On Fox's Your World, CEI's Horner misled on Kyoto, global warming
SUMMARY: On Fox News' Your World, Chris Horner, counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), claimed falsely that the Clinton administration chose not to submit the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate for ratification because it did not consider global warming a "high-profile issue." In fact, Senate Republicans made clear at the time that Clinton would not be able to garner enough votes in the Senate to ratify the treaty.
On the June 13 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto, Chris Horner, counsel for the oil industry-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), claimed falsely that the Clinton administration chose not to submit the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate for ratification because it did not consider global warming a "high-profile issue." In fact, Senate Republicans made clear at the time that Clinton would not be able to garner enough votes in the Senate to ratify the treaty. In addition, Horner baselessly disputed an assertion by Friends of the Earth president Brent Blackwelder* that severe hurricanes have "gone from 20 percent of the total to 35 percent of the total" in the last 35 years by referencing a study that doesn't address Blackwelder's claim.
Objecting to former President Bill Clinton taking credit for efforts to curb global warming during his presidency, Horner claimed that Clinton "set the U.S. policy, which was [that] for the final three years of his presidency, the U.S. would not seek participation in -- that is ratification of -- Kyoto." Horner made the claim to advance his suggestion that the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty mandating that countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, "was not a high-profile issue or a priority issue for the Clinton administration, like, say, school uniforms. It was not even a low-priority issue, like, say, finding Osama bin Laden."
But, contrary to Horner's assertion, it was in fact Senate Republicans who made clear that they would not ratify the Kyoto treaty. As The Washington Post reported on December 11, 1997, just before the Kyoto agreement was reached, key Senate Republicans declared the treaty "dead on arrival":
The difficulty delegates to the global warming conference in Kyoto encountered in reaching agreement on reducing greenhouse gases is likely to pale beside the trouble Republicans have promised the Clinton administration when it seeks ratification of the newly negotiated international treaty.
As finalized early this morning, Japanese time, the Kyoto accord calls for industrialized nations to cut their greenhouse emissions by 6 percent to 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. It left aside until at least next year the contentious issue of how much developing countries would be required to cut their own emissions.
Hours before the final agreement was reached, however, key Senate Republicans declared the accord "dead on arrival," and a leading Democratic supporter urged that the Senate delay a vote in light of its bleak prospects.
The situation remained unchanged nearly two years later, as the Post noted in an April 28, 1999, "Washington Brief": "The Clinton administration signed the framework agreement in November 1998, but staunch opposition in the Senate has kept the White House from submitting the treaty for ratification."
Later, Horner disputed the claim by Blackwelder that "[t]he number of severe Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has gone from 20 percent of the total to 35 percent of the total." Horner retorted that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which he claimed is the "greens' bible" on global warming, "detected no trend in storm developments, severe storm developments," and then reiterated that "the U.N. itself does not say what Brent just said they said." But while Blackwelder did not indicate the source of his claim, he appeared to be referring to a study completed in September 2005 by the Georgia Institute of Technology and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), not to the U.N. report. Indeed, according to the NCAR study, Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide have "almost doubled in number" over the last 35 years, in fact going from about 20 percent of the total to 35 percent, as Blackwelder claimed:
Examination of hurricane intensity shows a substantial change in the intensity distribution of hurricanes globally...The number of category 1 hurricanes has remained approximately constant but has decreased monotonically as a percentage of the total number of hurricanes throughout the 35-year period. The trend of the sum of hurricane categories 2 and 3 is small also both in number and percentage. In contrast, hurricanes in the strongest categories (4 + 5) have almost doubled in number (50 per pentad in the 1970s to near 90 per pentad during the past decade) and in proportion (from around 20% to around 35% during the same period).
The IPCC report, which was released in 2001, found that there were "no significant trends" in tropical and extra-tropical storm intensity "over the 20th century," but added that "[c]onflicting analyses make it difficult to draw definitive conclusions about changes in storm activity."
From the June 14 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto:
CAVUTO: Now, Clinton was warning that the Bush administration is soft on global warming and said that GOP policies on the environment will bring about even more severe storms. Joining me: Brent Blackwelder, right now is president of Friends of the Earth, who says that Clinton has it right, and Chris Horner with the Competitive Enterprise Institute; he is also the author of an upcoming book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming. He says that Clinton is on another planet on this one. So Chris, you are not buying it. Why?
