[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 44 (Thursday, March 12, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3057-S3061]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             GLOBAL WARMING

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, some things have happened recently 
regarding one of my favorite subjects, and that is global warming. Way 
back in the beginning of this issue--to give you a background, since 
the occupant of the chair wasn't here at that time--the Republicans 
were the majority, and I was chairman of the Environment and Public 
Works Committee. We were within inches of ratifying the Kyoto Treaty.
  Similar to everybody else, I assumed that manmade gases were causing 
global warming. Everybody said they did. The Wharton School of 
Economics came out with the Wharton Econometric Survey. They said it 
would cost--if we were to sign the Kyoto Treaty and live by the 
emissions requirements--between $300 billion and $330 billion a year. 
That was the range. That would be the result. It is something I looked 
at.
  We started looking at the science, only to find out there is a lot of 
intimidation in the scientific community and most of this was 
originally brought by the United Nations. I have been one of the 
critics of the U.N. and a lot of things they do and don't do. If you 
will recall, when this first started, it was the U.N. IPCC, 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that came up with the idea 
that manmade gases--CO2, methane--were the cause of the 
global warming.
  Now, since that has been proven not to be true, and we are now in a 
cooling spell, they are trying to change the term to ``climate 
change.'' We are not going to let them do that. It has always been 
``global warming.'' We looked at the science. We had bills coming up on 
the floor that would have addressed this. One was in 2005. At that 
time, I was kind of alone on the floor for 5 days, 10 hours a day, to 
try to explain why we could not impose the largest tax increase in 
history on the American people. So in looking at the cost of this 
thing, we started hearing

[[Page S3058]]

