[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 22656-22657]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                   CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL WARMING

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to speak for a couple of 
moments on an issue that I know is important to many of us and has been 
addressed by both myself and the chairman of the Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee who has now joined us on the floor, Senator Frank 
Murkowski of Alaska.
  Last night, the Vice President stated his belief that global warming 
is caused by fossil fuel use. The Senator from Alaska and I have both 
introduced legislation to deal with the question of climate change and 
global warming. We have looked at this issue extensively over the last 
several years, and through the eyes of the committee by a resolution, 
expressed on the floor of the Senate, as it related to the Kyoto 
Protocol.
  With all of that, the Vice President said one thing last night. 
Governor Bush said he was not certain that climate change was a direct 
result of fossil fuel use. In fact, he said, science would govern 
environmental decisionmaking in his administration, and he did not 
believe that science had yet fully resolved that fossil fuel use and 
the creation of greenhouse gases was, in fact, creating climate change.
  I happen to agree with the Vice President. I say that because the 
scientists we have had before us may generally agree that our globe is 
gaining some heat, with some temperature change, but they do not yet 
agree that fossil fuel usage and the aftereffects, the greenhouse 
gases, are in fact the sole cause or are they causing climate change?
  Which opinion is more supported by the scientists themselves? On 
Monday, the Washington Post reported, in unusual detail, a new theory 
of global warming that is being advanced by scientists from Denmark to 
UCLA. It goes like this:
  First of all, they say, charged particles from space, better known as 
cosmic rays, cause cloud formation by changing atmospheric molecules 
with neutral charges into charged ions. The charged ions cluster, 
forming dense, low clouds.
  Now, this may sound like a scientific lecture, but this was the kind 
of detail that the Washington Post was giving in this article.
  They said, secondly, the Sun's magnetic field deflects much of the 
cosmic rays away from the Earth, reducing their ability to trigger 
cloud formation.
  With less cloud cover to shade the Earth, the Earth gets warmer.
  That seems like pretty reasonable logic, doesn't it?
  It turns out that satellite data over the last 20 years reveal an 
uncanny correlation between changes in the Sun's magnetic field and 
cloud cover. Meanwhile, Greenland ice-cores show that cosmic rays have 
declined over the past century.
  James Hensen of NASA, once a leading proponent of the human cause 
theory that the Vice President embraces to the exclusion of all others, 
now acknowledges in the Post that the Sun has probably been a 
significant contributor in past climate change. But Hensen would still 
like to see some convincing evidence. Hensen, by the way, has also 
published recent work suggesting that methane gases, many of which are 
emitted naturally, may be as large a contributor to climate change as 
CO2.
  How can we find out what is right? Here is what the Post reports:
  A consortium of more than fifty scientists have petitioned CERN, the 
European particle physics facility in Geneva, to conduct an experiment 
that could help settle this theory, this argument, this general issue, 
as reported by the Washington Post.

       The researchers want to use one of CERN's particle beams as 
     a source of artificial cosmic rays that would strike a 
     ``cloud chamber'' containing the equivalent of air in the 
     lower atmosphere. If there is a clear link between cosmic 
     rays and cloud formation, the experiment should reveal it.

  The scientists proposing the experiment say:

       If this link is confirmed, the consequent global warming 
     could be comparable to that presently attributed to 
     greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels.

  In other words, what the scientists are saying is, if this theory and 
this test were proven accurate, then cosmic rays and their influence in 
the atmosphere and the formation of clouds could have equal or greater 
influence over the Earth's atmosphere and climate change or global 
warming.
  How can we in the Senate use this information? If this experiment 
indicates that changes in solar magnetic fields account for all of the 
detected warming, then burning fossil fuel might account for none of 
it. Interrupting our economic growth by arbitrarily curtailing energy 
use either by taxing it or regulating it could be a far costlier 
experiment than the one these scientists have proposed at CERN. And 
because the human cause/effect is so weak and so few countries are 
likely to join our self-destructive experiment, useful scientific 
results may never materialize.
  Let's do the real science, and do it now. In other words, I believe 
Gov. George Bush was right last night when he said, I believe there is 
a field of science we ought to understand and err on before we send 
this country down the road. He said his administration would make 
decisions on climate change based on science, not the politics or the 
popularity of the politics of the day.
  Let's make science drive the issue. Science has to drive public 
policy in this area, not vice versa. We dare not let public policy 
drive science.
  Meanwhile, let us hold off on dangerous experiments such as Kyoto 
that place our economy at risk in an attempt to prove one man right in 
the face of so much doubt. Truly, the kind of taxation the Vice 
President proposes and proposed but wouldn't own up to last night could 
certainly turn our economy into a recession and disadvantage our 
producers against other producers around the world.
  In other words, what the Washington Post reported in great detail in 
an article well over a half a page long, on

[[Page 22657]]

Monday, was exactly what Governor Bush was saying last night.
  Mr. Vice President, the jury is still out. And the jury is scientists 
all over the world who have not yet confirmed, nor do they agree, that 
fossil fuels are the sole cause of a climate growing warmer.
  Let's err on the side of science and not politics as we make these 
decisions.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I share the concern expressed by my 
good friend from the State of Idaho with regard to the issue of global 
warming. Much of the rhetoric that has been used is not based on sound 
science. The reality that we have the technology, if given an 
opportunity to apply that technology, particularly in the developing 
Third World nations, results in a meaningful decrease of the 
concentrations of pollutants that we are all concerned about in 
association with clean air.
  I commend my friend from Idaho for bringing this matter, again, to 
the attention of this body with the recognition that, indeed, through 
science and technology, we can make a significant difference in 
reducing overall the emissions, particularly from the emerging nations.

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