The committee, chaired by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), has dubbed its hearing “Climate Science: Assumptions, Policy Implications, and the Scientific Method.” It is very obvious the hearing, which will turn out to be another circus sideshow, is an attempt to divert the public’s attention from the issue of Russia’s interference in the national election.
The hearing is also another attempt by the current administration to do away with the progress made by the U.S. under President Obama to reign in carbon emissions, as well as all the science-based activities conducted by a number of federal agencies, including NASA, NOAA, the EPA, Department of Commerce, Geological Survey, the U.S. Forest Service and others.
Smith, a staunch climate-denier, doubts the science-based consensus that greenhouse gasses (GHG) are from human activity and are the main driver behind climate change. According to The Hill, he loves to use his gavel in condemning any mention of anthropogenic climate change as being “climate alarmism.”
I’m of the belief that Trump is looking to use the hearing to his benefit, hoping it will cast enough doubt that he will feel vindicated after stripping funding from the budget targeted at cutting carbon dioxide emissions and signing an executive order that weakens Obama’s Clean Power Plan.
List of players to speak at the hearing
To be sure, we will hear both sides of the argument. There’s Judith Curry, a climatologist and the former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She has serious doubts about climate change and has criticized other scientists for not expressing the same cynicism.
She also testified before the House Climate Committee in 2015, according to DeSmog. At that time she acknowledged that global temperatures are rising, but said the bigger question is whether humans are to blame. She also said temperatures have been on the rise for more than 200 years. “And that’s not human,” she said, suggesting that something other than industrial greenhouse gasses may be causing them to climb.
Climate scientist Michael Mann was invited to testify by the Democrats on the committee. Mann is a professor of Atmospheric Science at Pennsylvania State University. Earlier this year, he told the New York Times that if human-induced climate change was not part of the equation, the amount of warming in 2016 would have less than one-in-a-million odds of occurring. “One could argue that about 75 percent of the warmth was due to human impact.”
Climate geeks might remember his invention of the infamous climate “hockey stick.” In an interview with WUWT in February, he was quoted:
“The era of climate change denial is over. Rejection of the unequivocal scientific evidence that carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are warming the planet and changing our climate is no longer socially acceptable. Only the most fringe of politicians now disputes the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real and human-caused, and they are largely ignored. So why dignify the notion of climate change denial by writing about it?”
In all fairness, it is important to note that not all Republicans are climate deniers. After all, 97 percent of all climate scientists have said that the matter is settled: “Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities.”