from a lot of scientists who had been intimidated but were now wanting 
to come out of the closet and tell the truth about their real feelings.
  The reason I wished to come here today is because there is a Gallup 
Poll that came out yesterday. I wish to share that with you and with 
this body. A record high of 41 percent of Americans now say global 
warming is exaggerated. This is the highest level of public skepticism 
about mainstream reporting in more than a decade, according to the 
March 11, 2009 Gallup Poll survey. I use that poll because Gallup and 
the Pew organization have never been sympathetic to my view. Yet their 
poll was announced.
  We should never underestimate the intelligence of the American 
people. Sadly, that is exactly what the promoters of manmade climate 
fears have consistently been doing. Keep in mind, the issue we are 
talking about is not whether there is global warming. We went through a 
period of global warming that ended 7 years ago. Now we clearly are in 
a cooling period. Prior to that, we have had several times--people 
forget, God is still up there. Throughout these written histories, we 
have had these cycles.
  The interesting thing about this poll that came out yesterday is 
looking at the percentage of people who worry a great deal about the 
environment, this is a total change from what we have seen before. It 
is now--what is it, No. 9? The last thing is global warming. These are 
environmental concerns: pollution of drinking water, water pollution, 
toxic contamination of soil and water, and very last is global warming. 
There was another poll just about a month ago by Pew Research, I 
believe it was, and that one shows the same thing. I say this because 
of some of my colleagues who think the American people are believing 
this stuff--manmade gases making global warming.
  This is January last month, and this is by the Pew Polling Group. 
This isn't just environmental issues; it says, ``Name your major 
concern.'' No. 1, economy; No. 2, jobs. Where is global warming? No. 
20, at the bottom, the very last one. That is something that has 
changed.
  Getting back to the poll, the previous Gallup Poll released on Earth 
Day 2008 showed the American public's concern about manmade global 
warming is unchanged from 1989. This is after all the media hype, all 
the media talking about how bad man is.
  By the way, I am going to pause here for a minute because in 2005 we 
debated a bill on this floor that would have--since we did not ratify 
the Kyoto treaty--said unilaterally what should we do in the United 
States because some people would like to believe this is a great 
problem. They said: Let's pass our own global warming bill in the 
United States. Think about that. If you are one who believes 
CO2 and anthropogenetic gases are causing global warming, if 
you really believe that in your heart, what good would it do to do it 
only in the United States? If you do that, all these jobs are going to 
go to countries such as China, Mexico, India--places where they don't 
have emission controls--and you would have a net increase in 
CO2 after we paid the tax and the punishment for it.
  After one of the most expensive climate change fear campaigns in our 
Nation's history, there is no change in global warming concerns by 
Americans in the past two decades. This skepticism persists despite the 
Nobel Peace Prize jointly shared by former Vice President Al Gore and 
the United Nations.
  By the way, I have to say I cannot think of one assertion that was 
made in the science fiction movie Al Gore put together that has not 
been refuted scientifically. I am talking about sea-level rises and all 
the rest of the things. Sure, it scared a lot of kids. A lot of kids 
had nightmares. Nobody now believes there is any science behind that 
particular movie.
  The skepticism persists despite a $300 million campaign to spread 
climate fears. Skepticism persists despite a daily drumbeat of scary 
scenarios promoted by the United Nations and the media of what could, 
might, or may happen 20, 30, 50, 100 years from now. In fact, global 
warming skepticism appears to have grown stronger as the shrillness of 
the climate fear campaign intensified.
  The latest Gallup Poll released on March 11 further reveals the 
American public has a growing skepticism. A record-high 41 percent now 
say it is exaggerated. This represents the highest public opinion since 
the whole issue began. These dramatic polling results are not 
unexpected as prominent scientists around the world continue to speak 
out publicly for the first time to dissent from the Al Gore-United 
Nations and media-driven manmade intimidation on climate fears.
  In addition, a steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses, 
real-world data, and developments have further refuted the claims of 
manmade global warming fear activists.
  Americans are finally catching on in large numbers that the U.N. IPCC 
is a political, not a scientific, organization. Interesting that when 
the U.N. IPCC comes out with their periodic reports, they never talk 
about the scientists. It is the politicians who are making the 
accusations or coming to the conclusions. So they have these briefs on 
the political analyses of these reports.
  If new peer-reviewed studies are to be believed, today's high school 
kids watching Gore's movie will be nearing the senior citizen group 
AARP's membership age by the time warming allegedly resumes in 30 
years. That is interesting because now they are talking about maybe it 
did not happen, maybe we were not in the middle of it in the middle 
nineties when they tried to get us to ratify the Kyoto treaty, but it 
is coming, maybe 30 years from now.
  Dr. John Brignell, a skeptical UK emeritus engineering professor at 
the University of South Hampton, wrote in 2008:

       The warmers--

  He calls them--

     are getting more and more like those traditional predictors 
     of the end of the world who, when the event fails to happen 
     on a due date, announce an error in their calculations and 
     [they come up with] a new date.

  That is what they are doing now.
  Furthermore, I always believed the more global warming information 
people have, the less concerned they will become. That is obvious. That 
poll 5 years ago would have had this way up there somewhere around No. 
3. Now it is No. 20. It just barely made the list.
  Confirming this unintended consequence is a study by the scientific 
journal Risk Analysis released in February of 2008 which found that 
Gore and the media's attempts to scare the public ``ironically may be 
having just the opposite effect.'' The study found that the more 
informed respondents ``show less concern for global warming.'' The 
study found that ``perhaps ironically, and certainly contrary to . . . 
the marketing of movies like the Ice Age and An Inconvient Truth, the 
effects of information on both concern for global warming and 
responsibility for it are exactly the opposite of what were expected. 
Directly, the more information a person has about global warming, the 
less responsible he or she feels for it; and indirectly, the more 
information a person has about global warming, the less concerned he or 
she is for it.''
  Again, this is not me, Jim Inhofe, U.S. Senator, talking. This is 
Professor John Brignell. Certainly you cannot question his credentials.
  Climate realism continues to be on the march.
  I now report to you on the skeptical Heartland Institute's 
International Conference on Climate Change in New York, which just 
finished 3 days ago. It is brand new. As the most outspoken critic of 
manmade global warming alarmism in the United States, I am pleased to 
see the world's largest ever gathering of global warming skeptics 
assembled in New York City just this week to confront the issue, 
``Global warming: Was it ever really a crisis?'' That was the title of 
the convention. All of these scientists from all over the world were 
taking part in it.
  A lot has changed over the last 6 years since I started speaking out 
against the likes of Al Gore, the United Nations, and the Hollywood 
elitists. Perhaps the most notable change is the number of scientists 
no longer willing to be silenced. How do you silence a scientist? You 
take away their grants, whether they be Government grants or they come 
from the Heinz Foundation or the Pew Foundation or others. If you don't 
agree with us, certainly you should be punished.
  I remember not too long ago on the Weather Channel--Heidi Cullen has

