An Open Letter to Sen. Tim Kaine

Dear Sen. Kaine,

You recently sent me an unsolicited email regarding transparency for oil and gas companies to which I feel obliged to respond. It starts,

Dear Friend,

Climate change is a pressing challenge for low-lying coastal areas of Virginia and for the world. We can discuss and debate the solutions…

We can debate the solutions, but not the evidence? This has become a hallmark of the agenda so aggressively pursued by you and the previous administration — not only a complete unwillingness to debate the evidence supporting or not supporting the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), but expending great effort to stifle any such debate, including the threat of prosecution for anyone who dares to suggest that the hypothesis of AGW is not well-supported by observations.

…but our country’s chief diplomat should be able to acknowledge the basic reality agreed upon by the world’s preeminent scientists, our country’s military leaders, and Pope Francis: climate change is real, it is caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, and we must do something about it.

Yes, Sen. Kaine, climate change is real. The planet is subject to many periodic oscillations between warmer and cooler temperatures, ranging from decade-long to million-year long periods. But the basic reality that you and the previous administration have denied is that these oscillations and other mechanisms affecting changes in climate are only partially understood, and models predicting future climate change have not proven accurate. Many preeminent scientists do not support the hypothesis of AGW, and your refusal to accept any debate on the issue has led to policy-based science, rather than science-based policy.

When former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his confirmation hearing to be Secretary of State, I asked him point-blank whether his former company has funded or continues to fund climate denial efforts…

I’m going to assume that “climate denial efforts” is your shorthand for any research that doesn’t support the hypothesis of AGW. This is the real tragedy of the previous administration’s preoccupation with AGW for a political agenda — resources have been diverted away from legitimate climate research that could actually save lives.

…despite its own internal awareness of the reality of climate change, as numerous reports have described.

Mr. Tillerson refused to answer my question.

With rising sea levels threatening our military and communities in Hampton Roads…

I have a question for you, Sen. Kaine — what is the rate of sea level rise at Hampton Roads, and has that rate accelerated as atmospheric CO2 has increased? Sea level data at Baltimore MD shows mean sea level rising at a rate of one foot every 100 years, with no increase in that rate even as atmospheric CO2 has increased:

http://www.sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=8574680

…and the President threatening to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, I was troubled by Mr. Tillerson’s refusal to answer my question or agree with the overwhelming scientific consensus on the causes of climate change. For that reason and others, I voted against his confirmation on Wednesday.

Studies show that the US contribution to the Paris Climate Agreement would only result in a temperature reduction of 0.03 degrees Celsius, at a reported cost of up to 176 billion dollars annually. There is no overwhelming scientific consensus on the causes of climate change, so what the Paris Climate Agreement really amounts to — an agreement which was not a treaty ratified by the US Senate, as you know — is a payment of billions of dollars from US taxpayers for no discernible benefit.

On Thursday, Senate Republicans voted to scrap a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that energy companies disclose their payments to foreign governments. I voted against this, and I was troubled by the appearance of confirming the world’s foremost oilman to our country’s top diplomatic position, then the very next day voting to make the oil and gas industry less transparent.

You can watch my speech opposing the elimination of the SEC transparency rule here.

Sincerely,

Senator Tim Kaine

The question over whether energy companies — or any other company — should disclose payments to foreign governments is a valid one, and I encourage debate on that policy issue. But linking that debate to “climate change” — and let’s be honest, that was the real intention behind your email, wasn’t it — is a disservice to your constituents.

Sincerely,

Dan Grogan

Two Plus Two

Recently Phillip Muller, foreign minister of the Marshall Islands, published an op-ed commentary about climate change and the current state of affairs in his South Pacific islands. My heart goes out to Mr. Muller and the citizens of those islands; famine and disease are scourges that no population in the 21st century should have to suffer through, and I applaud the humanitarian aid provided by the U.S., Australia, and other countries and organizations to alleviate their hardship. However, the cause he assigns to this adversity — man-made climate change — perpetuates a myth that is diverting resources away from legitimate climate science and causing undue economic harm.

In the 1970’s, researchers and academicians were not reasonably observing any climate changes beyond those which were typical, though little understood. What they were observing was an inordinate disparity in the standard of living between developed countries and developing countries. There are two approaches to resolving this inequity; some may choose to work to raise the standard of living in developing countries through commercial investment, application of technology, or humanitarian aid. Many in academia, though, believed in the opposite approach — lowering the standard of living in the developed countries. Their justification for this was a belief that the developed countries were exploitive, that their consumption was excessive, that their use of energy and materials was wasteful, and that air and water pollution resulting from all of this excess was choking the life out of the planet.

