[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 3 (Thursday, January 8, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S197-S202]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
GLOBAL WARMING
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, first of all, I appreciate your coming
from your meeting to preside. As we begin the new Congress and a new
administration, we begin a new chapter on energy and environmental
policy, and it is a time that environmental activists, the United
Nations, and many of my Democratic colleagues have been salivating for
for years. The stars are all aligned. Democrats control both sides of
Pennsylvania Avenue, and the Supreme Court has spoken now that carbon
dioxide is a pollutant under the Clear Air Act, even though it was a 5-
to-4 decision. It is kind of interesting how something can be a
pollutant with a 5-to-4 decision.
It is believed the stage has been set for a home run on mandatory
Kyoto-like climate controls and the dawn of a new bustling green energy
economy. However, before many of my colleagues rush to leap before they
look, I wish to remind them of some very unfortunate developments that
may complicate their early action on items on their wish lists. I ask
my colleagues to at least consider some of the facts I will be
revealing over the next series of speeches and to keep an open mind
before rushing to sweeping action after waiting for so many years.
The scale and pace of the climate proposals and the regulatory
actions we have debated in the past, including the recently failed
Lieberman-Warner bill and the ones we will likely be debating this
Congress, leave little room for error in this fragile, recession-ridden
economy, and the inflated promises of a sweeping green jobs revolution
need an honest and frank reality. The proponents of mandatory global
warming controls need to be honest with the American people. The
purpose of these programs is to ration fossil-based energy by making it
more expensive and therefore less appealing for public consumption. It
is a regressive tax that imposes a greater burden relative to resources
on the poor than it does on the rich. Let me say that again. The
purpose of these programs is to ration the fossil fuel-based energy by
making it more expensive to all Americans and therefore less appealing
for public consumption. But it is a regressive tax, and we have talked
about this before. It is one that punishes those whose resources have
to be used for such purposes as being able to operate their vehicles
and heat their homes.
Advocates may argue that the redistribution of wealth toward the
income consumers will offset the balance of revenue or taxes being
taken in, but we learned firsthand during the Lieberman-Warner debate
that this simply is not true. I don't like the argument that we have
equal distribution of wealth efforts that are going to take a
regressive nature out of the punitive values of this type of program.
To me, there is something un-American about that. But while the bill's
sponsors try to convince us there is actually tax relief in the bill,
we learn that families--now I am talking about the Lieberman-Warner
bill, and this was only about 8 months ago, the Lieberman-Warner bill--
we learn that families with workers will still have to pay $6.7
trillion into the system in the form of higher energy costs to get back
an estimated $802 billion in tax relief. That is a return of $1 out of
every $8.40 paid. It is time that proponents of climate policies be
honest. It is expensive, and it is going to cost taxpayers a lot of
money.
You know, it doesn't really matter which form we use. We have gone
through, first of all, the Kyoto Treaty. We came this close to passing
the Kyoto Treaty, and it wasn't until the Wharton School of Economics
came along with the econometrics survey and they determined it would
cost some $300 billion a year to join onto and actually try to achieve
the emission requirements of Kyoto. Then along came the McCain-
Lieberman bill and then after that the Warner- Lieberman bill. And cap
and trade is going to be about the same amount. They may massage it a
little bit, but we are still talking in the neighborhood of $300
billion a year. That equates to over $2,000 for each taxpaying family
in America. So it is huge.
In the coming weeks, I will go into more detail about other false
promises proponents of mandatory global warming policies are
advocating. Among them are a reality check on green projects--the
number of new green jobs from a climate regime are overstated compared
to the number of manufacturing jobs lost, and we know from the National
Association of Manufacturers how many jobs would have been lost with
any of these schemes in the past; a review of the weaknesses of offset
policies--companies have bought offsets which are not real; and a
review of the attempts to estimate the cost of inaction. Many advocates
are claiming it
[[Page S198]]
is more expensive to do nothing than the cost of a cap and trade, but
they are untested and nontransparent economic modeling.
All these issues will play a vital role in the debate on both energy
and global warming policy, which have become unavoidably intertwined.
You can't really talk about one without the other. You can't talk about
what you are going to do on greenhouse gases or CO2 or cap
and trade without affecting our overall energy policy.
When there are sensible proposals debated in Congress that can
achieve double benefits of reducing emissions and making America's
energy supply more stable, diverse, and affordable, then we will look
forward to working on a bipartisan basis to achieving these goals.