HORNER: Well, not only is his math wrong. I mean, Kyoto was agreed in 1997, but it was Clinton who set the U.S. policy which was for the final three years of is presidency the U.S. would not seek participation in -- that is ratification of -- Kyoto. That's the position that Bush inherited, the position he adopted. Therefore, we need to remind ourselves: Kyoto was not a high-profile issue or a high-priority issue for the Clinton administration, like, say, school uniforms. It was not even a low-priority issue, like, say, finding Osama bin Laden. He has had an epiphany that is seeing what gets you on magazine covers these days or else he's reaffirming what a remarkably irresponsible presidency he had, if, in fact, he believes what he says. I don't believe he believes that.
CAVUTO: Let me focus on this part with you. The Bush administration has been in there, what close to six years. Six years to cause all these hurricanes? Is that what he's saying?
BLACKWELDER: This is Brent Blackwelder, look, Clinton is right and Bush is wrong. We are facing with global warming the most serious problem to confront human civilization to affect all life. One of the predictions of all the peer-reviewed science -- and 99 percent of the peer-review science says we have a serious problem on our hands -- is that we will get more severe weather events, hurricanes being one key example. The number of severe Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has gone from 20 percent of the total to 35 percent. We are getting creamed, and people along the coast are looking at chaos.
HORNER: Yeah, Neil, if I can point something out here. The greens' bible on this thing is the U.N. IPCC report, and they detected no trend in storm developments, severe storm developments. There were only two areas in the world that had any change at all, the Pacific Northwest and the North Atlantic. Well, the North Atlantic happens to bring the most important rain in the world because it abuts New York City and Washington D.C. But the World Meteorological Organization and the U.N. itself does not say what Brent just said they said, and 99 percent of the science does not say what he said.
CAVUTO: Well, you know, I'm not here to debate global warming, gentlemen, and that's an easy area to get sidetracked on. But I think I want to focus, Brent, with you on whether its fair of the former president to essentially say of this president --a Republican -- "See all the storms we are having, your fault." That's a bit extreme isn't it?
BLACKWELDER: Bush has taken us backwards for five straight years, at the time when he really had a mandate to shift our economy to more of a clean-energy basis and set the example for countries like India and China. We are the Saudi Arabia of wind power. We have got in the great plains a wonderful opportunity to produce clean energy, put money in the energy dollars right at home and revitalize rural America, and we are not taking advantage of it. We are letting countries like Denmark lead the way on wind power. We are letting automobile manufacturers like Toyota and Honda take the lead.
[crosstalk]
HORNER: Denmark has changed their mind, for one, and the U.S. is the third-largest producer of wind power. What we are the Saudi Arabia of is coal. We have set the tone for China, India, South Korea, those countries that are free riders, exempt from Clinton's Kyoto that he ran from, as did Bush did rightfully. And the president has created a new policy that China said yes to, India said yes to, and guess what, the European Union replicated it in two separate bilateral agreements. Bush has been proven right. Even by our European friends.
let's hear about the growing glaciers.
that was 30 years when scientists were telling us that the next ice age was going to destroy us.
What we need now is more scientists confirming that Gore and Inconvenient Truth is a bunch of hooie.
Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."
[link to www.canadafreepress.com]
If you don't want to accept what is an obvious scientific consensus, I say go for it. Listen to the handful of scientists who deny GW, then they will quietly take your money and move on. Good luck.
You are perpetuating a common myth about some 1970s speculation regarding climage change:
"...A group of glacial-epoch experts, meeting at Brown University in 1972, reached something close to a consensus. Reviewing the Camp Century ice cores, new foraminifera studies by Emiliani, and other field evidence, the scientists agreed that interglacial periods tended to be short and to end more abruptly than had been supposed. In view of the cooling reported in the Arctic since the 1940s, they suspected we might right now be near the end of the present interglacial period. The majority concluded that the current warm period might possibly end in rapid cooling within the next few hundred years — "a first order environmental hazard."(35)
Bryson, Stephen Schneider, and a few others took the concern to the public. They insisted that the climate we had experienced in the past century or so, mild and equable, was not the only sort of climate the planet knew. For all anyone could say, the next decade might start a plunge into a cataclysmic freeze, drought, or other change unprecedented in recent memory, but not without precedent in the archeological and geological record... While Bryson warned that the increasing pollution of the atmosphere would shade the Earth and bring rapid cooling, this was not the only possibility. The growing realization that small perturbations could trigger sudden climate change also impressed scientists who were growing concerned about the rising level of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide ( CO2). Perhaps that might bring serious global warming and other weather changes within as little as a century or two. .." [link to www.aip.org]
This speculation - not prediction- was picked up by the press and ended up on the front page news as a doomsday scenario: [link to www.realclimate.org] A few years later, Stephen Schneider, for one, realized that his calculations about global cooling were based on an overestimation of the concentration of atmospheric aerosols (tiny particles in the atmosphere), and reversed his position on this. Unfortunately, conservatives skeptics of global warming are still misrepresenting this episode of early climate change research. I'm sure an intelligent person like you realizes that in the early 1970s climate modelling was in its infancy, and there were bound to be some incorrect assumptions, calculations, and predictions. The great thing about science is that has a way of correcting its errors so that, over time, our understanding of natural phenomena improves. So, it is probably wise to put more stock in what scientists are saying today than what they said 3 or 4 decades ago, esp. when the current scientists can provide rational explanations for why their views have evolved.
