Dems, GOP argue over global warming

The Record (Hackensack, N.J.)

HACKENSACK, N.J. — A day after President Barack Obama called on Congress to pass cap and trade legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Republicans and Democrats on a key Senate committee argued over the merits of the latest research about global warming.

They sparred about whether science indicates carbon dioxide emissions are growing faster than predicted and the impact of global warming on America.

“Many of the latest findings suggest that the situation is more urgent than previously stated,” Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who is chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said during a hearing Wednesday in Washington. “The science makes it clear that we must not wait any longer to get started.”

Republicans on the committee, such as Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, argued that scientific thinking is constantly changing. He pointed to studies that indicate volcanic eruptions might be as much a factor as anything else. A national cap-and-trade program “could be an outdated solution,” Barrasso said.

A cap-and-trade program would create limits on industry emissions. Companies that reduce emissions could sell unused emission rights to those that exceed limits.

The Senate committee heard from a panel of scientists who summarized the latest research on global warming and its potential impact — including the rise in sea level that could affect coastal states.

If greenhouse gases cause global temperature to rise by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the sea level could rise along the East Coast of the United States by as much as 4 or 5 feet, said Christopher Field, director of the department of global ecology at Stanford University. Extreme weather, such as storms, flooding and heat waves would occur more frequently, the scientists said.

Oklahoma Sen. James M. Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the committee, dismissed those presentations as “speculative computer model predictions” about “man’s supposed effect on his climate.”

Inhofe said there was a “growing body of scientific studies and scientists who are openly rebelling against the so-called ‘consensus.’”

William Happer, a physics professor at Princeton University who supervised the Department of Energy’s work on climate change from 1990 to 1993, said the “increase of CO2 is not a cause for alarm.” Carbon dioxide “is not a pollutant and it is not a poison,” Happer said. “Our exhaled breath contains about 4 percent CO2, or about 100 times the current atmospheric concentration. CO2 is absolutely essential for life on Earth.”

He said man’s primate ancestors evolved when carbon dioxide levels were 1,000 parts per million — well above the current 380 parts per million.

When asked by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., if he disputed the consensus of scientists about the existence and impacts of global warming, Happer argued that “consensus has often been wrong.”