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Don't Jump Off Cliff For Climate Change
December 8, 2009
Contact: www.politico.com
As we have seen in the past month, the science of global warming is far from settled. In fact, considering the recent e-mails that surfaced from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, it is clear that there has been a well-crafted plot among prominent global warming zealots to tamper with evidence, silence scientific opposition and stifle debate.
We have been told that there is a consensus among scientists as to the cause of the warming our planet has seen over the past 50 years. Consensus is for politicians. Scientists are supposed to seek truth. Unfortunately, it is clear from the CRU e-mails that the entire enterprise concerning climate change over the past 20 years has been political, not scientific. Since the CRU’s science has been widely used by the United Nations and the U.S. government to support their positions in favor of a response to human-caused global warming, we must question our policy conclusions.
In spite of all this, on Dec. 18, 2009, President Barack Obama will attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and will very likely sign an international agreement to commit our nation to binding carbon dioxide emission targets — which will undoubtedly lead our economy to shrink, unemployment to rise and incomes for average Americans to fall, thanks to increased prices for basic goods and services.
Of course, European leaders and radical environmentalists will applaud the president’s willingness to turn over the management of future emissions to an international body with the authority to assess costs on each nation for payment of its “climate debt.” We will be relinquishing our sovereignty to an international body and will join other developed nations in jumping off the economic cliff.
A president who takes months to decide to agree with his military commanders in Afghanistan ought to take at least as long to ask his scientific advisers to review the recent disclosures of the largest scientific fraud in history before he consigns our sovereignty to the United Nations.
Nor can we ignore the new science being presented every day. This past November, BBC News Online reported on a new study of Himalayan glaciers. Contrary to popular belief and what some global warming zealots have been telling us for years, the Himalayan glaciers are not melting across the board and are unlikely to completely disappear by the end of the 21st century. In fact, new scientific evidence from satellites and ground measurements show that some of the glaciers are actually advancing.
We have been told that there is a consensus among scientists as to the cause of the warming our planet has seen over the past 50 years. Consensus is for politicians. Scientists are supposed to seek truth. Unfortunately, it is clear from the CRU e-mails that the entire enterprise concerning climate change over the past 20 years has been political, not scientific. Since the CRU’s science has been widely used by the United Nations and the U.S. government to support their positions in favor of a response to human-caused global warming, we must question our policy conclusions.
In spite of all this, on Dec. 18, 2009, President Barack Obama will attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and will very likely sign an international agreement to commit our nation to binding carbon dioxide emission targets — which will undoubtedly lead our economy to shrink, unemployment to rise and incomes for average Americans to fall, thanks to increased prices for basic goods and services.
Of course, European leaders and radical environmentalists will applaud the president’s willingness to turn over the management of future emissions to an international body with the authority to assess costs on each nation for payment of its “climate debt.” We will be relinquishing our sovereignty to an international body and will join other developed nations in jumping off the economic cliff.
A president who takes months to decide to agree with his military commanders in Afghanistan ought to take at least as long to ask his scientific advisers to review the recent disclosures of the largest scientific fraud in history before he consigns our sovereignty to the United Nations.
Nor can we ignore the new science being presented every day. This past November, BBC News Online reported on a new study of Himalayan glaciers. Contrary to popular belief and what some global warming zealots have been telling us for years, the Himalayan glaciers are not melting across the board and are unlikely to completely disappear by the end of the 21st century. In fact, new scientific evidence from satellites and ground measurements show that some of the glaciers are actually advancing.
In addition, for the second time this year, the Australian Senate voted against Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s plan to impose binding carbon emission targets on Australia’s economy. The Liberal Party in the Senate was so opposed to the prime minister’s plan that it ousted its own leader for supporting it. The party’s new leader, Tony Abbot, who quite likely will stand for election against Rudd if a snap election is called, has said that the emissions plan is nothing more than a tax on Australians with little hope of affecting the climate. Abbot supports greater scientific and economic study of the issue.
That is exactly what Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe and the other Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee asked for in November when Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) forced her highly partisan cap-and-tax plan through the committee without a single Republican vote.
In light of all the evidence that the science underpinning the theory of global warming is bogus, submitting to binding targets at Copenhagen will ultimately be seen for what it is: an agreement for an international tax and global governance, not science. I beg Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress to look at the facts before committing the United States to binding emission targets that are figments of radical imaginations and would have no measurable impact even if they could be met.
New evidence of our planet’s dynamic climate system is being discovered every day by scientists around the world who are brave enough to stand up and continue exploring this world for facts and knowledge. The least we can do, as responsible policymakers, is to learn from their hard work and make sensible decisions based on complete and accurate evidence.
Rep. John Linder (R-Ga.) is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee.
In light of all the evidence that the science underpinning the theory of global warming is bogus, submitting to binding targets at Copenhagen will ultimately be seen for what it is: an agreement for an international tax and global governance, not science. I beg Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress to look at the facts before committing the United States to binding emission targets that are figments of radical imaginations and would have no measurable impact even if they could be met.
New evidence of our planet’s dynamic climate system is being discovered every day by scientists around the world who are brave enough to stand up and continue exploring this world for facts and knowledge. The least we can do, as responsible policymakers, is to learn from their hard work and make sensible decisions based on complete and accurate evidence.
Rep. John Linder (R-Ga.) is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee.
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