U.S. Senator ready to debate global warming


But CNN is mischaracterizing his statements
I'd rather see this debate happening somewhere other than the Senate, but I will take it anywhere it happens.

This morning, CNN ran a segment criticizing my speech on global warming and attempted to refute the scientific evidence I presented to counter climate fears.

First off, CNN reporter Miles O’Brien inaccurately claimed I was “too busy” to appear on his program this week to discuss my 50 minute floor speech on global warming. But they were told I simply was not available on Tuesday or Wednesday.

I did appear on another CNN program today -- Thursday -- which I hope everyone will watch. The segment airs tonight on CNN’s Headline News at 7pm and repeats at 9pm and midnight Eastern.
Second, CNN’s O’Brien falsely claimed that I was all “alone on Capitol Hill” when it comes to questioning global warming.

Mr. O’Brien is obviously not aware that the U.S. Senate has overwhelmingly rejected Kyoto style carbon caps when it voted down the McCain-Lieberman climate bill 60-28 last year – an even larger margin than its rejection in 2003.

Third, CNN’s O’Brien, claimed that my speech earlier contained errors regarding climate science. O’Brien said my claim that the Antarctic was actually cooling and gaining ice was incorrect. But both the journals Science and Nature have published studies recently finding – on balance – Antarctica is both cooling and gaining ice.

CNN’s O’Brien also criticized me for saying polar bears are thriving in the Arctic. But he ignored that the person I was quoting is intimately familiar with the health of polar bear populations. Let me repeat what biologist Dr. Mitchell Taylor from the Arctic government of Nunavut, a territory of Canada, said recently:

“Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present.”

CNN’s O’Brien also ignores the fact that in the Arctic, temperatures were warmer in the 1930’s than today.

O’Brien also claimed that the “Hockey Stick” temperature graph was supported by most climate scientists despite the fact that the National Academy of Sciences and many independent experts have made it clear that the Hockey Stick’s claim that the 1990’s was the hottest decade of the last 1000 years was unsupportable.

So it seems my speech struck a nerve with the mainstream media. Their only response was to cherry pick the science in a failed attempt to refute me.

One side has declared the debate over, and is only too willing to dismiss arguments if they "don't fit."

Even if the global warming arguments hold up (and I don't think that they do), the "solution" would cost trillions of dollars and may well trigger an economic catastrophe.

There is one thing that I would like people to remember about global warming.

Every single prediction is based on computer models which have failed every time to predict the weather, much less the climate.

I can create a spreadsheet showing that in 20 years time, I will control the world's supply of semiconductor chips. But just because the spreadsheet exists and a lot of work went into it doesn't mean that it is accurate. Each assumption in the spreadsheet has to be valid or the results are wrong. The assumptions have to be tested and related to actual measurements. In this case, the measurements do not support the spreadsheet. I do not own a semiconductor fabrication plant. I am not wealthy enough to acquire or finance one. I know very very little about semiconductor chip design, and certainly not enough to create a revolutionary new product. In short, the odds are heavily against me, and a spreadsheet that predicts my cornering the world's semiconductor supply is an inaccurate model.

On the other hand, I have a handy little program on my Palm that predicts the local sunrise and sunset based on my location. It's never failed me yet. It's an accurate model and repeated testing shows that.

We depend on accurate models to be our tools. A Chicago roadmap doesn't work in Anchorage. A 1978 phonebook probably won't have the number you are looking for. The recipe for cream sauce won't tell you how to bake bread. Models only become tools if they are accurate.

Otherwise they are play pretties, good to look at but totally impractical.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Fri - September 29, 2006 at 04:33 AM  Tag


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