Well, I won't
go into the numerous debatable points and outright errors of that film,
but something far worse is uncovered than just the errors of his film.
In the pseudoscience and scientific documentary--yes, there were in
that documentary, ``An Inconvenient Truth,'' there are numerous film
segments of climate and environmental incidents, sort of like National
Geographic footage, to add credibility to the alleged scientific points
that supposedly were being documented.
Specifically, the film portrays a dramatic cracking and breaking away
of a huge portion of the polar icecap. The scene is awesome and
somewhat overwhelming and leaves the audience with the feeling that
they've witnessed a massive historic occurrence.
Unfortunately, it's all fake. This is not grand, firsthand
photographic evidence. It is not National Geographic footage of a huge
breaking away of a portion of the icecap. Instead, what the audience is
looking at is a great example of special effects. It's not the icecap.
It's Styrofoam that you're seeing. That's right, Styrofoam, Styrofoam
special effects trying to fool us into thinking we're seeing something
happening in the icecap. By the way, isn't Styrofoam an oil-based
product? Isn't there some sort of a carbon footprint there?
Well, Mr. Gore has not commented on this depiction. Maybe it is
inconvenient for him to comment because it may hurt his credibility.
After all, it is not getting warmer, as he predicted, so maybe he has
based his theories on a Styrofoam model that doesn't work.
The first time I met Al Gore was in my first term back in 1989-1990.
Al Gore, then a United States Senator, marched into the Science
Committee room, followed by a platoon of cameras and reporters. He sat
in front of our committee demanding that President Bush--that's George
W's dad--declare an ozone emergency. And he waved a report in his hand
as evidence that there was an ozone hole opening up over the northeast
of the United States.
A few days later, the report touted by Senator Gore was found to have
been based on faulty data, data collected by one so-called researcher,
flying in a single-engine Piper cub with limited technology and no
expertise. The emergency declaration the senator called for would have
had severe negative economic consequences on the people who live in the
northeast part of the United States.
Now, does anyone detect a pattern here? Such scare tactics, Chicken
Little-ism, based on false information, of course, isn't new. We have
many past examples of this nonsense being portrayed as science.
In 1957, the FDA recalled 3 million pounds of cranberries. I remember
as a young person that my mother took the cranberries off the table for
Thanksgiving and Christmas and told me because they cause cancer. Well,
a few years later, of course, it was admitted it was a total mistake;
sorry, it was a mistake. Of course, a tremendous price was paid by a
large number of our farmers who went broke.
Then, of course, there was the scare over cyclamate used in everyday
items like soda, jams, ice cream. It was very sweet and extremely low
in calories. Cyclamate generated enormous profits because it was a
product of research by our industry, but then in the early 1970s, the
FDA banned cyclamate as a cancer hazard. Well, come to find out, the
rats in their study had been force fed the equivalent of 350 cans of
soda a day, and only eight of the 240 rats that they crammed all this
soda in got sick. It was a faulty test, and eventually, after years,
the truth finally prevailed, and it was officially recognized that
cyclamate does not cause cancer. Canada, by the way, never banned
cyclamate. Our northern buddies, I guess, couldn't get themselves to
force feed those rats.
Well, the FDA did take back its negative finding; however, great
damage was done. This episode had serious consequences. It was the
cyclamate ban that led to the introduction of high fructose corn syrup,
with the obesity and the health problems that have come with high
fructose corn syrup. So, yes, another scare tactic, another American
industry decimated, another rotten theory with unintended consequences
foisted upon us.
The next example of fear mongering with pseudo science came on
February 26, 1989. On that evening, February 26, 1989, Americans tuned
in to ``60 Minutes'' and heard Ed Bradley say, ``The most potent
cancer-causing agent in our food supply is a substance sprayed on
apples to keep them on the trees . . . '' And he goes on to say
basically that the children are being put at risk by eating these
apples that have alar on them, and that story snowballed out of
control. Meryl Streep testified before Congress with all this basically
pseudo-scientific nonsense. Parents ended up tossing apples out the
window. Schools removed applesauce from the cafeteria, replacing of
course the applesauce with more safe and nutritious substances like ice
cream and pudding.
There was only one small problem. Alar, which is what was on the
apples, didn't cause cancer, and the study that was released was based
on bad science. Twenty-thousand apple growers in the United States, of
course, suffered enormous financial harm because of this, and of
course, when the public was so frightened, the alarmism was noted that
it was a very successful tool and people could be scared into accepting
policy if we just scared them. People saw that when they saw what a
stampede happened because of this one story on alar.
So then comes Three Mile Island, the Three Mile Island incident, the
so-called nuclear disaster which ended any expansion of nuclear energy
in America. Three Mile Island is the prime example of how devastating
pseudo-science scare tactics can be, even if there is no substance to
the hysteria. In this case, our country is now heavily dependent on
foreign oil, while France has developed a thriving

