Global Warming Debate Heats Up Senate Committee Hearing
    By Frank Davies
    San Jose Mercury News

    Wednesday 06 December 2006

    Washington - The senators and their witnesses argued about "pitiful polar bears," whether Al Gore was using global warming to run for president and even something substantive - the risks of climate change and what should be done about it.

    But the purpose of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing Wednesday was to examine this burning question: Is a sensation-seeking media hyping the threat of global warming?

    The result was prime political theater. An outgoing Republican chairman attacked "alarmism and bias" by the media while Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who becomes chairman next month, promised a new agenda to tackle climate change.

    Sen. James Inhofe, in his swan song as chairman, produced posters and charts he said showed "a biased media that has become an advocate." The Oklahoma Republican railed at Time magazine and Tom Brokaw's report on the Discovery Channel. He derided the New York Times for reporting 30 years ago that global cooling may be on the way.

    Boxer, clearly exasperated, retaliated with poster boards of blown-up quotes on the threat of climate change from Business Week, the Financial Times and - just to rub it in - the Tulsa World from Inhofe's home state.

    "It's really sad that we're arguing over who to believe rather than solving the problem," Boxer said. "Attacking the press doesn't make the truth go away."

    But the Congress and the committee are about to undergo their own severe climate change, with Democrats taking over Jan. 4.

    Boxer pledged in-depth hearings on global warming, and a push to restrict carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change, with a focus on what California has done with its regulations.

    "We'll spend weeks on hearings," bringing in industry representatives, scientists, state officials and faith-based groups, she told reporters after the hearing. She also created two new subcommittees to deal with global warming issues.

    Boxer and Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., grew impatient as witnesses called by Inhofe blasted press coverage of the issue, but they also knew it was something of a last hurrah for the GOP leadership.

    "These chairs are going to shift very soon," Lautenberg said, gesturing toward committee Republicans. "Great change is coming."

    State Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, visiting Washington to promote the state's emission regulations, called Inhofe's hearing an example of "extremist views that don't have too much power these days."

    Viewing the change in Congress, Nunez said, "It seems to me the world is a different place now."

    The hearing demonstrated anew how global warming has become an emotional, politically charged issue. When Lautenberg lamented the melting of polar ice, with "the mighty polar bears pathetically foraging for food," Inhofe shot back: "We can look at pictures of pitiful polar bears later."

    Inhofe also dismissed Al Gore's documentary on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth." Gore "clearly thinks that global warming is his ticket to the White House," he said.

    As chairman, Inhofe brought in three of the five witnesses. David Deming, a geophysicist from the University of Oklahoma, said the cause of climatic warming is unknown, and that warming was "likely to be beneficial to humanity."

    Deming said that media reports on climate change had "bloomed into irrational hysteria," linking every natural disaster to warming trends.

    R.M. Carter, a marine scientist from Australia, testified that "alarmist stories sell newspapers" and accused many reporters of "failing to translate the uncertainty of science."

    Carter also criticized Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for his recent statement that "the science is in, we know the facts, there's not any more debate as to global warming or not."

    "The governor is deluding himself, because the science of climate change has never been more uncertain," Carter said.

    Two witnesses called by Democrats countered that the scientific consensus is overwhelming that greenhouse gases produced by human activity are an increasing threat to the globe.

    Naomi Oreskes, a science historian at the University of California at San Diego, said she studied 928 scientific reports and papers and "not one paper in the random sample disagreed with the consensus position about the reality of global warming and its human causes."

    Oreskes and Daniel Schrag, a Harvard scientist, said climate change had been politicized by the Bush administration, with government scientists barred from mentioning global warming in some of their reports.

    Schrag also said that many media reports on the issue present it "as a debate between 'believers' and 'skeptics'," without evaluating the credentials of those who try to debunk the impact of climate change.

    The uncertainty over specific predictions of future climate change, Schrag said, "does not cast a shadow on science." He said the best evidence that climate change is a real threat is that many businesses and the insurance industry are taking it seriously.

    Schrag added: "I'd like to ask the climate skeptics this question: Do you really expect us to gamble our planet, or entire way of life, on your arguments that climate change will be gentle on our society?"