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| Mean surface temperature change for 1999–2008 relative to the average temperatures from 1940 to 1980 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Published September 19, 2013
FoxNews.com
A peer-reviewed climate change study released Wednesday by the
Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change finds the threat
of man-made global warming to be not only greatly exaggerated but so
small as to be “embedded within the background variability of the
natural climate system” and not dangerous.
Armed with the new findings, Republicans on the House Energy and
Commerce Committee grilled administration environmental policy
officials about the economic consequences of its aggressive regulatory
crackdown on the fossil fuel industry.
The 1,000 page study was the work of 47 scientists and scholars
examining many of the same journals and studies that the United
Nations International Panel on Climate Change (UNIPCC) examined,
producing entirely different conclusions.
"This volume provides the scientific balance that is missing from the
overly alarmist reports from the IPCC, which are highly selective in
their 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 any
government 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 human
impact on climate. And this report shows that it is very small, that
natural variability, the variability that's caused by natural cycles
of the sun and other factors, way outweigh anything the human impact
could have."
The report comes in advance of the expected release later this month
of a new U.N. report on climate change. Leaked drafts of that report
show surface temperature increases have been statistically
insignificant for the last 15 years, and that Antarctic sea ice is
increasing, not decreasing.
In addition, new satellite measurements of Arctic sea ice show it has
increased this year.
At the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing Wednesday,
Republicans particularly wanted to know what President Obama planned
to do to address those fossil fuel workers who've lost their jobs as a
result of administration policy.
In a major address at Georgetown University last June, Obama promised
there would be a special plan for those workers.
"So I would ask either one of you what are the special plans in the
president's action plan to help address these people who are losing
their jobs, " Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) asked EPA Administrator Gina
McCarthy and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.
"I'm not familiar with the details of those plans, but I am familiar
from reading the climate action plan that the president sees this as
both a challenge and an economic opportunity," McCarthy replied.
That exchange led to a testy retort by Ralph Hall (R-Tex.). "You got a
better answer than I received from Mrs. McCarthy about a year ago
before the science committee," Hall told McCarthy. "I may have asked
you a question you didn't like and your answer was, ‘I'm not in the
business of creating jobs.’”
Committee Democrats, along with McCarthy and Moniz, set out to counter
Republican 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 science
behind climate change is simple. Carbon dioxide makes the earth
warmer, and we are admitting more and more of it into the atmosphere."
Moniz added that any stabilization of surface temperatures in recent
years was an indication of a "hiatus" of global warming, not an end to
global warming.
Told of Moniz's remarks, astrophysicist Willy Soon, one of the
NIPCC's leading scientists, reacted incredulously. "So tell us when is
it going to rise again?” he asked. “This is a question that not only
me, as a scientist, is asking , but all the lay persons should begin
asking."
The Heartland Institute's Bast told Fox News that there are no climate
models used by proponents of global warming that predict a lull in
warming.
"Point to the model that predicted this hiatus," he said. "No
increase in violent weather , no increase in hurricanes. All of this
and we're still supposed to believe the models... models they picked
because they supported their political interests, not because they
represented good science."
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