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John McCain's 'Global Warming' Hearings Blasted by Climatologist
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
November 19, 2004
Washington (CNSNews.com) - Recent U.S. Senate hearings into alleged
global warming, chaired by Arizona Republican John McCain, were among the
"most biased" that a noted climatologist has ever seen -
"much less balanced than anything I saw in the Clinton
administration," he said.
Patrick J. Michaels is the author of a new book "Meltdown: The
Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and
the Media." He is an environmental sciences professor at the University
of Virginia who believes that
claims of human-caused "global warming" are scientifically
unfounded.
Michaels spoke with CNSNews.com Thursday following a panel
discussion sponsored by the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington,
D.C., where Michaels also serves as a
senior fellow in environmental studies.
"John McCain, a Republican, has probably held the most biased hearing
of all," Michaels said. McCain is a big proponent of limiting
greenhouse gas emissions, which he believes are causing "global
warming." The Arizona
senator also "is trying to define himself as an environmental
Republican, which he is going to use to differentiate himself from his
rivals for the (presidential) nomination in 2008," according to Michaels.
Earlier this week, McCain, the outgoing chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation
Committee, said the Bush administration's views about human-caused
climate change were "terribly disappointing."
McCain also held a Senate hearing on Tuesday to enlist testimony on the
recently released report from an international commission called the Arctic Climate Impact
Assessment (ACIA), which warned about rising temperatures in the North
Pole.
Citing a visit he had to the Arctic with several U.S.
senators last summer, McCain made it clear that he believed human-caused
"global warming" was a certainty.
"It was remarkable going up on a small ship next to this glacier and
seeing where it had been just 10 short years ago and how quickly it's
receded," McCain told the New York Times on Monday.
McCain also warned about what he saw as the rapid pace of Arctic warming,
evidenced by the arrival of wildlife that had never previously been seen in
the region. "The Inuit language for 10,000 years never had a word for
robin and now there are robins all over their villages," he told the
Times.
Michaels refuted McCain's assertions about the North Pole, noting that the Arctic
has actually been warmer in the past than it is now.
"It was warmer 4 to 7,000 years ago [in the Arctic.]
Every climatologist knows that. I saw no mention of that in the Arctic
report that was paraded in front of McCain," Michaels said. He added
that the past warming of the Arctic couldn't
possibly be blamed on greenhouse gas emissions since it occurred long
before the industrial era.
'Temperature has always changed'
Other participants in Thursday's panel discussion also disputed McCain's
statements. Harvard Astrophysicist Sallie Baliunas
agreed that using the polar ice caps to promote "global warming"
did not make sense.
"Antarctica has been cooling for the last 50
years. Most of the Arctic has not warmed over long
time scales," Baliunas told CNSNews.com.
Baliunas also serves as the enviro-science
editor for Tech Central Station.
"Temperatures [have] always changed in the past and [they] always
will. It can either go up or it goes down. We don't have enough
understanding of natural variability and we don't see enormous amounts of
temperature change to be alarmed about," Baliunas
explained.
She also blasted the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty to limit
greenhouse gases which the U.S.
does not support. "The Kyoto
(Protocol) does not work, no matter what you think of it because Kyoto
won't do anything meaningful."
McCain's claims about a robin population explosion in the Arctic
were refuted as well.
Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive
Enterprise Institute (CEI), said "Even if it's true that robins are
making their first appearance in Arctic areas, what it means is that the
robin's habitat is expanding."
"I always thought environmentalists liked birds. To me this is good
news," Lewis added.
'Playing the media'
Michaels lamented that the media are allowing certain government-funded
scientists to manipulate science for funding advantages. "Scientists
are playing the media because they know the media will publish a story that
the world is about to end," he said.
"What has happened to the editing process? What has happened to fact
checking," he wondered.
Baliunas noted that the media like to imply that
the overwhelming majority of scientists believe in dire "global
warming" scenarios. In fact, she said, "The scientific literature
is full of skepticism. The only problem is -- one doesn't get the call from
the newspapers and those [skeptical] quotes don't get included."
Lewis of the CEI added, "The embrace of government and government
funding corrupts whatever it touches and that is certainly the case of the
scientific process."
See Related Articles:
Environmentalists Blame East Coast Hurricane on 'Global
Warming' (Sept. 18, 2003)
'Bring It on,' Climatologist Says of Global Warming
Litigation (July 21, 2003)
'Alarmist' Global Warming Claims Unfounded Says
Climatologist (July 14, 2003)
E-mail a news tip to Marc Morano.
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