<http://www.statesman.com/news/news/opinion/house-science-panel-sees-no-climate-change/nTrM2/>
Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013
House science panel wears blinders
By Editorial Board
"All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and Big
Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell."
That scientific opinion comes courtesy of Republican U.S. Rep. Paul
Broun of Georgia, who also apparently sees geology as originating in
the devil's realm, since he also has said he believes the earth is
only "about 9,000 years old" and "was created in six days as we know
them." We wish that what we're about to report was a joke but, alas,
it is not. Broun is a member of the House Science, Space and
Technology Committee.
And thanks to an appointment by the science committee's new chairman,
U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, Broun will lead the panel's Subcommittee on
Investigations and Oversight during the recently convened 113th
Congress.
Smith, the San Antonio Republican whose district's northern appendage
reaches into Central Austin, released his list of subcommittee
leaders Tuesday - the same day the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration said 2012 was the hottest year on record for the
contiguous United States.
We point out the coincidental timing of Smith's subcommittee
assignments and NOAA's report because it is on climate change that
the Republican members of Smith's committee keep science at farthest
arm's length. The representatives picked by Smith to chair the
panel's half-dozen subcommittees either deny that human activity
contributes to global warming and a changing climate or they demur on
the issue by saying "the jury's still out."
Last year's average temperature was 55.3 degrees, NOAA reported
Tuesday, which was 1 degree above the previous record set in 1998 and
3.2 degrees higher than the average recorded during the 20th century.
One record-setting year might be considered an aberration if it
weren't another piece in an accumulating set of global data that
points to a dangerously warming planet.
But those who deny carbon dioxide emissions from human sources are
warming the Earth are well-represented on Smith's committee. The
panel's vice chairman, for example, is Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of
California. Rohrabacher is "probably the equivalent in the House of
Sen. Inhofe in the Senate in terms of challenging global warming,"
according to Marc Marano, a former aide to Sen. James Inhofe of
Oklahoma.
Inhofe once infamously declared that "man-made global warming is the
greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." Rohrabacher's
contribution to the anti-climate change book of quotations was to
joke about "dinosaur flatulence" and clear-cutting rain forests as
causes of past climate changes and possible solutions to the current
one, since rotting organic material on forest floors naturally emit
carbon dioxide.
The vice chairman of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, Rep.
Mo Brooks of Alabama, is another climate change denier who has
expressed wonderment at all the fuss regarding global warming and
carbon dioxide levels. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere "means
that plant life grows better," he once said.
Broun, Rohrabacher and others appointed by Smith to leadership
positions on the science committee may have met their climate
change-denying match in Rep. Steve Stockman of Friendswood. The
Texan, picked by Smith to chair the Subcommittee on Research, is back
in Congress after serving a single term from 1995 to 1997, when he
often proved he's rarely met a fact he's willing to support. In a
video uploaded to YouTube on Dec. 3, 2009, Stockman says he wants to
talk about "the new fad thing that's going through America and around
the world. It's called global warming."
On the other end of the climate change-denying spectrum are those who
tell us the jury's still out - like Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
Smith appointed Massie to chair the Subcommittee on Technology and
Innovation. Massie is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology who powers his farmhouse with solar panels and speaks of
pollution as a property rights issue - as in, you don't have the
right to pollute your neighbor's property. He considers universities
"generators of innovation" and thinks government dollars spent on
research and development generally is money well spent.
Yet on climate change he waffles. "The jury is still out on the
contribution of our activities to the change in the earth's climate,"
he told Science magazine in November.
The jury pretty much is in on climate change. Maybe it's party
orthodoxy that prevents Republicans like Massie from saying so.
Calling the jury still out is a safe stance to take, since science is
reluctant and slow to bring its juries all the way in.
Action is needed. Smith's science committee and the appointments he
made assures none will be taken.
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