December 5, 2009
The Democrats' idea of 'free and open debate' on climate change
John Fund of the Wall Street Journal reports on a hearing in the House Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming that featured Obama's science advisor John Holdren.
One of Holdren's emails was featured in the Climategate hack where the scientist ridiculed AGW skeptics.
Moore reports:
In the House, the Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing on what Chairman Ed Markey said was "the urgent consensus view . . . that global warming is real, and the science indicates it is getting worse." But the only witnesses were officials from the Obama administration, who support dramatic action on climate change. Republicans asked to have a global-warming skeptic appear but were denied.Committee Republicans nonetheless gamely read excerpts from the East Anglia emails and asked the witnesses about them. "These emails show a pattern of suppression, manipulation and secrecy that was inspired by ideology, condescension and profit," claimed Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin.John Holdren, President Obama's science adviser, held firm, saying the disputed scientific research mentioned in the emails is a small fraction of the total research on climate change. He defended a 2003 email he wrote to one of the East Anglia scientists in which he had ridiculed global warming skeptics.Rep. Jay Inslee, a Washington Democrat, tried to make light of the emails by saying they weren't stopping the Arctic from shrinking, oceans from getting more acidic, and glaciers from melting. He sarcastically asked Mr. Holdren if he was part of a giant worldwide conspiracy that included fictional movie villain organizations bent on dominating the planet. Mr. Holdren, playing along, denied being part of such a conspiracy.
Holdren is right. The emails discuss only a small part of the total AGW science. What he doesn't mention is that the emails only represent 5% of the information contained in the document dump and that other aspects of the scandal reveal a much deeper problem; that the temperature data on which the IPCC based its recommendations for draconian cuts in emissions cannot be duplicated anywhere else.
Still, it is interesting to watch as Democrats simply ignore Climategate or treat it as a joke.
Perhaps the joke will be on them next year at the polls if they persist in this folly.
Hat Tip: Ed Lasky