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| Mean surface temperature change for 1999–2008 relative to the average temperatures from 1940 to 1980 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
By Doug McKelwayPublished September 19, 2013FoxNews.comA peer-reviewed climate change study released Wednesday by theNongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change finds the threatof man-made global warming to be not only greatly exaggerated but sosmall as to be “embedded within the background variability of thenatural climate system” and not dangerous.Armed with the new findings, Republicans on the House Energy andCommerce Committee grilled administration environmental policyofficials about the economic consequences of its aggressive regulatorycrackdown on the fossil fuel industry.The 1,000 page study was the work of 47 scientists and scholarsexamining many of the same journals and studies that the UnitedNations International Panel on Climate Change (UNIPCC) examined,producing entirely different conclusions. "This volume provides the scientific balance that is missing from theoverly alarmist reports from the IPCC, which are highly selective intheir review of climate science," the authors write.The study was done under the auspices of the Heartland Institute,which claims it "has no formal attachment to or sponsorship from anygovernment or governmental agency."The Heartland Institute’s president, Joseph Bast, said of the study,"The big issue in the global warming debate is how large is the humanimpact on climate. And this report shows that it is very small, thatnatural variability, the variability that's caused by natural cyclesof the sun and other factors, way outweigh anything the human impactcould have."The report comes in advance of the expected release later this monthof a new U.N. report on climate change. Leaked drafts of that reportshow surface temperature increases have been statisticallyinsignificant for the last 15 years, and that Antarctic sea ice isincreasing, not decreasing.In addition, new satellite measurements of Arctic sea ice show it hasincreased this year.At the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing Wednesday,Republicans particularly wanted to know what President Obama plannedto do to address those fossil fuel workers who've lost their jobs as aresult of administration policy. In a major address at Georgetown University last June, Obama promisedthere would be a special plan for those workers."So I would ask either one of you what are the special plans in thepresident's action plan to help address these people who are losingtheir jobs, " Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) asked EPA Administrator GinaMcCarthy and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz."I'm not familiar with the details of those plans, but I am familiarfrom reading the climate action plan that the president sees this asboth a challenge and an economic opportunity," McCarthy replied.That exchange led to a testy retort by Ralph Hall (R-Tex.). "You got abetter answer than I received from Mrs. McCarthy about a year agobefore the science committee," Hall told McCarthy. "I may have askedyou a question you didn't like and your answer was, ‘I'm not in thebusiness of creating jobs.’”Committee Democrats, along with McCarthy and Moniz, set out to counterRepublican skepticism about the impact of climate change."The evidence is overwhelming and the science is clear," said Moniz."The threat from climate change is real and urgent. The basic sciencebehind climate change is simple. Carbon dioxide makes the earthwarmer, and we are admitting more and more of it into the atmosphere."Moniz added that any stabilization of surface temperatures in recentyears was an indication of a "hiatus" of global warming, not an end toglobal warming.Told of Moniz's remarks, astrophysicist Willy Soon, one of theNIPCC's leading scientists, reacted incredulously. "So tell us when isit going to rise again?” he asked. “This is a question that not onlyme, as a scientist, is asking , but all the lay persons should beginasking."The Heartland Institute's Bast told Fox News that there are no climatemodels used by proponents of global warming that predict a lull inwarming. "Point to the model that predicted this hiatus," he said. "Noincrease in violent weather , no increase in hurricanes. All of thisand we're still supposed to believe the models... models they pickedbecause they supported their political interests, not because theyrepresented good science."
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