Increasing our domestic energy production and lowering our dependence
on foreign oil are two issues that are critically important to myself
and my State of Oklahoma, and of course this will include renewables
and new green jobs.
However, we need to be smart and realistic about these policies.
Unfortunately, I fear that the scale and pace many of my colleagues
will be advocating with mandatory climate policies are unrealistic,
extraordinarily narrowly expensive, and ill-advised. What is the driver
for these unrealistic proposals that seem to make unnecessarily abrupt
and painful increases in our energy costs in the near term? It is all
rooted in global warming science.
I have given over 12 speeches, averaging over an hour apiece, on the
science of global warming over the past few years. Today, I wish to
update my colleagues on some of the latest science that has not yet
been reported in the mainstream media. I will simply be a disseminator
of this information and not a commentator. I have to say that because I
am not a scientist, nor is anyone else that I know of in this body a
scientist. So the statements I will make will be quoting people who are
qualified and are scientists, and this is what my role will be.
Before I do that, I ask all my colleagues to think about the issue.
Science should not be reviewed through any one frame. It is not
partisan, it is not regional; however, the political process has
largely engulfed science behind climate change. As I have documented in
speeches before, the politicizing of the global warming science has
become one of the most unfortunate developments in the last 8 years.
Anytime one questions a hypothesis or a conclusion that does not fall
in line with ``the sky is falling'' doom and gloom scenario of global
warming alarmists, it is ridiculed, written off, denigrated, and not
reported by the mainstream media. Yet anytime a more severe
interpretation or alarming statistic is related, it is headline
grabbing in the news. Objective, transparent, and verifiable science
gets lost in the public dialog.
Funding has a way of influencing this debate. The other day there was
an article in the Bloomberg News--and I say this for those individuals
who might be feeling sorry for Al Gore--it was reported that his net
worth in 2000 was between $1 million and $2 million and it is now in
excess of $100 million today, so he will be all right.
When the stakes of the policy outcomes with cap and trade and other
mandatory climate proposals are this high for the American people, I
hope the Senate this year will embrace my calls for objectivity and
transparency in science and modeling. As policymakers, it is our duty
to make sure models developed by agencies and used in policy are useful
for their intended purpose, articulate major assumptions
and uncertainties, and separate scientific conclusions from policy
judgments.
However, with global warming science this has not been the case. With
many left-of-center scientists, the environmental activists now realize
the so-called consensus on manmade global warming is not holding up.
The leftwing blog Huffington Post--this is a left-leaning
organization--surprised a lot of people by featuring an article on
January 3, 2008, by Harold Ambler demanding an apology from Gore for
promoting unfounded global warming fears. The Huffington Post--again,
left leaning--article accused Gore of telling the biggest whopper ever
sold to the American public in the history of mankind because he
claimed the science was settled on global warming. The Huffington Post
article, entitled ``Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted,'' adds, ``It is Mr.
Gore and his brethren who are flat-Earthers, not the skeptics.'' Again,
it is not myself, not Jim Inhofe saying this about Gore; it is the
leftwing blog, the Huffington Post, saying these things.
The Huffington Post article continues:
Let us neither cripple our own economy by mislabeling
carbon dioxide a pollutant nor discourage development in the
Third World, where suffering continues unabated day after
day.
Another left-of-center atmospheric scientist who has descended on the
manmade climate fears is the U.K.'s Richard Courtney, a U.N.--and let's
keep in mind where all this started. A lot of people forget this was
started by the United Nations--the United Nations Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change. They came out and said: Oh, it is manmade
gases, anthropogenic gases, CO2, methane that are causing
climate change. And this person used to be on that panel. He was an
expert reviewer in the U.K.-based climate and atmospheric science, a
consultant, and a self-described Socialist who also happens to reject
manmade climate fears.
Joining Courtney are many of the other progressive environmental
scientists. Former Green Peace member and Finnish scientist Dr. Jarl
Ahlbeck, a lecturer of environmental technology and a chemical engineer
at the University of Finland who has authored 200 scientific
publications, is also skeptical of manmade climate doom. Ahlbeck wrote
in 2008:
Contrary to common belief, there has been no or little
global warming since 1995, and this is shown by two
completely independent data sets. But so far, real
measurements give no ground for concern about catastrophic
future warming.
This is kind of interesting because what he is saying--and this is a
guy who started out with the United Nations in the beginning, with the
IPCC--is that right now we are actually in a cooling period. I think no
one debates that now. We have had the most severe weather, and I will
have another talk I will try to get in next week about what is
happening around the country right now. It isn't global warming, it is
global cooling. People forget God is still up there and we go through
these cycles. I can remember the middle 1970s when they were saying
there is another ice age coming and we are all going to die. Those same
people--and there was an article in Time magazine at that time--are the
ones now saying we are going to die, but it is for a different reason,
it is global warming.
