Washington, D.C.-On December 15, the American Geophysical Union released a statement on climate change that raised serious questions about the Kyoto Protocol and similar measures being pushed in Congress. As the AGU wrote, “AGU believes that no single threshold level of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere exists at which the beginning of dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system can be defined.” The issue of “stabilization” is fundamental to the policy debate over global warming. Determining a “safe” level of man-made emissions is the goal of command-and-control global warming policies. Yet without a scientific definition, or a quantitative assessment, of what stabilization means, Kyoto’s emissions targets, and those called for in the McCain-Lieberman bill, are totally arbitrary. This is exactly what President Bush said in 2001: “Kyoto is, in many ways, unrealistic. Many countries cannot meet their Kyoto targets. The targets themselves were arbitrary and not based upon science.” “The AGU statement raises a very troubling question for global warming alarmists,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. “Why reduce global emissions 5 percent below 1990 levels? What is the scientific foundation of that target? Why, as some have called for, do we need to make reductions that go beyond Kyoto? How do know that level will solve the “problem” of global warming? According to the AGU, we can’t.” “The AGU statement provides more evidence, emerging all the time, that the catastrophic theory of global warming, and policies designed to combat it, are not based on objective science,” Inhofe continued. “With much of the country gripped in a blistering cold spell, I hope cooler heads will prevail over fear and heated rhetoric, and bring the best science to guide policymaking on climate change.” --###--