[[Page S3059]]

this weekly show. It is to promote the idea that man is responsible for 
global warming. She says: Any meteorologist who does not agree with me 
should be decertified. All of a sudden, everyone started yelling and 
screaming. The vast majority of meteorologists will agree with the 
comments I am making today.
  Certainly since Al Gore made his movie, hundreds of scientists have 
come out of the woodwork to refute the claims made by the alarmists.
  The gathering of roughly 800 scientists, economists, legislators, 
policy activists, and media representatives at the Second International 
Conference on Climate Change sponsored by the Heartland Institute 
provides clear evidence to the growing movements against alarmism--the 
world is coming to an end.

  I am happy that important voices are being heard in New York, 
including Vaclav Klaus, the President of the Czech Republic. I was in 
the Czech Republic not too long ago. He couldn't have been nicer and 
more complimentary of me. He said: What they are trying to do is to 
punish us economically in our country and your country on science that 
is strictly not there.
  In his remarks to the conference 3 days ago, Vaclav Klaus, President 
of the Czech Republic, said:

       Today's debate about global warming is essentially a debate 
     about freedom. The environmentalists would like to mastermind 
     each and every possible aspect of our lives.

  Climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology, MIT, one of the world's leading experts in dynamic 
meteorology, especially planetary waves, told the gathering in New York 
that momentum is with the skeptics, saying:

       We will win this debate, for we are right and they are 
     wrong.

  I have a chart. This was Richard Lindzen, who is the Alfred P. Sloan 
professor of atmospheric science at MIT. This was an op-ed piece in the 
Wall Street Journal. He says:

       A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to 
     assiduously ignore the fact that the Earth and its climate 
     are dynamics; they are always changing even without any 
     external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is 
     bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much 
     worse.

  I think he was talking about the amount of money former Vice 
President Al Gore made on this issue, but I am not going to get into 
that now.
  The point is, I am talking about credentials of scientists and them 
coming out with statements such as these, and they were not doing this 
just a few years ago.
  So this event that took place in New York City in the last few days 
is very significant. Others in attendance were William Gray, Colorado 
State University. He is one of the experts there who testified before 
the Environment and Public Works Committee one time before making this 
same type of statement.
  Stephen McIntyre, primary author of Climate Audit, a blog devoted to 
the analysis and discussion of data, he is a devastating critic of the 
temperature record of the past 1,000 years, particularly the work of 
Michael Mann, the creator of the infamous ``hockey stick'' graph. That 
graph is thoroughly discredited. There is no scientist who will stand 
behind that graph. What he attempted to show after this, there was a 
marked increase in temperatures. That was the blade on the hockey 
stick. What he forgot to put down--and nobody will disagree with this 
fact--is that in the timeframe from about 1200 to 1400, we had what 
they call the medieval warm period. Then we went into the little ice 
age.
  This medieval warm period is interesting. If anyone wants to take a 
trip up to Greenland and talk to them, go through their history books 
and look at what the prosperity was during this timeframe, that is when 
all the Vikings were up there. They were growing all this stuff. Then, 
of course, when the cycle reversed, it went into the little ice age. 
They all died or left. Actually, the economic activity was much better. 
That was also when they were growing grapes in the Scandinavian 
countries because it was warm enough to do that.
  This chart is significant because what they have done is looked at 
this and said the world is coming to an end. And in a minute I am going 
to talk about what all the pundits were saying in the middle seventies 
when they said another ice age is coming. But this has been going on 
throughout recorded history.
  Chemist Dr. Arthur Robinson, curator of a global warming petition 
signed by more than 32,000 American scientists, including more than 
10,000 with doctorate degrees--and they all are rejecting the alarmist 
assertion that global warming has put the Earth in a crisis and caused 
primarily by mankind.
  Dr. Willie Soon, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has 
also testified along the same line.
  Retired award-winning atmospheric scientist Dr. Roy Spencer, now with 
the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
  Here is a very small sampling of recent developments in the news.
  The New York Times: ``Prominent geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook warns 
we are in `decades-long cooling spell.' '' And I think everyone would 
agree with that.
  ``NASA warming scientist `suffering from a bad case of megalomania'--
former supervisors says.'' This was only yesterday in the Business and 
Media Institute. This is an excerpt of the report:

