Global Scaring

Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and has a thing or two to say about global warming in USA Today (h/t RealClearPolitics):

Despite the lack of a scientific consensus to warrant such measures, climate change alarmists — in the heat of the summer for the scariest effect — are promoting mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions in the USA. It's a classic case of "ready, fire, aim."

Until recently, the foundation of climate change alarmism has been the so-called hockey stick graph. The graph, constructed by Dr. Michael Mann, a professor at the University of Virginia, and shaped like a hockey stick, purports to show a link between rising temperatures and human activity.

Recent Canadian research discredited the graph because of its errors and improper methodologies. An Environment Canada statistician agreed Mann's method "preferentially produces hockey sticks when there are none in the data." Dr. Hans von Storch, a contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, called it "rubbish" methodologically, and Dr. Rob van Dorland, an IPCC lead author, said the IPCC "made a mistake by only including Mann's reconstruction and not those of other researchers."

In spite of this, some still seek to solve a problem even before it has been established one exists. Two Senate bills would, like the Kyoto Protocol, cap carbon dioxide emissions. Wharton Econometrics Forecasting Associates estimates that the costs of implementing Kyoto would cost an American family of four $2,700 annually. Two international leaders once described Kyoto's intent. Margot Wallstrom, the European Union's commissioner on the environment, said Kyoto is "about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide," and French President Jacques Chirac called it "the first component of an authentic global governance."

MIT professor Dr. Richard Lindzen sums up the current state of affairs best: "Science, in the public arena, is commonly used as a source of authority with which to bludgeon political opponents and propagandize uninformed citizens. ... A fairer view of the science will show that there is still a vast amount of uncertainty — far more than advocates of Kyoto would like to acknowledge." Based on that uncertainty, our constituents hardly need "global governance," but they do deserve responsible governance at home.

Now that summer's here and there will undoubtedly be record temperatures ...somewhere...during the summer, we can expect to hear all the doom and gloom forecasts from the "experts".

What we really need is for Al Gore to get involved. He has a habit of bringing record cold temperatures with him whenever he gives a global warming speech. If he'd just move to Las Vegas the summer temperatures would probably never get over 80.