[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 20361-20362]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             GLOBAL WARMING

  Mr. INHOFE. This past Monday, I took to this floor for the eighth 
time to discuss global warming. My speech focused on the myths 
surrounding global warming and how our national news media has 
embarrassed itself with a l00-year documented legacy of coverage on 
what turned out to be trendy climate science theories.
  Over the last century, the media has flip-flopped between global 
cooling and warming scares. At the turn of the 20th century, the media 
peddled an upcoming ice age--and they said the world was coming to an 
end. Then in the 1930s, the alarm was raised about disaster from global 
warming--and they said the world was coming to an end. Then in the 
1970s an alarm for another ice age was raised--and they said the world 
was coming to an end. And now, today, we are back to fears of 
catastrophic global warming--and again they are saying the world is 
coming to an end.
  Today I would like to share the fascinating events that have unfolded 
since my floor speech on Monday.
  This morning, CNN ran a segment criticizing my speech on global 
warming and attempted to refute the scientific evidence I presented to 
counter climate fears.
  First off, CNN reporter Miles O'Brien inaccurately claimed I was 
``too busy'' to appear on his program this week to discuss my 50-minute 
floor speech on global warming. But they were told I simply was not 
available on Tuesday or Wednesday.
  I did appear on another CNN program today--Thursday--which I hope 
everyone will watch. The segment airs tonight on CNN's Headline News at 
7 p.m. and repeats at 9 p.m. and midnight eastern.
  Second, CNN's O'Brien falsely claimed that I was all ``alone on 
Capitol Hill'' when it comes to questioning global warming.
  Mr. O'Brien is obviously not aware that the U.S. Senate has 
overwhelmingly rejected Kyoto-style carbon caps when it voted down the 
McCain-Lieberman climate bill 60 to 28 last year--an even larger margin 
than its rejection in 2003.
  Third, CNN's O'Brien, claimed that my speech earlier contained errors 
regarding climate science. O'Brien said my claim that the Antarctic was 
actually cooling and gaining ice was incorrect. But both the journals 
Science and Nature have published studies recently finding--on 
balance--Antarctica is both cooling and gaining ice.
  CNN's O'Brien also criticized me for saying polar bears are thriving 
in the

[[Page 20362]]

Arctic. But he ignored that the person I was quoting is intimately 
familiar with the health of polar bear populations. Let me repeat what 
biologist Dr. Mitchell Taylor from the Arctic Government of Nunavut, a 
territory of Canada, said recently: ``Of the 13 populations of polar 
bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not 
going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present.''
  CNN's O'Brien also ignores the fact that in the Arctic, temperatures 
were warmer in the 1930s than today.
  O'Brien also claimed that the ``Hockey Stick'' temperature graph was 
supported by most climate scientists despite the fact that the National 
Academy of Sciences and many independent experts have made it clear 
that the Hockey Stick's claim that the 1990s was the hottest decade of 
the last 100 years was unsupportable.
  So it seems my speech struck a nerve with the mainstream media. Their 
only response was to cherry-pick the science in a failed attempt to 
refute me.
  It seems that it is business as usual for many of them. Sadly, it 
looks like my challenge to the media to be objective and balanced has 
fallen on deaf ears.
  Despite the traditional media's failed attempt to dismiss the science 
I presented to counter global warming alarmism, the American people 
bypassed the tired old traditional media by watching CSPAN or clicking 
on the Drudge Report and reading the speech online.
  From the flood of overwhelming positive feedback I received, I can 
tell you the American people responded enthusiastically to my message.
  The central theme was not only one of thanks, but expressing 
frustration with the major media outlets because they knew in their 
guts that what they have been hearing in the news was false and 
misleading.
  Here is a brief sampling:
  Janet of Saugus, MA: ``Thank you Senator Inhofe. Finally someone with 
the guts to stand up and call it what it is--a sham. I think you have 
taken over Toby Keith's place as my favorite Oklahoman.''
  Al of Clinton, CT: ``It's about time someone with a loud microphone 
spoke up on the global warming scam. You have courage--if only this 
message could get into the schools where kids are being brow-beaten 
with the fear message almost daily.''
  Kevin of Jacksonville, FL, writes: ``I'm so glad that we have leaders 
like you who are willing to stand up against the onslaught of liberal 
media, Hollywood and the foolish elected officials on this topic. 
Please keep up the fight.''
  Steven of Phoenix, AZ, writes: ``As a scientist, I am extremely 
pleased to see that there is at least one Member of Congress who 
recognizes the global warming hysteria for what it is. I am extremely 
impressed by the Senator's summary and wish he was running for 
President.''
  Craig of Grand Rapids, MI, writes: ``As a meteorologist, I strongly 
agree with everything you said.''
  My speech ignited an Internet firestorm; so much so, that my speech 
became the subject of a heated media controversy in New Zealand. 
Halfway across the globe, a top official from the New Zealand Climate 
Science Coalition challenging New Zealand's television station to 
balance what he termed ``alarmist doomcasting'' and criticized them for 
failing to report the views of scientists in their own country that I 
cited here in America.
  As the controversy in New Zealand shows, global warming hysteria has 
captured more than just the American media.
  I do have to give credit to one publication here in America, 
Congressional Quarterly, or CQ for short. On Tuesday, CQ's Toni Johnson 
took the issues I raised seriously and followed up with phone calls to 
scientist-turned global warming pop star James Hansen's office. CQ 
wanted to ask Hansen about his partisan financial ties to the leftwing 
Heinz Foundation, whose money originated from the Heinz family ketchup 
fortune. But he was unavailable to respond to their questions, which is 
highly unusual for a man who finds his way into the media on an almost 
daily basis. Mr. Hansen is always available when he is peddling his 
increasingly dire predictions of climate doom.
  The reaction to my speech keeps coming in: Just this morning, the 
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper wrote an editorial calling my 
speech ``an unusual display of reason'' on the Senate floor.
  I have been engaged in this debate for several years and believe 
there is a growing backlash of Americans rejecting what they see as 
climate scare tactics. And as a result, global warming alarmists are 
becoming increasingly desperate.
  Perhaps that explains why the very next day after I spoke on the 
floor, ABC News's Bill Blakemore on ``Good Morning America'' 
prominently featured James Hansen touting future scary climate 
scenarios that could, might, possibly happen.
  The segment used all the well-worn tactics from the alarmist 
guidebook--warning of heat waves, wildfires, droughts, melting 
glaciers, mass extinctions unless mankind put itself on a starvation 
energy diet and taxed emissions.
  But that is no surprise--Blakemore was already on the record that 
there was no scientific debate about manmade catastrophic global 
warming.
  You have to be a pretty poor investigator to believe that. Why would 
60 prominent scientists this last spring have written Canadian Prime 
Minister Harper that ``if, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know 
today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we 
would have concluded it was not necessary.''
  I believe it is these kinds of stories which explain why the American 
public is growing increasingly skeptical of the hype. Despite the 
enormous 2006 media campaign to instill fear into the public, the 
number of people who believe that weather naturally changes is 
increasing.
  A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll in August found that most 
Americans do not attribute the cause of recent severe weather events to 
global warming, and the portion of Americans who believe that climate 
change is due to natural variability has increased over 50 percent in 
the last 5 years. And that, my fellow Senators, is why the Hollywood 
elitists and the rest of the liberal climate alarmists are starting to 
panic.
  I hope my other colleagues will join me on the floor and start 
speaking out to debunk hysteria surrounding global warming. This issue 
is too important to our generation and future generations to allow 
distortions and media propaganda to derail the economic health of our 
Nation.

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