[[Page H5039]]

nuclear infrastructure. The French have learned how to reprocess
uranium. We have learned how to buy more energy from abroad.
Just remember, Three Mile Island is a nuclear plant where an
operational mishap, in which no one was hurt or put in danger, was
portrayed as a deadly accident putting millions of people and their
lives in jeopardy. Well, no one has yet to show me that one person's
life was shortened by the Three Mile Island incident.
Coupled with Jane Fonda's movie called ``The China Syndrome,'' which
had just been released, the Three Mile Island incident was a major
disaster, a major public relations disaster for the nuclear industry.
It was used to terrify the American people into rejecting nuclear
energy as a means of producing clean, reliable, domestically fueled
electric energy.
Ironically, nuclear power is probably the most effective means of
producing power with no carbon footprint, no CO2. Yet the
radical environmentalists still block any attempt to expand the use of
nuclear energy, even as we expand our dependency on foreign oil, on oil
that is produced by people who hate us. Again, it was a total con job
and has had a horrible impact.

And what about that ozone hole over the Antarctic? We were told it
would continue to grow and grow and it would take decades to get it
under control. Boyce Rensberger, director of the Knight Fellowship at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, points to evidence that the
ozone concentration is a cyclical event, expanding and contracting the
ozone throughout the eons of time. It's just part of a natural cycle
according to this scientist from MIT.
So here is a scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
telling us the current ozone depletion is simply part of a recurring
cycle, not the result of chlorofluorocarbons, as we were told. In
layman terms, he's telling us that the gigantic expense of shifting
away from aerosol was a waste for America. We're talking about billions
of dollars here. The ozone hole closed on its own. It was just part of
a cycle. If it wasn't, it would be much different than it is today.
Then there is acid rain, of course. Who can forget the frightening
threats that acid rain posed to us just 20 years ago? Acid rain was
supposed to decimate our forests, destroy the fresh water bodies, and
erode our buildings and sidewalks. Well, whatever happened to acid
rain? Well, that theory, too, proved to be an extreme stretch of the
truth.
President Reagan was pummeled without mercy for his unwillingness to
take monstrously costly action aimed at thwarting acid rain. He
insisted on waiting for an in-depth study to be completed, and he was
vilified for his insistence on legitimate scientific verification.
Well, a 10-year study by the National Acid Precipitation Assessment
Project was submitted to Congress in 1990. It minimized the human
impact of acidity of water in the northwest and the northeast of the
United States. The issue then died quickly and quietly, and no one ever
apologized to Ronald Reagan. We haven't heard about acid rain. If they
were right, we should have been hearing about it all this time.
Instead, of course we've been hearing about something else which is
much easier to scare people with, global warming. And of course, the
last one before global warming that I'd like to mention is the most
pitiful of all. Yes, an alarmist scheme which made the cover of Time
magazine 30 years ago.
Just 3 decades ago, scientists and politicians were frantic about
global cooling. We were told the Earth was entering a new ice age.
Unfortunately for the scare mongers, the temperature did not plummet
and the oceans did not freeze. In fact, it was getting a bit warmer,
and during the 1980s and 1990s it did get a little bit warmer. There
was an up-and-down cycle. It happens in the Earth, has always happened.
Well, some of those people, some of those scientists and others who
were talking about global warming, well, they've changed their words,
and of course, you guessed it, global cooling became global warming.
Almost overnight global cooling was rejected, and then there became
global warming, and now, of course, global warming is changing to
climate change.