Lifelong liberal Democrat Dr. Martin Hertzberg, a retired Navy
meteorologist with a Ph.D. in physical chemistry, also declared his
dissent of warming fears in 2008. He said:
As a scientist and life-long liberal Democrat, I find the
constant regurgitation of the anecdotal, fear mongering
claptrap about human-caused global warming to be a disservice
to science.
Finally, CNN--not a bastion of conservatism--had yet another of its
meteorologists dissent from warming fears. Meteorologist Chad Myers, a
meteorologist for 22 years, certified by the American Meteorological
Society, spoke out against anthropogenic climate claims on CNN in
December.
You know, to think that we could affect weather all that
much is pretty arrogant. Mother Nature is so big, the world
is so big, the oceans are so big--I think we are going to die
from the lack of fresh water or we are going to die from some
type of ocean acidification before we die from global
warming, for sure.
Myers joins fellow CNN meteorologist--by the way, CNN has been very
biased all this time. I think we know that, as has the Weather Channel,
because there is a lot of money in perpetuating this myth. Myers was
joined by his fellow CNN meteorologist, Rob Marciano, who compared
Gore's film to fiction in 2007, and CNN anchor Lou Dobbs just said of a
global warming fear promotion on January 5 of this year, ``It's almost
a religion without any question.''
Recently, I released a new report on climate scientists which
documents many of the studies ignored by the mainstream media.
Here it is right here. This is one that is actually too large to put
into the Congressional Record. In here, in the report, are 650
scientists who have challenged manmade global warming
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claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change. We talked about that. I have been detailing these science
issues for a number of years.
In a July 28, 2003, floor speech in this Chamber I said: The issue of
global warming ``is far from settled, and indeed is seriously
disputed.'' The science continues to evolve.
I explained that ``anyone who pays even cursory attention to the
issue understands that scientists vigorously disagree over whether
human activities are responsible for global warming, or whether those
activities will precipitate natural disasters.''
I noted--and this is what I said in 2003:
Not only is there a debate, but (at least in certain
corridors) the debate is shifting away from those who
subscribe to global warming alarmism.
That was in 2005. After that speech, I led the charge against the
McCain-Lieberman global warming cap-and-trade bill--that would be in
2003, then again in 2005--both times easily defeating the bills. At the
time it was a lonely battle. Only a few people came down to help me on
the floor. I remember so well in 2005 when I was alone down here on the
floor of the Senate for 5 consecutive days that we had it on the floor,
about 10 hours a day. Very few people came down and were willing to
join me on the Senate floor.
That has changed. If you fastforward from 2005 to 2008, we had the
Warner-Lieberman bill on the floor. At that time I had over 25 Senators
come down and join me. You are seeing people who no longer fear the
money generated by the moveon.orgs, the Hollywood elitists, those
individuals who have millions of dollars to put into campaigns, to
throw into the system. We are getting a lot of encouragement. Things
have changed. In fact, at the end of the bill that we had that is
referred to sometimes as either the Lieberman-Warner bill or the Boxer
climate tax bill, they are only able to get about 37 people from their
own party, from this side of the aisle over here, who would support it.
That is a major change from the past.
After this election that number has only gone up from 37 to 39. You
are not getting close to the 60 votes necessary to try to inflict this
economic damage on the United States.
The Republicans were prepared to debate the bill--this is the Warner-
Lieberman bill--and were ready to offer amendments, but the Democrats
didn't want to debate, much less vote, on our amendments that were
aimed at protecting American families and workers from the devastating
economic impacts of the bill. When faced with the inconvenient truth of
the bill's impact on skyrocketing gas prices, it was Democratic
Senators who wanted to see the bill die a quick death.
By the way, we had a list of some 10 Democratic Senators who, in a
very responsible way, said we will go ahead and vote on some of these
amendments, but when it comes to final passage, we are not going to
vote on it.
After the bill failed, the Wall Street Journal aptly noted that
environmentalists are stunned that their global warming agenda is in
collapse. The paper added:
The green groups now look as politically intimidating as
the skinny kid on the beach who has sand kicked in his face.
The paper quoted a political analyst who noted that ``this issue is
starting to feel like the Hillary health care plan again.''
Despite the claims that we must act now to prevent climate crisis,
the climate tax bill would not have resulted in any action whatsoever.