As for Gore's movie, here is what mainstream climatologists really think (preview: they think he pretty much got the science right):
[link to www.realclimate.org]
As for Bob Carter's views on global warming ([link to members.iinet.net.au] his conclusions seem to be based, in part, on a misinterpretation of the research data: ([link to members.iinet.net.au]
Here's what mainstream climatologists and oceanographers think about global warming and the contribution of human activity to that warming:
[link to www.climatescience.gov] [link to www.sciencemag.org]
I wrote a paper in the 70s and interviewed half a dozen climatologists on the coming ice age.
Here is the 1974 Time Magazine article:
[link to time-proxy.yaga.com]
As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.
Telltale signs are everywhere —from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest.Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F. Although that figure is at best an estimate, it is supported by other convincing data. When Climatologist George J. Kukla of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory and his wife Helena analyzed satellite weather data for the Northern Hemisphere, they found that the area of the ice and snow cover had suddenly increased by 12% in 1971 and the increase has persisted ever since. Areas of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, for example, were once totally free of any snow in summer; now they are covered year round.
---- Scientists today are trying to twist and bend numbers to make it fit their agendas. There is not enough data and evidence to support as drastic a measure as Kyoto.
OK, I did post an incorrect link - the ref. to a critique of Bob Carter's work was the wrong one; it should have been this:
[link to www.realclimate.org]
How else was I wrong, Leatherhelmet? The views I expressed were not my own - they are the views of academic scientists studying global climate (refer to www.realclimate.org - it has a couple of dozen blog entries that discuss and debate the evidence on which global warning predictions are based). If you take issue with their views, how about citing some scientific references from the peer-reviewed literature that back you up? Referring to a 32-year-0ld article from Time that is known to present outdated information isn't very convincing, I'm afraid.
You said you "...wrote a paper in the 70s and interviewed half a dozen climatologists on the coming ice age." OK, which scientists? And what exactly did they say? And what are their positions today (if they are still active in research)?
You wrote, "Scientists today are trying to twist and bend numbers to make it fit their agendas. "
What agenda is that? Most scientists, at least those not beholden to the oil and gas industry, pursue only one agenda - to discover the truth. Why would mainstream scientists want to distort the data and mislead the public? Scientists become famous by making new discoveries, or disproving the findings of others. There is very little incentive to follow the crowd if you don't believe the crowd is correct; their is plenty of incentive to disagree with the mainstream if you think it is wrong. But, the global warming critics have not made a very strong case as of yet. As new research results come in (not just from climatology and oceanography, but from plant and animal ecology, was well), they continually point to global warming, and their is pretty strong evidence that humans are contributing to this. I cited two references on this in my previsous post - if you disagree with those scientists, I would love to know the basis for this.
You wrote: "There is not enough data and evidence to support as drastic a measure as Kyoto." Perhaps. But, the efforts to curb global emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases can be viewed as a type of "homeowner's" insurance policy for planet earth. Yes, reducing our emissions might be costly in the short term, but not necessarily in the long term. And if the scientists (and Al Gore) warning about global turn out to be correct, the consequences of not curbing emissions of greenhouse gases and switching to alternative fuel sources could be disastrous for everyone. Surely you have car insurance, and possibly homeowner's insurance and life insurance, and realize that the premiums you pay could save you, or your dependents, a lot of money should you have an accident, or die. If our government chooses to reject international treaties like the Kyoto Accords, it does so at the country's peril. I probably won't be around to see the consequences, so it doesn't really matter to me. But, I feel sorry for those people who will be affected.
let's have the names of those climatologists. and the thing with the time article is there could have been a cooling trend starting but global warming as a man made condition was not widely discussed or accepted in the 70's. that cooling trend could easily have been overwhelmed by pollution fed warming. we always hear the wingnut arguments about natural cycles. hey we know that, we accept the science. but we don't pick and choose our science which is what your side does. if the majority of scientists came out tomorrow and said don't worry about global warming, we wouldn't. but we're not the side that's in constant denial and we refuse to accept the "science" of people who are paid by those who have a vested interest in the continuing sale of fossil fuels. one of the first things ronald reagan did was remove the solar collecters that jimmy carter installed on the roof of the white house. nothing like sending a message.