{time} 1915

So, the scare tactics are nothing new; it's a tried and true method.
They've seen it ever since Alar, how people can be stampeded, and then
policies can be foisted off on people. Unfortunately, the long-term
consequences will be very damaging, very, very damaging for the next
generation, just as the instances that I've just described have been
damaging for our country. Here, we don't have nuclear energy to help us
through this crisis, and we've been left at the mercy of Arab producers
of oil, many of whom don't like us and don't like our way of life.
Of course, our kids are being lied to in a big way to make sure they
will be able to be fooled in the future, to prepare them to make the
sacrifices that are necessary. Well, I often ask students from my
district, from southern California, who come here to visit whether they
think that 45 years ago, when I went to high school in southern
California, whether or not at that time the air was cleaner or dirtier
than it is now. A huge percentage of the students from southern
California, young kids who I see from my district, in particular,
believe that the air quality 45 years ago in southern California was
dramatically better than it is today. When I tell them that what they
believe is 100 percent wrong, that the air is dramatically cleaner
today in southern California, you can see the frustration in their
eyes; they have been lied to in a big way.
The big lie their generation has been fed is that the environment is
going the wrong way and that they have to give up their freedom, that
we have to give up our national sovereignty, and that they have to give
up their expectations of certain things in their life because the
future is bleak because everything about the environment--the air, the
water, the land--are all getting worse when, in fact, there has been
tremendous progress made.
And let me tip my hat to the environmentalists on this, and that is,
yes, there has been regulation, that some of the cleaning, perhaps most
of the cleaning that we've experienced we've seen as a result of the
fact that government and liberal Democrats who push some of these
reforms got them through and has helped clean the air, the water and
the land. And for anyone not to admit that I think would be
disingenuous on our part.
But the fact is that our children are now being told that this man-
made global warming is going to devastate the whole planet. They might
as well not look forward to anything at all unless they buy into all of
this agenda, and all of the controls that are being advocated and the
bringing down, basically, of their expectations of their life, no
travel as much as you--you don't expect low air fares like your parents
had. No. Unfortunately, it doesn't get much worse than that when you're
telling young people to be that pessimistic.
Dr. John Christy, a professor of Atmospheric Science at the
University of Alabama at Huntsville, wrote recently, ``I remember as a
college student at the first Earth Day being told it was a certainty
that by the year 2000 the world would be starving and out of energy.''
Dr. Christy goes on to say, ``Similar pronouncements made today about
catastrophes due to human-induced climate change sound all too familiar
and are all too exaggerated for me, as someone who actually produces
and analyzes climate information.''
We are told that polar bears are dying, but of course most
populations of polar bears are thriving. We are told that polar ice
caps are melting, but the Antarctic ice is actually growing. Hurricane
Katrina was supposed to be only the first of many horrendous hurricanes
to hit the United States within a few years, all caused by, of course,
the warming of the climate, which is, of course, brought on by the
CO2 emissions that we've had from the use of fossil fuels,
never mind the fact that a hurricane of equal force to Katrina had
actually hit the area 100 years before when there was a lot less
CO2 in the air. And now, of course, since Katrina, totally
contrary to the predictions, there hasn't been another strong hurricane
season since Katrina, which totally is in contrast to the rhetoric that
we heard 2 years ago. But of course we're told, never mind, the case is
closed, you can't argue about it anymore.

[[Page H5040]]

