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Global warming is a myth?! Some state lawmakers think so
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| James Taylor from the Heartland Institute and Lord Monckton of Frontiers of Freedom, denying that humans play a role in global warming before a joint Ag and Natural Resources committee hearing in Frankfort |
Wednesday, a group of KFTC staff and members headed up to Frankfort to attend a presentation on the “myth” of global warming at a hearing of the Interim Joint Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources. The day began with a press conference where KFTC Chairperson Doug Doerrfeld presented KFTC's position on global warming: namely, that the debate on global warming is over and that our leadership in Kentucky should be in question if they believe it to be a myth. Carl Shoupe was also on hand to read a statement by James Hansen, a climatologist at NASA.
The presentation entitled, “Apocalypse? No! The scientific, economic, and geopolitical reasons why global warming is not a global crisis” was given by Viscount Christopher Monckton who was a policy advisor for Margaret Thatcher and member of the Science and Public Policy Institute, an arm of Frontiers of Freedom, a right-wing think tank funded in-part by Exxon-Mobile. He was joined by James Taylor, a representative of the Heartland Institute in Chicago, another think tank that has been heavily funded by Exxon-Mobil. Their presentations ranged from absurd to comical all the way to offensive. Viscount Monckton, for instance, claimed that attempting to decrease carbon emissions would lead to condemning "tens of millions of poor people [...] to death." Even more stunning than inviting two non-scientists to present members of the Kentucky legislature with information about the “myth” of global warming was the fact that Chairman Jim Gooch did not think it was necessary to invite credible climate scientists to participate in the discussion.
Related Links:
- Read KFTC's packet of information created for legislators and the media, including statements by our KFTC chairperson, NASA's James Hansen, and background information on the speakers at the hearing.
- Watch the hearing online on KET's website. The presentation starts at around 9 minutes.
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Lexington Herald-Leader editorial: "Shilling for Coal"
- Associated Press: "Skeptics of global warming address legislative committee"
- Lexington Herald-Leader: "Legislators hear global warming disputed"
- The Courier-Journal: "Global warming skeptics assail Gore in talk to legislators"
- WHAS-TV: "Lawmakers discuss global warming"
From, the Lexington Herald-Leader:
"It really wasn't my intention to get into so much science today," Gooch replied.
Before the hearing, Gooch said he called the Heartland Institute once he decided to address global warming and asked for any skeptical experts it might send. Scientists weren't necessary, he said.
"Well, I mean, where are we going to get scientists?" Gooch asked. "We're limited here in Kentucky to what we can do. I don't know how we'd necessarily get scientists to come here."
Some senators and representatives responded with various degrees of shock and dismay that Gooch would not allow for a debate, while others praised Monckton and Taylor for their ability to rise above the political correct opinion that global warming is real.
Wait, what? Doug set the record straight. Global warming IS real! KFTC holds very strongly to the opinion that the time for debating global warming is decidedly over, and that leadership in Kentucky need to recognize this fact. It is an embarrassment and offense to the people of the Commonwealth to have such nonsense presented in our state capital as if it were worth merit and discussion.
Lord Monckton's contribution
Lord Monckton shows how inept mainstream media are at examining complex scientific issues, the mix of what is actually known, the uncertainties that really are present in the peer-reviewed literature and how the IPCC misinforms the debate.
If one has any insights into the machinations of the IPCC, one can only come away with a view that it is an institution that has been designed to deliver "the consensus" that the IPCC envisaged would exist, given that its own propaganda would be swallowed and amplified by a pliant media. The vast majority of politicians can, as a result, remain essentially ignorant of even the UN's take on "the science" and follow instead merely the take-home points that "GW is happening", "the scientific debate is over", "Man is to blame" and "something must be done".
A real fact is that future climates cannot be predicted well at the moment (and may indeed be inherently unpredictable): the IPCC provides no predictions itself, but merely offers up scenarios and projections that it does little to stop people assuming are predictions.
Another real fact is that however we perturb climates in future it is not well known what the consequences will be.
If there is any rigour at all left in public life, the insistence that CO2 and GHGs are *the cause* of global warming will die a death as sophistication in scientific argumentation wins out, not to mention actual climactic developments themselves - *unless*, of course, some new analysis turns most previous climate science upside down.
But it may prove to be the case that, as Prof Philip Stott [at http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/iWeb/Global%20Warming%20Politics/A%20Hot%20Topic%20Blog/A%20Hot%20Topic%20Blog.html] argues, the public will need an alternative 'social bond' "one that is just as powerful, but *for* growth, *for* development, *for* the poor, *for* trade, *for* cautious science, *for* adaptation, *for* flexibility (*not* sustainability), and *for* optimism" before the current one (which, amongst other things, "has created a desire for 'global warming' to be true in order to legitimise a whole suite of Neo-Malthusian agendas and fears, from anti-growth to anti-Americanism") can be overthrown, and "global warming" go the way of many other forgotten inadequate scientific hypotheses.
In the meantime, Lord Monckton needs to be given a fair hearing in many more venues and/or mainstream media outlets: if the political class are to rush headlong into wasting trillions of tax-payer dollars from around the world, let them contemplate the risk of that carefully first.
Gooch makes the big time - a new low for KY
And in the little video player screen , on the right, click the link for “climate change critic”. It will start with news about Bangladesh then lead to Gooch.