Leatherhelmet, In your first post, you wrote:
"What we need now is more scientists confirming that Gore and Inconvenient Truth is a bunch of hooie. "
Clearly, you have an agenda, and it isn't finding the truth - so, what is it? Why don't you come clean?
Again, the Time article you cite and the text you quote is woefully out of date. If you want to read something a bit more current, try this post at RealClimate.org:
14 Jan 2005 The global cooling myth [link to www.realclimate.org]
The author, William M. Connolley is a climate modeller with the British Antarctic Survey. ([link to www.realclimate.org] [link to www.antarctica.ac.uk]
Plato
Dogma is a peremptory-formulated statement of a religious or philosophical doctrine that is proposed for belief, not for discussion. As dogmas are emitted by an "Authority", they are considered compulsive statements. Thus, Dogmatism is a system of ideas that is based on assertions, which have not been scientifically validated.
When the religion was managing science, the world was plagued with aberrant and unreal beliefs. All of the scientific premises had to be studied and sanctioned by clergymen, in such way that if the knowledge was not supported by the Bible, then it was considered a heresy.
Some examples of it are: The Earth is flat; the Earth is the center of the solar system; stars, Sun and planets rotate around the Earth; etc.History features thousands of the science martyrs, who were executed by saying things contrary to DOGMA, accused of witchcraft and heresy and condemned to death.
[link to biocab.org]
Today, DOGMA is promoted by financial interests and "Authority" funded by profiteers of the status quo. Today's DOGMA still features "ideas" based only on assertions not scientifically validated, and the persecution of scientists who dare challenge "Authority".
Leatherhelmet: PROUD member of the dogmatic flat-earthers, closed to scientific evidence and ready to execute heretics. The difference between ignorance and arogance? The flat earther responds, "I don't know, and I don't care!"
What is your science background?
LeatherHelmet,
I've seen that same article being spread by every single right-winger trying to deny global warming, but you should always check the source.
The "High Park Group" is a PR firm paid by the Canadian electric companies to deny global warming is happening.
Tom Harris, the man who wrote that article, complains in the article about non-climate experts making predictions, when his own backround is as a mechanical engineer, not in the field of climate change.
I'm not saying we all need to panic about global warming, but let's at least start with unbiased facts, not paid articles posted by PR firms working for the electrical industry.
lets hear it for the wise senators
Those smart senators with all their scientific knowledge and nonconflicted interests. Yay democracy, goooooooooooooo Republicans!
Seriously, if the Republicans are going to be relevant in more than a decade, they need to stop being against science on every single issue. Of course the repubs being wrong on things hasn't stopped 'em in the past.
I've held back my opinions on global warming, to a point, over the last few years.
There are so many sources fighting it that it's hard to really tell the reliable sources from the shills.
I only recently,last year or so, have had the chance to read more in-depth stuff, and check the backing of some "experts" who have dismissed a lot of the facts.
My point is, I don't think I'm stupid, but this issue has such power preventing the truth on it that it took me a while to really get a grip on a lot of it.
Normally, Rushbo the Oxymoron giggling at something and calling it ridiculous is enough to convince me it's true, but these are issues that take some fundamental grasp of science, or at least the logic of the physical world.
I hope the research is supported enough that even corporate media can't ignore it, and I want to be optimistic, but I have to admit I'm not confident.
What are the latest figures on the percentage of people, in the wealthiest, most technologically advanced nation on Earth,who understand evolution?
Like I heard George Carlin mention a while back, some survey showed that more Americans believe in angels than natural origins of life.
Global warming, and the changes needed to combat its effects,are going to be a tough one. Good luck to us all.
pointed out that 12 of the 15 "dirtiest" urban areas (from an air quality standpoint) are in China and India, two countries that I believe would have been exempted from Kyoto. Those economies are growing exponentially, while much of the rest of the industrial world is relatively stagnant. Sure, this doesn't directly address the "Global Warming," which is being blamed largely on greenhouse gases caused by burning fossil fuel, the US being the biggest consumer of such fuels. But then, the world has been warming since the last Ice Age, so some of the impact must be coming from sources that man has no control over. Can we halt "Global Warming" or merely delay the consequences?
Cavuto: "Six years to cause all these hurricanes? "..."See all the storms we are having, your fault. [Bush]"
How can you have a discussion with someone that litters his conversation with misstatements and overdramatizations? Who said that all these hurricanes have been caused by Bush?
hurricanes decrease in intensity in the next six years does this mean global warming is over?