       John Theon, a retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, 
     said . . . at The Heartland Institute's 2009--

  What I have been talking about here--

       . . . that the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space 
     Studies, James Hansen, should be fired. Hansen is widely 
     known for his outspokenness on the issue of manmade global 
     warming. I have publicly said I thought Jim Hansen should be 
     fired, ``Theon said.'' But my opinion doesn't count much, 
     particularly when he is empowered by people such as the 
     current President of the United States. I am not sure what 
     we can do to have him get off of the public payroll and 
     continue with the campaign or crusade. I think the man is 
     sincere, but he is suffering from a bad case of 
     megalomania.

  Another article. ``NASA Warming Scientist Under Fire--From Former 
Supervisor--Jim Hansen should be fired.'' This is another one, although 
this time they make the observation that James Hansen, who is the most 
outspoken proponent that it is manmade gases, anthropogenic gases, and 
CO2 that is causing global warming, is the recipient of 
$250,000 from the Heinz Foundation. Obviously, that does have an impact 
on his position.
  This one is: ``U.S. Government Meteorologist Claims `Gross Blatant 
Censorship' for Speaking Out Against Climate Alarmism.'' This was March 
9, a few days ago, by Stanley Goldenberg, a meteorologist with the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's--that is NOAA--
Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory Hurricane Research 
Division. This is an excerpt of what this scientist said:

       The debate, as you also know, is masked by media 
     censorship, bias and distortion. I am interviewed quite a bit 
     on many, many levels and thankfully most of our interviews 
     are benign. They're trying to get out to the public.

  In his criticism, Goldenberg said:

       I've seen gross, gross blatant censorship. If you're here 
     from the media I'd be glad to argue with you from firsthand 
     experience. I challenge anybody from a mainstream media 
     source to take or print a positive report on this conference. 
     They won't get it past the editor.

  He is talking about, of course, the media bias, which we all know 
took place during this conference.
  This is an excerpt from the Boston Globe's paper yesterday:

       New figures being released today show the recession helped 
     drive down global warming emissions from the northeast power 
     plants last year to their lowest levels in at least 9 years. 
     The drop in emissions may be good for the environment, but 
     was not seen as reason for celebration. ``What does this say 
     about the state of the economy?'' said Robert Rio, senior 
     vice president of Associated Industries of Massachusetts. We 
     could get 100 percent below the cap if we shut every business 
     and moved them out of state.

  The NASA moonwalker and geologist Harrison Schmitt said climate 
change alarmists intentionally mislead. This again is yesterday's 
Business & Media Institute quoting him:

       Last month, Apollo 17 astronaut and moonwalker Harrison 
     Schmitt added his voice to the growing chorus of scientists 
     speaking out against the anthropogenic--man-made--global 
     warming theory. In strongly worded comments he said the 
     theory was a ``political tool.'' Now, in a speech at the 
     International Conference on Climate Change he outlined his 
     argument in great detail saying,

[[Page S3060]]

     ``the science of climate change and its causes is not 
     settled.'' . . . Several indisputable facts appear evident in 
     geological and climate science that makes me a true, quote, 
     denier, unquote, of human caused global warming. The 
     conclusion seems inescapable that nature produces the primary 
     influences on climate.

