December 10, 2006

Contact: Marc Morano (Marc_Morano@epw.senate.gov ), Matt Dempsey (Matthew_Dempsey@epw.senate.gov )

WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Chairman of the Environment & Public Works Committee, commented on today’s article in the UK Telegraph titled “UN Downgrades Man’s Impact on the Climate.” The Telegraph reported that a draft of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) upcoming fourth assessment has lowered mankind’s estimated impact on the Earth’s climate by 25 percent and scaled back sea level rise upper estimates by nearly half since the last IPCC report in 2001. The news comes as Senator Inhofe and his wife return to Tulsa, Oklahoma to be with their children and twenty grandchildren for Christmas, just in time to enjoy two consecutive days of all-time record low temperatures.

“We are all skeptics now. It appears that the UN is now acknowledging what an increasing number of scientists who study the climate have come to realize: Predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming are simply unsustainable,” Senator Inhofe said.

The upcoming UN IPCC assessment is reported to ‘halve its predictions for sea-level rise by 2100,’ according to the Telegraph article. The UN’s lowering of mankind’s impact on the climate is reportedly because of “a refinement due to better data on how climate works.”

“It is remarkable that sea level rise upper estimates have been cut nearly in half since the last IPCC assessment in 2001, because of scientific ‘refinement due to better data.’ Climate science is always going through these ‘refinements.’ The erroneous prediction of a coming ice age in the 1970’s also faded away due to ‘a refinement due to better data,’” Senator Inhofe said. “As I detailed in my Senate floor speech on September 25, the media has alternated between four separate global cooling and warming scares since 1895. Each climate scare eventually faded away due to similar ‘refinements due to better data.’”

“Even the UN appears to now be sobering up and dousing much needed cold water on the global warming alarmism promoted by much of the mainstream media, Hollywood, NASA scientist James Hansen and former Vice President Al Gore. News that global warming alarmism is more hype than fact should not surprise those who viewed my committee’s “Climate Change and the Media” hearing last week or read the EPW’s new publicly released ‘Skeptics Guide to Debunking Global Warming Alarmism,’” Senator Inhofe added. (For more info on ‘Skeptic’s Guide’ go to: https://www.epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=266711 )

“As Chairman of the Environment & Public Works Committee, I have given over 10 climate change speeches and held four full committee hearings examining the global warming issue since 2003. After several decades of climate hype, the UN appears to finally be conceding that previous estimates of climatic doom have been over-hyped and the science was simply not there to project these frightening ‘extreme scenarios,’” Senator Inhofe added.

“Eventually, even the peddlars of climate alarmism will have to concede that the hoopla over manmade catastrophic global warming and the proposed solutions like the costly and ineffective Kyoto Protocol, will prove to be one of the history's most misguided concerns-- joining the 1970's coming ice age fears, overpopulation and famines scares -- to name just a few.

This news from the UN will not be greeted warmly by advocates of climatic doom. One can almost imagine the grieving faces of the Hollywood celebrities and environmentalists as they hear the new UN climate assessment and realize that they are way outside the ‘consensus’ on manmade global warming. With the continued scientific demise of manmade catastrophic global warming fears, the environmentalists and publicity and grant seeking scientists and many in the media, may now have to find another dubious environmental doomsday cause to scare the public and policy makers,” Senator Inhofe concluded.

Growing skepticism in 2006 that human C02 emissions are creating a “climate catastrophe” caps a year in which numerous scientific studies have bolstered the claims of climate skeptics and are shattering the media-promoted scientific “consensus” on climate alarmism. See: (https://www.epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264777)

In September, renowned French geophysicists and Socialist Party member Claude Allegre, converted from a believer in manmade catastrophic global warming to a climate skeptic. In addition, famed UK environmental campaigner David Bellamy has recently converted to climate skeptic, calling fears of manmade climate change ‘poppycock.’

In April of this year, 60 prominent scientists wrote to the Canadian Prime Minister declaring that “Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future…Significant [scientific] advances have been made since the [Kyoto] protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.” See: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=3711460e-bd5a-475d-a6be-4db87559d605

Related Links:

For a comprehensive review of the media’s embarrassing 100-year history of alternating between promoting fears of a coming ice age and global warming, see Environment & Public Works Chairman James Inhofe’s September 25, 2006 Senate floor speech debunking the media and climate alarmism. Go to: (https://www.epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759 )

12/08/2006 - SENATOR INHOFE ANNOUNCES PUBLIC RELEASE OF “SKEPTIC’S GUIDE TO DEBUNKING GLOBAL WARMING” (https://www.epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=266711 )

Related Links:

12/06/2006 - Inhofe Says Global Warming Media Hearing Exposed Alarmist Media (https://www.epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=266540)

10/17/2006 - Renowned Scientist Defects From Belief in Global Warming – Caps Year of Vindication for Skeptics (https://www.epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264777)

10/30/2006 - “I Don’t Like The Word ‘Balance’’- Says ABC News Global Warming Reporter (https://www.epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=265464)

10/24/2006 - Senator Inhofe Credited For Prompting Newsweek Admission of Error on 70's Predictions of Coming Ice Age - In Case You Missed It.... (https://www.epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=265087 )

09/25/2006 – Senator Inhofe Speech: “Hot & Cold Media Spin: A Challenge To Journalists Who Cover Global Warming” (https://www.epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759)