This whole analogy to hurricane intensity is incredibly stupid. It is too short of a time period to draw any conclusions whatsoever.
makes you think that we're going to have less intense hurricanes? it's getting kind of late to still be having these let's wait and see what happens arguments, which the wingnuts have been promoting for at least 15 years. the prediction was that global warming would bring more and intense storms. we're right on schedule. your projections of less storms are illogical.
With 95 senators passing the Byrd-Hagel resolution (95 for, 0 against), weren't the Republicans accurate in telling Clinton that the Kyoto proposal, which did not meet the resolution's standards, would not obtain Senate approval?
Since nobody voted against the Byrd-Hagel resolution, it follows that no Democrats voted against it either.
Sometimes, the majority is wrong. We'll see what happens.
Plato
Friends of the Earth's President is Brent Blackwelder, not Brent Blackwell.
Regards, Tom Gray American Wind Energy Association www.awea.org www.ifnotwind.org
Perhaps the saddest thing about how Fakenews and their ilk lie about everything is WHY they lie.
They KNOW GW is real. They KNOW they are lying and that their guests are lying.
Are they that filled with hate against anyone who dares to question them that they don't give a damn about their own children's future?
That man is helping to push GW at a faster rate is undeniable, yet they continue to lie and lie and lie about it. That almost all of them get their funding from oil and other corporate entities means nothing to the GOP shills who are less interested in the truth than they are in beating back people from taking control.
So who wins if their lies convince people to just sit back and do nothing?
What is the end result?
They win and our children lose?
Wow..I am so impressed.........................................not.
Here is want i want to know---how will people drown as a result of global warming? (RE: beck's shanghai comment, cities underwater, etc.)
Seems as though the sea level will slowly rise over years and years.
Why wouldn't people just move?
Or will global warming bring tons of sudden tsunami's.
Well, I suppose it is pretty easy to move people. But, it is not so easy to move entire cities, or countries. For example, what do you do with Manhattan Island? Where do the people go? What about the buildings? The infrastructure? And what about low lying islands, and island countries (e.g., in the South Pacific, and the Bahamas) that will be nearly, or completely submerged? When the last ice age ended (10-20,000 years ago, depending on the location), humans, other animals, and plants adapted to the rising sea level. But, they did so over thousands of years. The changes predicted to occur due to anthropogenic global warming will occur over a few hundred years, or less. Many U.S. coastal areas are now struggling to deal with rising sea level that is overwhelming beaches and beach-front property - this will only get worse in the coming decades, and the economic cost will be truly staggering.
Plato
How many neocon millionaire$ are buying land just a little in from the coasts on what might become beachfront property given a rise of a few feet in the sea level...
More seriously, do they think that because they're wealthy they can buy their way out of any difficulties? How does their attitude relate to the lack of rebuilding Katrina and unequal response to Katrina? Are they building up to s0me claim that the Democrats have ignored global warming? What's going on?
We keep hearing from global warming skeptics (much as we do from those who are skeptical of evolution) that scientists are somehow tied to a political or personal agenda that prevents them from being objective; hence, their scientific opinion that anthropogenic global warming (or evolution) is real is somehow evidence that they have drunk the proverbial kool-aid, or are simply dishonest. Leatherhelmet hass posted similar comments on this thread. I have yet to figure out what ulterior motive(s) might drive a scientist to pursue a mission of misinformation or denial of the available facts. Certainly, most non-industry scientists don't make much money (a typical academic scientist probably makes less than $100,000, some considerably less), so greed is probably not an explanation for a belief that the scientific data point to anthropogenic global warming (or evolution). Research grants are given to scientists who propose novel and important work, not to scientists who merely want to jump on some bandwagon. Besides, research grants merely provide money to conduct research and publish the results - scientists get very little, if any, monetary benefits (they may be able to buy time away from teaching, or collect a couple months' of summer salary), and the grant money is allocated by the university. No, most scientists are driven by the urge to discover something new, to fit a couple of pieces in the giant jigsaw puzzle of human knowledge.
Below is a link to a profile of Dr. Stephen H. Schneider (Stanford University), one of the U.S.'s most respected climatologists and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences ; the profile was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Nov. 1, 2005), one of the world's premier scientific journals. For those global warming skeptics, I defy you to read this profile and come back to this thread and tell us that Dr. Schneider's research and publications on global warming are in pursuit of any agenda other than the discovery of the truth. Profile of Dr. Stephen H. Schneider [link to www.pnas.org]
To read Dr. Schneider's views in his own words, here is a link to an article he authored in the same issue of PNAS: [link to www.pnas.org]
Plato