The bill, often touted as an insurance policy against global warming,
would instead have been all economic pain and no climate gain. This is
because without a global treaty, the binding commitments by both the
developing and developed countries is not going to work.
Let's say we believed that manmade, anthropogenic gases were the
major cause of climate change and the debate was over if we do
something just unilaterally in the United States of America. All that
would do is cause a flight of our manufacturing jobs overseas to
countries such as India and China and Mexico--places where they do not
have any kind of a restriction on the greenhouse gases. So it would
have a net increase, if we were to pass one of these. Yet we are the
ones who would be saddled with a $300 billion-a-year tax bill.
Americans are suspicious of the need for solutions to global warming.
The Gallup Poll released on Earth Day 2008 revealed the American
public's concern about manmade global warming has remained unchanged
since 1989. According to Gallup, and this is a quote from the report,
they said:
Despite the enormous attention paid to global warming over
the past several years, the average American is in some ways
no more worried about it than they were in years past.
In other words, after all the money, all the hype, all the biased
media over the past few years, people have not moved in that direction.
They know better. They know when they have been duped.
What perhaps is the most striking is that, aside from the economics
of global warming solutions, the science has continued to move in the
direction I predicted in 2003. In 2007 I released a Senate minority
report detailing over 400 scientists disputing manmade global warming
claims. In the inconvenient real world climate study, developments are
refuting global warming fears. That was 2007, just a year ago.
In 2008, in the tail end of 2008, for the benefit of public
dissemination we have updated our report, and the so-called consensus
on global warming is even more in dispute. That is the report I have
right here. Over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe
challenge manmade global warming claims made by the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and by former Vice President
Al Gore. Our new 233-page U.S. Senate minority report features the
skeptical voices of over 650 prominent international scientists,
including many current and former U.N. IPCC scientists who have now
turned against the U.N. IPCC.
This updated report includes an additional 250--and growing, I might
add; it has grown since then--scientists and climate researchers since
the initial release in December of 2007. The over 650 dissenting
scientists are more than 12 times the number of the U.N. scientists--
only 52 of them--who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for
Policymakers.
This is very significant. I know it is kind of heavy lifting to
understand this, but the U.N. IPCC, that started this whole thing, they
have this analysis that is made and updated, but you never get the full
report by any of the scientists. It is merely the summary for
policymakers. That is us. That is for the politicians out there. So
they only have 52 scientists who signed this report. We are talking
about 650 scientists versus 52.
The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grew louder in 2008 as a
steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses, real-world data, and
inconvenient developments challenged the U.N.'s and former Vice
President Al Gore's claims that the ``science is settled,'' and there
is a ``consensus.'' Despite what is now being portrayed in the media on
a range of issues, 2008 proved to be devastating for the promoters of
manmade climate fears.
In addition, the following developments further secured 2008 as the
year the ``consensus collapsed.'' Russian scientists ``rejected the
very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming.
Frankly, they laugh. I have had meetings with them. They laugh at it.
In Milan, when they had one of the big United Nations meetings where
they tried to coerce countries into supporting this, the Russians at
that time were in a position, since they have these vast areas that are
totally undeveloped--I remember flying across Siberia a few years ago.
I am a pilot and flew an airplane across the world, and I remember
flying across Siberia and looking down and seeing time zone after time
zone where you don't see any people, nothing but natural resources. Yet
all of those would go in the formula, so they would be great big
recipients if they are able to get some kind of international treaty.
In addition to that, the American Physical Society editor conceded
that ``a considerable presence'' of scientific skeptics exists. An
international team of scientists countered the U.N. IPCC, declaring,
``Nature, not human activity, rules the climate.''
India issued a report challenging global warming fears. A team of
international scientists demanded the U.N.
[[Page S200]]
IPCC ``be called to account and cease its deceptive practices,'' and a
canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian scientists revealed that 68
percent disagree that global warming science is ``settled.''
We are not talking about politicians, people, Senators like me and
others in this room. We are talking about real scientists who are out
there. We are talking about 68 percent of the scientists in Canada now
have come to recognize this. That was not true 5 years ago. Most were
on the other side of this issue, but they have now looked at it and
realize they have been duped. This new report is the latest evidence of
the growing groundswell of scientific opposition challenging
significant aspects of the claims of the United Nations IPCC and Al
Gore. Scientific meetings are now being dominated by a growing number
of skeptical scientists. The prestigious International Geological
Congress, dubbed the geologist's equivalent of the Olympic Games, and
held in very high esteem, was held in Norway in August 2008, just a few
months ago, and prominently featured the voices of scientists skeptical
of manmade global warming fears. The conference was reportedly
overwhelmed with skeptical scientists, with ``two-thirds of the
presenters and question-askers who were hostile to, even dismissive of,
the United Nations IPCC.''
