No Serious Debate on Climate Change

The Real Warming: The Independent Challenge to
Waxman's Withering Worries about the Weather

As long as Henry Waxman continues to cry out that Republicans are ignoring "science" when it comes to climate change, there can be no serious debate about climate change.

Congressman Waxman contends that the fierce firestorms which have erupted in New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado indicate that the earth's temperature is heating up considerably, and to our peril.

Yet let's take another look at this problem.

Regarding the horrendous wildfires that ripped through Colorado, the Huffington Post offers an alternate theory as to why the fires took over as they did:

"The number of fires and total acreage burned in the West this summer is roughly within range of the past decade's average. But the fires are bigger, they're burning with greater severity, and they are burning areas where the potential impacts are greater." (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/colorado-wildfire-recover_n_1725445.html?utm_hp_ref=green&ir=Green)

"Aha!" -- climate change advocates would trump. The blazes are getting worse. Yet the same article articulates that raining downpours wipe out the seeds and forestry restoration in the area. The lack of recovery to regions charred in 1996 and 2002 not only frustrated the revegetation of the region, but in all likely may have contributed to the more fiery outbreak which exploded in the region.

The science is quite diverse and divisive on the matter of global warming. The following experts, intellects, and the rest testify that the problem of "man-made" climate change remains rigorously disputed.

Oreskes and Peiser

Scientists need to back up their opinions with research and data that survive the peer-review process. A survey of all peer-reviewed abstracts on the subject 'global climate change' published between 1993 and 2003 shows that not a single paper rejected the consensus position that global warming is man caused (Oreskes 2004). 75% of the papers agreed with the consensus position while 25% made no comment either way (focused on methods or paleoclimate analysis). (http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm)

Of course, academic consensus is marred by the growing group-think that dominates the Ivy Tower of American Academia.

John Stossel interviewed (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrH1jEt7sHw) a number of academics who dispute manmade global warming:

"The earth is warming -- but we dispute is it because of mankind," commented one scientist. The other three intellects on Stossel's program also acknowledged that there is a rise in temperature, but whether it is due to man-made causes or larger, more gradual changes is still in great dispute. Dismissing the notion that they were bought by large corporate interests to advance their global warming skepticism, one scientists even shared that he had been threatened for sharing his findings.

That the earth is warming is not open for debate. The potentially dangerous effects of global warming have not been determined yet, nor should politicians in Washington use the fiery blazes in the Mountain states as the final pretext for commandeering more segments of the country just to protect against the incremental rise in the earth's temperature.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is composed of activists nominated from select governments, not just scientists or climate experts. Their cries for more state and international action to curb climate change stem more from a desire to advance their own agendas.

One factor remains constant: state power to decrease the emission of "green house" gases will not protect the environment but will harm the people living in the environment.

The growing consensus among many voters in this country is that the global warming "crisis" is just another extreme argument for expanding state power and concentrating wealth and worth in the hands of a progressive elite. Congressman Waxman can declare as freely as he pleases that "science" indicates that the global temperature is rising. Whether this phenomenon is a good thing, a bad thing, or something that man can control remains open for debate, a debate which should not be silenced or dismissed because of environmental alarmism.

The 33rd Congressional District deserves better than a Congressman who refused to hear the growing, glowing debate and dispute surrounding global warming. If the science, the opinion, the research indicate more skepticism than certainty, perhaps the federal government and our representatives should spend less time controlling the weather and more time controlling spending and cutting costs.