American Elephants

You would think that the news that global warming does not seem to be a real or significant problem would elicit excitement, or enthusiasm or at least a big sigh of relief. All those terrible events that Al Gore warned about, the increasing hurricanes, the sweltering temperatures, the droughts, and desertification we don’t have to worry about. Obama’s going to take care of the rising seas. So where is the collective joy?

If all our worry was only caused by the predictions of flawed computer models, then we don’t have to worry about carbon footprints. We can collectively stop holding our breath and allow carbon dioxide to go back to doing what it normally does, helping plants to grow. Billions of dollars don’t have to be spent. Your taxes don’t have to soar. There is no longer a reason to oppose drilling for oil,

Dr. Roy Spencer testified last week to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. He introduced himself by noting his PhD in Meteorology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, his twenty years of research in global warming and climate change, his multitude of peer reviewed scientific articles and his current position as U.S. Science Team Leader for the AMSR-E instrument flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He said:

Regarding the currently popular theory that mankind is responsible for global warming, I am very pleased to deliver good news from the front lines of climate change research. Our latest research results, which I am about to describe, could have an enormous impact on policy decisions regarding greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite decades of persistent uncertainity over how sensitive the climatre system is to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, we now have new satellite evidence which strongly suggests that the climate system is much less sensitive than is claimed by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

…If true, an insensitive climate system would mean that we have little to worry about in the way of manmade global warming and associated climate change. And…It would also mean that the warming we have experienced in the last 100 years is mostly natural. Of course, if climate change is mostly natural then it is largely out of our control, and is likely to end — if it has not ended already, since satellite-measured global temperatures have not warmed for at least seven years now.

Did the attendant Senators leap out of their chairs glorying in the news that they could stop trying to save the earth and could just get back to battling over insignificant problems? Not on your life. Barbara Boxer managed to insult Dr. Spencer before she turned back to seeking testimony that agreed with her preconceptions.

Dr. Spencer’s testimony confirmed the research of Lord Monckton’s paper at APS. John McLean’s new paper at the Science & Public Policy Institute also confirmed the problems with the IPCC reports. It’s a strange, strange government when good news is rejected in favor of more same old, same old.