New House Energy Chair: Global Warming Not Man-Made

[sabra]

Source: CBS News

Michigan's Fred Upton, who became the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in January, is depicted in a video that went viral Tuesday rejecting the argument that climate change is caused by humans. (He also co-authored a January Wall Street Journal op-ed opposing action on climate change.)

At first blush, that's not a radically different position from one held by many fellow Republican members of Congress. However, it does contradict what Upton told his home town paper, the River Country Journal, in 1999.

"Climate change is a serious problem that necessitates serious solutions. Everything must be on the table - particularly renewable sources of energy like wind and solar, nuclear power and clean coal technologies," Upton was quoted by the paper. (Hat tip to Chris Mooney for pointing this out.

During his interview at a public forum with journalist Ron Brownstein, Upton was pressed to explain why a bill he introduced with Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) challenging an Environmental Protection Agency finding portrays climate change as .possible."

"I have said many times, and there was a report a couple of weeks ago that in fact you look at this last year, it was the warmest year in the last decade, I think was the number that came out. I don't -- I accept that. I do not say that it is man-made and i know from the hearings that we had that even if cap and trade had been enacted, it would not have changed the temperature by a tenth of a degree, virtually anywhere in the world," he says.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20031180-501465.html?tag=stack

[glinda]

1. Murderers.

[hobbit709]

2. Trying to explain anything based on science with these clowns

Is like trying to teach a pig to sing.

The increase in atmospheric CO2 is mainly due to C12 but there's no human connection to the burning of fossil fuels.

[Frisbee]

20. They know...

they just don't care. They're more concerned with financial gain and being reelected that the survival of entire societies and ecosystems. When all is said and done, billions of people may have died due to their (our) unwillingness to address climate change while we had the chance. I do believe that climate change is the single most important facing us today, it amazes me that we still don't have the will to deal with it in a meaningful way.

[DCKit]

30. What else is there to say? As long as the money keeps rolling in....

[librechik]

3. shocker

not

[damntexdem]

4. Paid to lie and put humanity's future at risk.

Just more scum of the warming earth.

[AlbertCat]

5. Does he know what an isotope is?

:eyes:




Y'know, the Chinese Communists decided to ignore science in the 1920's. Millions starved.

[former9thward]

16. The Communists did not take over China until 1949.

If millions died in the 1920s it wasn't their fault.

[AlbertCat]

19. If millions died in the 1920s it wasn't their fault.

sorry...typo I meant 1950's.

[former9thward]

21. Yes, the Great Leap Forward was one of the greatest human made disasters in history.

[50000feet]

6. Now we're all trusting Al Gore?

Are you kidding me?

Temperatures are evidently also increasing on Mars. What does that imply?

[CLANG]

7. So are you suggesting it's better to trust Jim Inhofe?

If so, you may be on the wrong website.

[AlbertCat]

8. Temperatures are evidently also increasing on Mars. What does that imply?

It implies that you don't know what you are talking about.


Here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSXgiml5UwM&feature=related



And from what I've seen, Al Gore knows what he's talking about.

[NickB79]

9. No, we're trusting NASA

The U.S. National Climate Data Center, and the World Meteorological Organization, among others, who all agree that we've seen verifiable global warming to levels not seen in thousands of years and that human activity is the most likely cause, having ruled out natural variations in climate and solar output.

[salvorhardin]

11. Mars isn't Earth

Variations in Mars' tilt and orbit are the main drivers of climate change on the Red Planet.

Mars' wobbles shape its climate

Scientists say Mars undergoes periodic wobbles in its spin and variations in its orbit that, like the earth, may cause it to endure prolonged Ice Ages or other climate shifts.

The evidence comes from the latest pictures of the Red Planet's northern polar ice cap, a thick dome of what is apparently water ice mixed with dust, and which is up to 2.5 kilometres thick.

The extraordinarily precise images captured by the US Mars Global Surveyor orbiter show a spiral pattern whose accumulated icy layers and deep troughs are the result of scouring by fierce winds and evaporation caused by exposure to the distant sun.

A team led by Jacques Laskar at France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris calculates that the cap is accumulating at the rate of about 0.05 centimetres annually.

That puts the cap's age at about 5 million years, which is very recent, given that Mars is about four-and-a-half billion years old.

Previous estimates had put the polar cap's age at between 10,000 and as much as 35 million years.

The reason for this youth, Laskar reports in this week's issue of Nature, the British science weekly, is that Mars undergoes dramatic swings in its orbital axis and eccentricities in its orbit that cause enormous variations in polar "insolation" - the amount of sunlight that falls on the cap.
Link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/scitech/2002/09/item20020926135019_1.htm

The Earth has eccentricities in its tilt too, which are called Milanovitch Cycles, but they are nowhere near as dramatic as Mars' wobbles.

[LanternWaste]

13. We're trusting science...

We're trusting science...

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[katnapped]

15. What does that imply?

Nahhhhhhhhhhh too easy...not biting

[ananda]

18. Yes, we are all trusting Al Gore?

Why wouldn't we trust someone who is right on this issue?

Hmm ????

[chervilant]

25. Bwahahahahahahahahaha!!!

We don't live on Mars, you hapless nematode.

I swear, certain members of our species are just eat up with the dumbass.

[hatrack]

27. It implies that you're good at barfing up Glenn Beck's climate "science" hairballs . . .

But hey, you can't lose if you don't play!!!

:rofl:

[24601]

31. Just because you can't see the Martians doesn't mean they're

not there. It could also be caused by the Rover's battery over-heating.

Ouch - don't confuse me with facts about Mars - that's in a different country!

[on point]

10. The Ignorant and Delusional, a laughing stock of all to see

[saras]

12. In a perverse sense, he's right

If it was 'man' made, we could just waterboard the relevant man until he stops.

But since it is actually corporate made, there is nothing we can do but suffer and obey.

[AlbertCat]

17. But since it is actually corporate made,

But corporations are persons ....

so, to quote Anna Russell "You're right back where you started."

[whatchamacallit]

22. We're doomed

:banghead: :cry: :banghead:

[ArcticFox]

23. Let's not do anything because it's not manmade?

By that logic, if an asteroid were headed our way we should let it slam into Earth.We should not extinguish a fire caused by lightning.

No, if there is a problem, regardless the cause, you try to fix it!

[lunatica]

24. So he changed his mind when he stuck his finger in the air to gauge the wind?

Our Congress is a fucking clown circus.

[Kolesar]

26. He is afraid of getting "tea bagged" in the next primary

Gotta toe the RW line if there is no political risk.

[customerserviceguy]

28. There are only five possibilities

1) There is no global warming, it's all nonsense, and we need do nothing.

2) There is global warming, but it's part of a natural cooling/warming cycle of the planet, which we can do nothing about, therefore, we need do nothing.

3) There is global warming, but it really has no harmful effects, except to change where we can grow things, so we need do nothing.

4) There is global warming, but it's impossible to change things, so there is no use in doing anything, so we need do nothing.

5) There is global warming, caused by modern human activity, that if we do enough to reverse the tide, we can keep from damaging the planet even further, so we need to do as much as we can, as soon as we can, and we need to get everybody on board with that.

We're stuck with defending alternative number five.

[LawnKorn]

29. Stupid Republicans think they can repeal science with an election

Global warming is not something decided by current popular opinion. There are paid, professional people with Doctor of Science degrees that perform peer reviewed research that tell us that not only is global warming real, it is going to end civilization as we know it.

But I digress, the conversation was about stupid Republicans.