An honest debate is long overdue, yet we see an attempt to shut down
the debate. So what are the issues which need to be addressed in an
honest debate? I mentioned a few already. First and foremost, my
colleague in the other Chamber, Jim Inhofe, has pointed out that man-
made global warming theory, especially the part concerning
CO2 and the so-called ``tipping point,'' is all based on
computer models. And computer models are often changed to fit the
theory. So let's take a look at the facts, get off of the computer
models, and take a look at the facts. Does increased CO2
come from warming, or is it the other way around? By the way, what I'm
told is that the solar activity heats the ocean water somewhat; and
cooler ocean water absorbs CO2, warmer ocean water means
that there will be more CO2 in the air. And if that's not
the case, let's debate it, let's find out.
Let's examine the issue of warming itself. The man-made global
warming advocates claim that there is a 1.3 degree rise in global
temperature since 1850. Yet it's widely known, and right in the
hearings on the Science Committee they bring in their charts. Here's
the thing in 1850. And here you see up here it's 1.5 degrees warmer
now, 150 years later, than it was in 1850.
Well, it is widely known that 1850 marked the end of a 500-year
decline in the Earth's temperatures known as the ``Mini Ice Age.'' So
if one uses 1850 as a low point, as a baseline, isn't that totally
dishonestly magnifying the importance of a 1.3 degree rise in
temperature? Right? We're starting from the lowest base. And, by the
way, again, that needs to be addressed. I've asked this question
numerous times. Global warming alarmists never will confront any of the
basic scientific challenges to what they're saying and instead go to ad
homonym attacks. Well, people can mention that they think somebody's
looney, that's fine, that's all right, as long as we couple it with
here is where we disagree, and let's talk about where we disagree.
Instead, we've heard, he's looney, case closed. Don't talk about it,
shut up, and accept what we have to say.
So, what about the process that collected and analyzed the data which
we now are being told supports and proves the man-made global warming
theory? The Select Committee on Economic Affairs under the British
Parliament had much to say about the methodology about the much-
heralded U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or the IPCC,
on which much of the man-made global warming theory has been resting on
their supposed findings. And the Parliament Commission in Britain said,
``We have some concerns,'' the parliamentary committee reported,
``about the objectivity of the IPCC process, with some of its emissions
scenarios and summary documentation apparently influenced by political
considerations.'' Shortly after this criticism, Edward Wegman from
George Mason University found several problems with the statistical
method and peer review process of the IPCC.
At this time, I will place my remaining remarks in the Record and I
would hope that my colleagues or anyone listening who would like to
read this would look into the Congressional Record and read the rest of
this presentation.
With that said, I appreciate the Chair granting me this hour to talk
directly to my colleagues and to the American people, through the
Congressional Record.
Then, a February 2008 report by Kesten Green and J. Scott Armstrong
for the National Center for Policy Analysis found glaring problems in
the IPCC's 2007 report.
At a minimum, the IPCC ignored just under half of widely accepted
forecasting principles. At worst, they violated over \3/4\ of those
principles. Sterling Burnett of the Washington Times probably sums it
up the best: ``Several assessments of the IPCC's work have shown the
techniques and methods used to derive its climate predictions are
fundamentally flawed.'' How are we supposed to take them seriously in
the face of such lunacy? This isn't science. It's comedy.
The National Policy Center was similarly distressed. Its reports on
the IPCC found unreliable data and forecasting models, as well as
politically motivated forecasters. Peer reviewers of the study were few
in number and often had ties to the original authors of the IPCC study.
Any academic will tell you that is unacceptable. But nevertheless we
are told to sit down and shut up, case closed, game over.
And Al Gore's movie isn't the only example of docudrama presented as
gospel truth. As recent as May 5 of this year, the public was treated
to yet another example of intentionally distorted visions. I am
referring to an NBC program that included a view of the North Pole and
the melting of the ice caps. As the reporter speaks, the camera pans
over the ice as penguins cling to a small ice patch in the middle of
the water. Touches your heart, doesn't it? Well, there is a problem.
There are no penguins at the North Pole. Penguins live exclusively in
Antarctica, that is the South Pole. But maybe we should give NBC the
benefit of the doubt, maybe the penguins moved north. After all,
climate change is happening in the South Pole too, except that there
the ice is growing, not shrinking. Hmm. Well, that's why we call it
``climate change'' and not ``global warming,'' I suppose. I might add
that NBC has removed the scene from its online video feed.
Carbon dioxide is, in fact, like the penguins. It's being falsely
pictured. It is being portrayed as a pollutant; in fact, it makes
things grow, and it is not toxic to humans. After all, we exhale it
with every breath. In the distant past the earth had much more
CO2 in the air, perhaps as a result of volcanoes, but at
that time we had abundant animal life, dinosaurs and lots of plants for
them to eat. CO2 is today pumped into greenhouses to make
tomatoes grow bigger and better. Nevertheless, we are now presented
with such loony ideas like sequestration or carbon credits that only
enrich the alarmists. This is only possible with a public that has been
frightened into accepting totally false information about
CO2. Let me state that I do support efforts that reduce
pollution, particulates that do have a negative impact on the
environment and human health. I support technologies that reduce these
materials. If we are to have a debate on saving the environment, that
is what we should be focusing on.
Mr. Speaker, this old world has had many cycles of warming and
cooling, probably the result of solar activity, perhaps in the distant
past volcanoes, the ice caps on Mars and Jupiter go back and forth,
just as glaciers have gone back and forth. But such a powerful and
mysterious force as the weather can be frightening. We need not be
frightened, hoodwinked into giving authority to our own government,
much less the U.N. or a global power--the power to control our lives in
the name of manmade global warming, or climate change, or whatever they
want to call it. Let us not let the alarmists take this country down
the wrong path. Let's let the children of this country and planet have
the freedom and prosperity we enjoyed, and not give it away to
hucksters who would frighten us into giving up our birthright in the
name of saving the planet. Sounds noble, but it's just a trick, a hoax.
The greatest hoax of all.

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