Even the mainstream media in 2008 began to take notice of the
expanding number of scientists serving as ``consensus busters.'' A
November 25, 2008, article in Politico--everyone in Washington reads
that--noted that a ``growing accumulation'' of science is challenging
warming fears, and added that the ``science behind global warming may
still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation.'' Canada's
National Post noted on October 20, 2008, that ``the number of climate
change skeptics is growing rapidly.'' New York Times environmental
reporter Andrew Revkin noted on March 6, 2008, ``As we all know,
climate science is not a numbers game (there are heaps of signed
statements by folks with advanced degrees on all sides of this
issue).'' I agree with him, and it's a shame that we have had to resort
to a numbers game. It should be focused on objective, transparent and
peer reviewed science, and debate should not be quarantined. In 2007,
Washington Post staff writer Juliet Eilperin conceded the obvious,
writing that climate skeptics ``appear to be expanding rather than
shrinking.''
Skeptical scientists are gaining recognition despite what many say is
a bias against them in parts of the scientific community and are facing
significant funding disadvantages. Dr. William M. Briggs, a climate
statistician who serves on the American Meteorological Society's
Probability and Statistics Committee, explained that his colleagues
described ``absolute horror stories of what happened to them when they
tried getting papers published that explored non-`consensus' views.''
In a March 4, 2008, report Briggs described the behavior as ``really
outrageous and unethical . . . on the parts of some editors. I was
shocked.''
Again, this is not me saying this; there are scientists. Here are
some of the highlights of my 2008 Senate minority report featuring over
650 international scientists dissenting from man-made climate claims.
Incidentally, this report I have--it was my intention to make this
report of these 650 scientists a part of the Record. However, very
wisely this body has said we do not want the expense. Something like
this would be so overwhelming that some Senators who are conservatives
would rather not do it. The report is here. It is a matter of public
record. You can get a lot of this on my Web site, ewo.senate.com.
Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever, stated:
I am a skeptic . . . Global warming has become a new
religion.
Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the
world to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, and formerly of NASA, who has
authored more than 190 studies and has been called ``among the most
preeminent scientists of the last 100 years,'' stated:
Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor
receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly. . . . As a
scientist I remain skeptical . . . The main basis of the
claim that man's release of greenhouse gases is the cause of
the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models.
We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-
surface system.
Here, no one can argue with Dr. Simpson.
The United Nations IPCC Japanese scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an
award-winning Ph.D. environmental physical chemist, stated--this is
from all over the world now, this is in Japan.
Warming fears are the worst scientific scandal in the
history. . . . When people come to know what the truth is,
they will feel deceived by science and scientists.
Indian geologist Dr. Arun Ahluwalia of Punjab University, and a board
member of the U.N.-supported International Year of the Planet, stated:
The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it does not
listen to others. It does not have open minds. I am really
amazed that the Nobel Peace Price has been given on
scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not
geologists.
Solar physicist Dr. Pal Brekke, senior advisor to the Norwegian Space
Center in Oslo, has published more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific
articles on the Sun and solar interaction with the Earth. Brekke
stated:
Anyone who claims that the debate is over and the
conclusions are firm has a fundamentally unscientific
approach to one of the most momentous issues of our time.
These are all top scientists. No one can discredit these people. You
might wonder, why is it that so many people want us to believe that
maybe bad old man is responsible for those horrible things that are
going to happen, that are not going to happen? There are a lot of
reasons for that. A lot of money behind this comes from organizations
such as those we find in some of the Hollywood groups, moveon.org,
George Soros, and different foundations such as the Hines Foundation
that do want to stop the progress in this country.
But, anyway, back to some of these scientists. Victor Manuel Velasco
Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National
Autonomous University of Mexico--I am covering all of these countries
now. These are the top scientists in these countries--states:
Models and forecasts of the UN IPCC are incorrect because
they only are based on mathematical models and presented
results and scenarios that do not include, for example, solar
activity.
Surprise, surprise. The Sun warms things.
U.S. Government atmospheric scientist Stanley Goldenberg of the
Hurricane Research Division of NOAA stated:
It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it
seem that there is only a fringe of scientists who do not buy
into anthropogenic global warming.
Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and
Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland in New Zealand,
stated:
Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will
virtually have little impact, as water vapor and water
condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene
and always will.
This has always happened. We have gone through these stages. I do not
want to make this part without documentation, but when we went through
one of the other warming periods in this country, it was back before
they had the combustion engine, back before CO2 was even
around yet. Here we are today with all of these people, the names are
the top scientists in the world who are making these statements. A lot
of them used to be on the other side of this issue. That was back when
they were being threatened with withdrawal of various funding for the
projects they had, and now they are back on the other side.
Andrei Kapitsa, a Russian geographer and Antarctic ice core
researcher, stated:
The Kyoto theorists have put the cart before the horse. It
is global warming that triggers higher levels of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere, not the other way around . . . A
large number of critical documents submitted at the 1995
United Nations conference in Madrid vanished without a trace.
As a result, the discussion was one-sided and heavily biased,
and the U.N. declared global warming to be a scientific fact.
Prominent Hungarian physicist and environmental researcher Dr. Miklos
Zagoni reversed his view. He was on the other side of this issue, on
manmade warming. He is now a skeptic. Zagoni, once Hungary's most
outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol, stated that:
Nature's regulatory instrument is water vapor: more carbon
dioxide leads to less
[[Page S201]]
moisture in the air, keeping the overall greenhouse gases
content in accord with the necessary balance conditions.
Again, that is a very prominent scientist, perhaps considered the
most prominent scientist in Hungary.
Geologist Dr. David Gee, the chairman of the science committee of the
2008 International Geological Congress, who has authored 130-plus peer-
reviewed papers, who is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden,
stated:
For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to
understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years
must cooling go on?
Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief--he was
another one on the other side of this issue, another one of the many
scientists who reversed his belief on manmade warming to become a
skeptic--is a former member of the Dutch U.N. IPCC committee. He
stated:
Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again
and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp . . .
Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate
changes after the fact.
South African nuclear physicist and chemical engineer Dr. Philip
Lloyd was also one of them who was very prominent in the United Nations
IPCC in years past. He was the co-coordinating lead author who has
authored over 150 refereed publications, and he stated:
The quality of CO2 we produce is insignificant
in terms of natural circulation between air, water and soil .
. . I am doing a detailed assessment of the U.N. IPCC reports
and the Summaries for Policymakers, identifying the way in
which the Summaries have distorted the science.
I am actually getting that report. As we have said, we have been
looking at these reports for policymakers for a long time. And those
people on the other side would have you believe that is the National
Academy of Sciences, that is the United Nations. It is not scientists.
This is a summary for policymakers. These are politicians who have an
agenda.
Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research
and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh, stated:
Many scientists are now searching for a way to back out
quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their
professional careers ruined.
This is the intimidation I was talking about.
Geophysicist Dr. Phil Chapman, an astronautical engineer and former
NASA astronaut, who served as staff physicist at MIT, stated:
All those urging action to curb global warming need to take
off the blinkers and give some thought to what we should do
if we are facing global cooling instead.
Which, incidentally, happens to be going on right now. Environmental
scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the
Numerical Weather Forecast Group, who has more than 150 published
articles--these guys are smart guys. This is not politicians talking,
these are the incontrovertible scientists who cannot be challenged--
stated:
Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is dangerous
nonsense . . . The present alarm on climate change is an
instrument of social control, a pretext for major business
and political battle. It became an ideology, which is
concerning.
Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice chancellor of the Institute of Science and
Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan, stated:
CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one
way or another . . . Every scientist knows this, but it
doesn't pay to say so . . . Global warming, as a political
vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver's seat and developing
nations walking barefoot.
Award-winning paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni of the Committee for
Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and the head of the Paleontology
Department at the University of La Plata said:
The global warming scaremongering has its justifications in
the fact that it is something that generates funds.
There we go again. All of these different groups and these
foundations who will fund people who will agree to support their
political positions.
Atmospheric scientist Dr. Art Douglas, former chair of the
Atmospheric Sciences Department at Creighton University in Omaha, NE,
and author of numerous peer-reviewed publications, stated:
Whatever the weather, it's not being caused by global
warming. If anything, the climate may be starting into a
cooling period.
And this is, by the way, something that nobody questions now; we are
going well into a cooling period.
Chemist Dr. Patrick Frank, who has authored more than 50 peer-
reviewed articles, stated:
But there is no falsifiable scientific basis whatever to
assert this warming is caused by human-produced greenhouse
gasses, because current physical theory is too grossly
inadequate to establish any cause at all.
