Marc Morano sent word around this afternoon on Will Happer’s testimony today; the Marshall Institute write-up is below.
I particularly appreciate the parallel Dr. Happer draws between the global-warming climat-change industry and organized crime.
Marshall Institute Chairman Will Happer, Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton University, appeared before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on February 25, 2009 to deliver testimony on the state of climate science.
Comparing the current discourse over climate change to the era of preceding Prohibition, Happer told the Senate committee that desire to do the “right thing” should not precede clear facts that action is required. He said: “Deeply sincere people thought they were saving humanity from the evils of alcohol, just as many people now sincerely think they are saving humanity from the evils of CO2. Prohibition was a mistake, and our country has probably still not fully recovered from the damage it did. Institutions like organized crime got their start in that era. Drastic limitations on CO2 are likely to damage our country in analogous ways.”
Happer’s statement summarizes his views on the current state of climate science, concluding that there is little basis for the “frightening scenarios” of the future. In particular he noted that: “Since most of the greenhouse effect for the earth is due to water vapor and clouds, added CO2 must substantially increase water’s contribution to lead to the frightening scenarios that are bandied about. The buzz word here is that there is ‘positive feedback.’ With each passing year, experimental observations further undermine the claim of a large positive feedback from water. In fact, observations suggest that the feedback is close to zero and may even be negative.”
Temperature trends also do not appear to conform to the expectations of climate models or global warming theory. Happer states: “… the current warming period began about 1800 at the end of the little ice age, long before there was an appreciable increase of CO2. There have been similar and even larger warmings several times in the 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age. These earlier warmings clearly had nothing to do with the combustion of fossil fuels. The current warming also seems to be due mostly to natural causes, not to increasing levels of carbon dioxide. Over the past ten years there has been no global warming, and in fact a slight cooling. This is not at all what was predicted by the IPCC models.”‘
He also notes the dangers of transforming science into a consensus driven exercise. He said: “… What is correct in science is not determined by consensus but by experiment and observations,” noting that consensus beliefs are oftentimes wrong.
Reflecting on Happer’s remarks, Institute CEO William O’Keefe observed: “Dr. Happer’s remarks remind us about the dangers of propaganda and the consequences of censuring debate. Not only are they corrosive to science, but also to the basic values of liberty.”
Dr. Happer’s statement is available at http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/629.pdf.