DOI Secretary Sally Jewell told employees today that combatting climate change is a “privilege” and “moral imperative,” adding: “I hope there are no climate change deniers in the Department of Interior,” E&E News PM (subscription required) reports.
Such moralizing would be funny were it not for the chilling effect it is bound to have in an agency already mired in group think.
What does she mean by “denier” anyway? Is it literally someone who denies that greenhouse gas emissions have a greenhouse (warming) effect? Or is a “denier” merely someone who thinks climate change is not a ”crisis,” or who regards the usual panoply of climate policies — carbon taxes, cap-and-trade, other market-rigging interventions – as a ‘cure’ worse than the alleged disease?
In recent testimony before House Energy and Commerce, University of Alabama in Huntsville climatologist Roy Spencer unhesitatingly included himself among the alleged 97% of scientists who BELIEVE. He explained:
It should also be noted that the fact that I believe at least some of recent warming is human-caused places me in the 97% of researchers recently claimed to support the global warming consensus (actually, it’s 97% of the published papers, Cook et al., 2013). The 97% statement is therefore rather innocuous, since it probably includes all of the global warming “skeptics” I know of who are actively working in the field. Skeptics generally are skeptical of the view that recent warming is all human-caused, and/or that it is of a sufficient magnitude to warrant immediate action given the cost of energy policies to the poor. They do not claim humans have no impact on climate whatsoever.Would Spencer, who challenges the climate sensitivity assumptions underpinning the global warming scare, be welcome at DOI? Not a chance on Jewell’s watch.
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