Award-winning NASA astronaut and moonwalker Jack Schmitt, who flew on
the Apollo 17 mission and formerly of the Norwegian Geological Survey,
and for the U.S. Geological Survey, stated:
The global warming scare is being used as a political tool
to increase government control over American lives, incomes
and decisionmaking. It has no place in the Society's
activities.
By the way, I would have to add to that, another one of the
motivations in the United Nations is they are always critical of us
when we threaten to withhold some of the funding, when they are
advocating policies that are contrary to our policies in the United
States. They would love nothing more than to have some type of a
funding mechanism where they did not have to be accountable to the
United States or any other nation.
Climatologist Dr. Richard Keen, of the Department of Atmospheric and
Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado, stated:
Earth has cooled since 1998 in defiance of the predictions
by the U.N. IPCC . . . The global temperature for 2007 was
the coldest in a decade and the coldest of the millennium . .
. which is why global warming is now called climate change.
This is kind of interesting. Next week I am going to put together
what has been happening recently in this cooling period, the fact that
we have had records that are set all around the United States and all
around the world, and that is exactly what Dr. Richard Keen is talking
about now. We are in a cooling period. It has to drive these global
warming people nuts to have to recognize that.
Dr. G. LeBlanc Smith, a retired principal research scientist with
Australia's CSIRO, stated:
I have yet to see credible proof of carbon dioxide driving
climate change, let alone manmade CO2 driving it.
The atmosphere hot-spot is missing and the ice core data
refute this. When will we collectively awake from this
deceptive delusion?
That is G. LeBlanc Smith of Australia, one of the top scientists in
Australia.
The distinguished scientists featured in this new report are experts
in diverse fields, including climatology, geology, biology, glaciology,
biogeography, meteorology, oceanography, economics, chemistry,
mathematics, environmental sciences, astrophysics, engineering physics,
and paleoclimatology.
Some of those profiled have won Nobel Prizes for their outstanding
contribution to their field of expertise and many shared a portion of
the U.N. IPCC Nobel Peace Price with Al Gore.
The notion of hundreds or thousands of U.N. scientists agreeing to a
scientific statement does not hold up to scrutiny--just not true.
Recent research by Australian climate data analyst John McLean
revealed that the IPCC's peer-review process for the Summary for
Policymakers leaves much to be desired. The 52 scientists who
participated in the 2007 IPCC Summary for Policymakers had to adhere to
the wishes of the United Nations political leaders and delegates in a
process described as more closely resembling a political party's
convention platform battle, not a scientific process.
Only 52 scientists wrote the media-hyped U.N. summary for
policymakers, and it was actually published by the politicians and not
the scientists. One former U.N. IPCC scientist bluntly told EPW, our
committee, how the United Nations' IPCC summary for policymakers
distorted the scientists' work. He said:
I have found examples of a Summary saying precisely the
opposite of what the scientists said.
This was from South African nuclear physicist and chemical engineer
Dr. Philip Lloyd, a U.N. IPCC co-coordinating lead author who has
authored over 150 referred publications. A 2008 international report of
the U.N. found
[[Page S202]]
its climate agency ``rife with bad practices.'' Others like to note
that the National Academy of Sciences and the American Meteorological
Society have issued statements endorsing the so-called consensus view
that man is driving global warming. But both the NAS and the AMS never
allowed member scientists to directly vote on these climate statements.
Essentially only two dozen or so members of the governing bodies of
these institutions produced a consensus statement. This report gives a
voice to the rank-and-file scientists who were shut out of the process.
So they are very thankful.
Many of these scientists are glad that we have this report so that
they now have access to the truth and they can come out from hiding.
The more than 650 scientists expressing skepticism comes after the
U.N. IPCC Chairman Pachauri implied that there were only about a dozen
skeptical scientists left in the world. Former Vice President Gore has
claimed that scientists skeptical of climate change are akin to flat
Earth society members and similar in number to those who believe that
the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona. It is a
shame that proponents have now been reduced to name calling. That is
what we are getting now, name calling and insults. When you lose your
logic, this is what happens. They start the name calling and insults
because they don't have logic.
Examples of consensus claims made by promoters of manmade climate
fears: The U.N. special climate envoy Dr. Gro Harmel Brundtland, on May
10, 2007, declared that the debate is over and added that ``it's
completely immoral, even, to question the U.N.'s scientific
consensus.''
The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary
said it was criminally irresponsible to ignore the urgency of global
warming. This was on November 12, 2007.
