http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html#printMode
The Climate Change Climate Change
The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him
on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration
proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change
legislation.
If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of
the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares
to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing
to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing
number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again
doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
[POTOMAC WATCH] Associated Press
Steve Fielding
Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic
majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system
through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting.
It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the
media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who
disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the
scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and
even, if less reported, the U.S.
In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document
challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where
President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of
the population believes humans play a role. In France, President
Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new
ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was
among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the
geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new
government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-
and-trade program.
The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen.
Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the
U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate
summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to
receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement
last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her
nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical
chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made
warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar
Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new
religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will
Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position
that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have
refused to run the physicists' open letter.)
The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The
inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined
since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed
research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps,
hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial
crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would
require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr.
Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he
published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence"
underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth
printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian
columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly
pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy,
including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and
beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a
sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning
scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.
The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected
like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting
his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to
delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to
get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so
easily swayed.
Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the
renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S.,
attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate
skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special
assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama
team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't.
This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for
the bill. He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green
science." The bill is set to founder as the Australian parliament
breaks for the winter.
Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the
cost arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in light
of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through
her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about
the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any
indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on
the science. One thing for sure: They won't be alone.
Write to [email protected]
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Much of the detail quoted in the article comes from a 250 page report
posted by the senate minority...
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=83947f5d-d84a-4a84-ad5d-6e2d71db52d9
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