Global Warming Alarmists are Feeling the Heat

Should Republicans be paying More Attention to Their Candidates Positions on Global Warming?

In recent days and weeks, the climate change alarmists, the doomsayers and far left environmentalists have suffered a number of setbacks to their predictions of dire consequences from global warming. These groups have consistently attempted to influence climate legislation, the US government and the public at large, suggesting that our planet is under extreme stress and is rapidly warming from the use of fossil fuels. Until recently, most Americans were buying this nonsense, but some recent events may help to change public opinion and re-focus the debate to a more reasonable analysis of what’s really happening.

For those who may not follow this subject too closely, let me review some of the past events that have recently come to light:

In a June 20, 2011 decision, the Supreme Court ruled against the state of Connecticut and some other litigants that the existence of the EPA’s regulatory authority over greenhouse-gas regulations pre-empted lawsuits against coal-burning utilities on the grounds that the emissions constitute a public nuisance. This was a very significant ruling, as it reversed the Supreme Court’s bias which had previously been favorable to environmentalist’s contention that global warming was a serious worldwide problem. This ruling showed a more balanced Supreme Court view as expressed by ultra-liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s comment that “The Court, we caution, endorses no particular view of the complicated issues related to carbon dioxide emissions and climate change.” This is a big change from previous rulings.

In a major scandal, the University of Colorado’s Sea Level Research Group decided in May 2011 to add 0.3 millimeters -- or about the thickness of a fingernail -- every year to its actual measurements of sea levels, sparking criticism from experts who called it an attempt to exaggerate the effects of global warming. "Gatekeepers of our sea level data are manufacturing a fictitious sea level rise that is not occurring," said James M. Taylor, a lawyer who focuses on environmental issues for the Heartland Institute. Taylor further stated that "We’ve seen only 7 inches of sea level rise in the past century and it hasn’t sped up this century. Compared to that (rise), this would add nearly 20 percent to the sea level rise. That's not insignificant.”

On July 15, 2011, Sky News published a story entitled “Scientists predict sunspot hibernation”. The gist of that article was that according to three studies released in the United States, experts believe the familiar sunspot cycle may be shutting down and heading toward a pattern of inactivity unseen since the 17th century. Why is this important? Because this could mean that the Earth – far from facing a global warming problem – is actually headed into a mini Ice Age. Early records of sunspots indicate that the Sun went through a similar period of inactivity in the late 17th century, often referred to as the Maunder Minimum. This period of solar inactivity also corresponds to a climatic period called the "Little Ice Age" when rivers that were normally ice-free froze and snow fields remained year-round at lower altitudes. This is hardly a scenario for a century of Global Warming.

Just this past week there was a release by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) called the Special Report on Renewable Energy. The report claims that the world could get 80% of its energy from renewable sources by 2050 if it just had the right policies and was willing to pay the right amount of money. It turns out that this report’s leading author was a Greenpeace staff member with an engineering background. Greenpeace is a far left radical environmental group bent on eliminating fossil fuels as quickly as possible. This was another example of left wing bias from the IPCC and a good reason why this organization has been discredited in many quarters as a non reliable source for climate related information.

Add to these recent events the gross falsification of data by the scientists at East Anglia University in 2009, and it’s easier to come to the conclusion that the “settled science” of global warming is not settled at all. This event was referred to as Climategate and it represented one of the very low points for the scientific community in general. Here we had a small group of scientists who have been more influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming than any others, not least through the role they play at the heart of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Should Republican Voters be Concerned About Presidential candidates Views on Global Warming?

Yes. A number of Republican presidential candidates have admitted that they are in agreement with the Al Gore view of global warming, which is that the warming trend of the last 30 years results from man-made (anthropogenic) activities. This is often referred to in the literature as anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and is now under severe criticism from many scientific sources.

Let’s review the positions of some of these Republican candidates for president:

• Mitt Romney recently stated in New Hampshire that “I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that…”. From his recent book, Mitt Romney is quoted as stating that “Climate change is occurring” and “Global Warming is a real and present danger.”
• Jon Huntsman said recently “This is an issue that ought to be answered by the scientific community; I’m not a meteorologist. All I know is 90 percent of the scientists say climate change is occurring”. (Really? 90%? I’m not a meteorologist?).
• Huntsman, as governor, signed on in 2007 to a program among Western states and Canadian provinces called the Western Climate Initiative aimed at cutting regional greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent by 2020. The initiative’s policies include a regional cap-and-trade system that was supposed to launch in 2012 but has withered, although California is still moving ahead with its emissions-trading plan that’s slated to begin next year. 
• Newt Gingrich has accepted the notion of AGW and has gone so far as to make a commercial with Nancy Pelosi to publicize the “dangers” of global warming.  
• Tim Pawlenty was a big supporter of environmental legislation and Cap and Trade policies while he was governor of Minnesota.

This subject is no longer the major issue that it once was, primarily because many facts have come to light about the unreliability of so much of the “science” that surrounds this question. However, it is important for Republican voters to take into account the views on climate change that are held by prospective Republican presidential candidates. If one of these candidates is elected, he or she will be instrumental in determining if the United States signs on to any more onerous United Nations treaties or starts pushing for more environmental legislation.

We need a conservative Republican candidate for president that will not cave in to the environmental organizations that want to kill jobs and raise the energy costs for all Americans. We need a Republican candidate who believes in the free market system and will not permit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to destroy American business and American consumers by maintaining its ridiculous policies of increasing costs and imposing unreasonable greenhouse gas regulations on energy companies.

It’s important for Republican voters to seriously question all of the Republican candidates about their position on Climate Change and Global Warming. It will be important to know just what these candidates will direct the EPA to do regarding greenhouse gas regulations. Which of these candidates believe the ridiculous assertion from the EPA that CO2 is a toxic gas? (This is the same gas that humans exhale with every breath and which is absorbed by plants to renew the oxygen content of the atmosphere).

Texas, under Rick Perry, became the first state to challenge the EPA’s finding that gases blamed for global warming threaten public health. Rick Perry appears to be one of the few courageous Republicans who do not buy into this nonsense and the global warming hoax. That’s one reason I continue to support Rick Perry as the best Republican in the nation to be the next president, and once again, I encourage him to announce his candidacy.