  I think this chart shows that it has been going on throughout 
recorded history.
  Another article: ``A Freezing Legacy For Our Children.'' This one is 
by James Marusek, nuclear physicist and engineer retired from the U.S. 
Department of the Navy. He said:

       There is a lot of talk these days about the legacy we will 
     leave our children and our grandchildren. When I stare into 
     the immediate future, I see a frightening legacy caked in 
     darkness and famine. Instead of intelligently preparing, we 
     find ourselves whittling away this precious time chasing 
     fraudulent theories. Climate change is primarily driven by 
     nature. It has been true in the days of my father and his 
     father and all those that came before us.

  Again, this guy is a nuclear physicist and engineer.
  This is from a new study titled ``The Evidence Is That The Ocean Is 
Cooling, Not Warming.'' This was 2 days ago. And it contains an excerpt 
titled ``Cooling of the Global Ocean Since 2003,'' by Craig Loehle, 
Ph.D., National Council for Air and Stream Improvement. He said:

       Ocean heat content data from 2003 to 2008--4\1/2\ years--
     were evaluated for trend. The result is consistent with other 
     data showing a lack of warming over the past few years.

  I think I am making a point here that no one is going to argue, and 
that is that now we are in a cooling period. It drives people nuts, 
those who try to make people think the world is coming to an end; that 
it is going to get too hot, and now they realize that is not the case.
  This is another statement made by another scientist, and this was 3 
days ago.

       Alaska River Ice now 60 percent thicker than it was 5 years 
     ago. Flashback: The Nenana Ice Classic is a pretty good proxy 
     for climate change in the 20th Century.

  In other words, it is increasing, not decreasing. Here is another 
scientist. This was reported 4 days ago in Investors Business Daily by 
atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer, Professor Emeritus of 
Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, who served as the 
founding director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service.

       We conclude therefore that the drive to reduce 
     CO2 emissions is not concern about climate. 
     Ultimately, ideology may be what's fueling the CO2 
     wars.

  So it goes on and on. Here is another: ``Left-wing Columnist 
Alexander Cockburn A Climate Skeptic--John Fund--March 11.'' And 
Alexander Cockburn, by the way, is normally on the other side. Here is 
that quote:

       My most memorable exchange was with Alexander Cockburn, the 
     left-wing columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the Nation 
     magazine. Mr. Cockburn has undergone blistering attacks since 
     he first dissented from the global warming ``consensus'' in 
     2007. ``I've felt like the object of a witch hunt,'' he says. 
     ``One former Sierra Club board member suggested I should be 
     criminally prosecuted.'' Mr. Cockburn was at the conference 
     collecting material for his forthcoming book ``A Short 
     History of Fear,'' in which he will explore the link between 
     fear mongering and climate catastrophe proponents. ``No one 
     on the left is comfortable talking about science,'' he told 
     me. ``They don't feel they can easily get their arms around 
     it, so they don't think about it much. As a result, they are 
     prone to any peddler of ideas that reinforce their 
     preexisting prejudices. One would be that there is a 
     population explosion that must be dealt with by slowing down 
     economies.'' I asked him how he felt hanging around with so 
     many people who have a more conservative viewpoint than he 
     does. ``It's been good fun and I've learned a lot,'' he told 
     me. ``I think what they are saying on this topic is looking 
     better and better.''