ABC News global warming reporter Bill Blakemore reported on August
30, 2006:
After extensive searches, ABC News has found no such
[scientific] debate on global warming.
While the dissenting scientists contained in the report hold a
diverse range of views, they generally rally around four key points.
No. 1, the Earth is currently well within national climate variability.
We are talking about 650 of the top scientists in the world. No. 2,
almost all climate fear is generated by unproven computer model
predictions. No. 3, an abundance of peer-reviewed studies continues to
debunk rising CO2 fears. No. 4, consensus has been
manufactured for political and not scientific purposes. Those four
things, all of these 650 top scientists in the world agree to.
Since I released the report on December 11, other scientists have
contacted us to be included.
On December 22, 11 more scientists were added, including
meteorologists from Germany, the Netherlands, and CNN. Even CNN, very
much on the other side of this issue, two more of their meteorologists
have come over and become skeptics, as well as professors from MIT, the
University of Arizona, and other institutions. One prominent scientist
added was award-winning Princeton University physicist Will Happer, who
was reportedly fired by former Vice President Al Gore in 1993 for
failing to adhere to Gore's scientific views. Happer has now declared
manmade global warming fears as mistaken. Happer is a professor in the
Department of Physics at Princeton University and former director of
energy research at the Department of Energy who has published over 200
scientific papers and is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the
American Association for the Advancement of Scientists, and the
National Academy of Sciences. Happer does not mince words when it comes
to warming fears. He said:
I am convinced that the current alarm over carbon dioxide
is mistaken . . . Fears about man-made global warming are
unwarranted and are not based on good science.
As we face a new administration and a U.N. eager to draw the U.S.
into its climate policy, let's not forget that this aspect of the
debate is still alive and well and only growing. We should not become
weary of calling into question policy choices when they are driven by
still evolving scientific assessment, especially when the stakes are so
high and the costs are so extraordinary. Let us hope this
administration and our news media recognize this new reality as we move
forward into this new Congress.
On a personal note, it has been a lonely fight. For the last 6 years
I have been talking about the Hollywood and media-driven fear that
tries to convince us that those who are fueling this machine called
America are somehow evil and fully responsible for global warming. This
is absurd. We all know better. It does take power to run this machine
we call America. In the past, the only argument that defeated all the
cap-and-trade schemes was the economic argument. I think you can argue
each one differently, saying no, this wouldn't cost the same as
adhering to emissions required by Kyoto back in the Kyoto treaty days.
But any time you get into a cap and trade of CO2, it is
going to cost about $300 billion annually in taxes. I was critical of
my colleagues, the 75 Senators who voted to give an unelected
bureaucrat, Secretary Paulson, $700 billion to do with as he wished
with no oversight. I was critical of that. Of course, that is a one-
shot deal. This was every year, a $300 billion annual tax increase. It
was too much, even if the science was fully settled.
Now the science is shifting dramatically to the other side. So I
believe we need to be looking, even if we use their own figures of $6.7
trillion as the cost of the life of a similar bill to the Lieberman-
Warner bill.
I conclude by repeating something I have said many times: Even if you
believe this, if you believe that manmade gas is a major cause of
climate change, what good would it do for us unilaterally in the United
States to impose a financial hardship, $300 billion a year, on people
in the United States, when all that would do logically is cause our
manufacturing base to further erode and to go to countries such as
China and India and Mexico, other countries that have no emission
restrictions at all. It would be a $300 billion tax on us every year,
and it would have the effect of increasing the net amount of emissions
worldwide.
Last year I didn't say very much about the science. In fact, when we
had the Lieberman-Warner bill up, I made the statement: Let's assume,
for debate of this bill, that the science is all there and that it is
settled. Then I pursued the economic argument. The other side didn't
like it because they wanted to debate the science. I said: Let's assume
you are right. You are not, but let's assume you are. This is something
that we could not afford, the cost. Sometimes we throw around big
figures. I often have said about the $700 billion bailout that I
opposed and that 75 Senators voted for, if you stopped and realized the
number of taxpayers or families who file a tax return and do the math,
this comes to $5,000 a family. If you look at this, this would be over
$2,000 a family every year. We want to be sure we are right if we do
something. Let's go forward. Let's look at it, but let's pay attention
more than anything else at this time not just to the economics but the
fact that without doubt, the science is shifting. This report, 650 of
the top scientists and growing every day, is conclusive in my mind that
many of those individuals who were on the other side of this issue are
now standing up to the intimidation and have become skeptics.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse). The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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