There is no doubt that many pollutants are harmful to the affected ecosystems or populations, and industries, working together with government agencies, made tremendous strides in the ensuing decades to reduce harmful pollutants in the environment. However, because much of this improvement was coming about through better technology or processes, and not through reduced production or consumption, the academicians who wanted to lower the standard of living in developed countries were not achieving their goals; and so the fiction of man-made climate change was pushed to center stage.

Contrary to what the current administration and most of the mainstream media would have you believe, here are a few points to consider:

• sea levels began rising dramatically at the end of the last ice age about 15,000 years ago, but have slowed considerably in the last 7,000 years, essentially leveling off;
  

  This image by Robert A. Rohde / Global Warming Art is licensed under CC BY SA 2.5

• there’s been no change in sea level along the U.S. Pacific Coast, and according to this paper by Professor Nils-Axel Mörner no change in sea level in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, or at Tuvalu and Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean;
  

  Image retrieved from CU Sea Level Research Group. The CC license does not apply to this image.

• Arctic ice extent is at or above normal this year;
  

  Image retrieved from Steven Goddard / Real Science. The CC license does not apply to this image.

• models used to predict catastrophic man-made climate change just aren’t matching up with observations;
  

  Image retrieved from Anthony Watts / Watts Up With That. The CC license does not apply to this image.

The current administration is determined to sustain this delusion though. Recently the National Research Council guided the development of the Next Generation Science Standards, and according to the new elementary school standards “Human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (global warming).” In states where these standards are adopted, another generation of school children will be led to believe that man-made climate change is a fact, as sure as two plus two equals four.

A War on Climate Science

Policymakers and the media tell us that extreme weather was worse in 2012. But according to the National Weather Service, tornado activity in 2012 was “among some of the least active years in the past 60 years.”(Carbin, 2012) Major hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin was less than normal, with no Category 4 or 5 hurricanes forming in 2012, according to the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University. And 2012 doesn’t even rank in the top ten for number of days above 100 degrees:

Image retrieved from Steven Goddard / Real Science. The CC license does not apply to this image.

Policymakers and the media tell us that increases in atmospheric CO₂ will lead to global warming, but a recent study highlighted by Watts Up With That concludes there is no statistical evidence this is happening. Policymakers and the media tell us that burning fossil fuels will lead to more and stronger hurricanes, but one of the leading researchers of tropical weather concludes otherwise:

Our hurricane research extending over many years indicates that Atlantic hurricane variability is driven almost exclusively by natural changes. The potential influence of human‐induced CO2 increase on Atlantic hurricane frequency and intensity is likely to be negligible. As extensive and tragic as Sandy’s 2012 destruction has been, it and other destructive hurricanes in recent decades are not beyond the range of what is known to be the natural variability of the atmospheric‐ocean system. What is more amazing than Sandy’s tragic and extremely damaging flooding, at least from an intellectual point‐of‐view, is the number of knowledgeable people and prominent government and private citizens who have concluded that Sandy’s destruction was largely the result of human‐induced climate change resulting from our over‐abundant use of fossil fuels. Our analysis of Atlantic hurricane activity variations over the last century does not support such a conclusion.(Gray & Klotzbach, 2012)

And I’m wondering, why? What motivates policymakers, the media, and others to perpetuate the myth of anthropogenic global warming (AGW)?

One motivation is certainly the advancement of an anti-coal agenda. If policymakers were serious about an AGW crisis, they would be proposing more stringent regulations for both agriculture and suburban development. Why is there no Federal outcry over these supposed contributors to global warming? Because solving a problem that doesn’t even exist has never been the goal. The goal has always been regulating the coal industry into oblivion. What’s so insidious about this is that they don’t even have to actually enact the regulations (which may not stand up under the scrutiny of the judicial system anyway). Just the threat of regulations is enough to keep utilities from investing in coal-fired electrical generation. Returns on investment in the utility industry aren’t high enough to support the added risk of potential cost escalation or out-and-out loss of investment.

A preoccupation with anthropogenic global warming for a political agenda, despite all evidence to the contrary, diverts resources — time and money — away from more important climate research. Improving both short-term weather and long-term climate prediction models would have great value, not only in dollars saved, but in lives saved. Current policymakers’ insistence on AGW as a call for alarm isn’t just a war on coal; it’s a war on legitimate climate science itself.

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Carbin, G. NOAA, NWS. (2012). United States tornadoes of 2012. Retrieved from website: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/2012/2012-NOAA-NWS-tornado-facts.pdf

Gray, W., & Klotzbach, P. (2012). U.S. hurricane damage – can rising levels of CO₂ be associated with Sandy’s massive destruction? Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO. Retrieved from http://hurricane.atmos.colostate.edu/Includes/Documents/Publications/grayklotzbach2012.pdf