  And here is one of the guys who was a chief proponent of the fear 
mongers. We have to keep in mind there is a lot of money involved in 
making people afraid. I am old enough to remember back in the middle 
1970s, when we were going through at that time what was thought to be 
this devastating ice age; that we were all going to freeze to death. 
Here is Time magazine, and here they talk about another ice age is 
coming and they document their case. This is 1974, from Time magazine.
  Now, let's look at Time magazine a few years later. Here is Time 
magazine a couple of years ago and they have totally reversed 
themselves. No longer is it an ice age that is coming and we are all 
going to die; the headline now is ``Be Worried, Be Very Worried,'' and 
they have this polar bear standing on the last scoop of ice in the 
Arctic.
  By the way, there are 13 different populations of polar bears in 
Canada, and with the exception of the one on the western Hudson Bay 
area, they are all flourishing. They are doing very well. The 
population has quadrupled since the 1960s. So don't feel badly about 
the polar bear. They are doing fine.
  My point here is that these publications, I can assure you--and I 
have not checked this out, but that last one, in 1974, from Time 
magazine, I am sure that sold a lot of editions because everyone wanted 
to read the story as to how another ice age was coming and we were all 
going to die. We have checked on this. This was their biggest seller in 
that particular year. I don't see the date, but a couple of years ago, 
because they capitalize on this type of disaster.

  I suppose I will go ahead and conclude now. We had some new 
information, and apparently I didn't bring it down with me, but I would 
only say this. I am one of the chief critics of what has been happening 
economically in this country since last October. Last October, we voted 
on a $700 billion bailout for the banking industry. I was against that. 
I recognize that was both Republican and Democrat. It came out of a 
Republican White House and it was in concert with the Democrats. They 
all said: Let's scare everybody so we can have this $700 billion 
bailout. I voted against it, and some of my conservative friends voted 
for it.
  This was the largest authorization of money in the history of the 
world, and it was all taking place at that time in October--October 10 
is when we voted in the Senate, with 75 Senators voting for that. My 
problem with it was that it was put together by our then-Secretary of 
the Treasury, and we were giving him total authority over how to spend 
$700 billion--the largest amount of money ever talked about in one 
block in this country, or in the history of the world. So I opposed it.
  Now we find out that as soon as he got the money, he didn't spend it. 
He said he was going to buy distressed assets. He didn't spend it on 
that. He put money into the banks, and we haven't noticed a change in 
the credit since then. Now, of course, we have a new President and we 
have the budget and the omnibus bill that was voted on a few days ago--
$410 billion--and all these people are talking about earmarks and all 
that. But let's keep in mind that only 1 percent of that $410 billion 
was in anything like earmarks. I wish people were as concerned about 
the 99 percent as they are the 1 percent, but that is a huge amount of 
money.
  Now we have the President, with his budget coming forward, and this 
is going to produce huge deficits--in the trillions--and I have been 
critical of those. But as bad as all of that is, and talking about the 
huge amounts of money, what is worse is if we should be forced or 
pushed by the promoters of these global warming scares into passing a 
tax, what they call a cap-and-trade tax. In other words, this is a tax 
that would tax the American people. For all practical purposes, it 
would be a CO2 tax. They don't call it that. They disguise 
it by calling it a cap and trade. But nonetheless, the analysis of that 
is that it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 billion to 
$330 billion a year.
  The reason I bring that up is that if we are pushed into passing some 
kind of a global warming or a cap-and-trade tax of $300 billion to $330 
billion, they will masquerade it and act as if it isn't that much, but 
we know it is. We have sources--MIT and several other sources--and 
economic analysis that has taken place that says if that should happen, 
it will be something that occurs every year. At least these large 
amounts of money in the stimulus bills and in the bailout bills are 
one-shot deals, theoretically. But the other would be a tax increase on 
the American people.
  I do have a dog in this fight. I do have a selfish concern. My wife 
and I have 20 kids and grandkids. My life is not going to change by 
anything that is passed in terms of a tax increase, but it does affect 
the next generations, and I think we are going to have to get to the 
point we are looking at not what is it today but down the road how are 
we going to pay for it.

[[Page S3061]]

  To go back to the original $700 billion bailout, if you do the math, 
there are 140 million taxpaying families in the country. Divide that by 
$700 billion and that is $5,000 a family. We are talking huge amounts. 
And should we pass this global warming tax increase that would be 
comparable to over $300 billion, it would mean $3,000 a family. And 
that is every year.
  I think we need to overcome the problem that we have in following the 
media off this plank and look at the science and let the science tell 
us what to do. If we do that, we will find with everything I have 
talked about over the last 35 minutes is in fact true.
  Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Stabenow). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________