Watch this video. It’s encouraging to see a Republican politician take a risk, saying climate change is a serious problem and the US needs to become a leader in innovating solutions.
Yesterday morning, at a House subcommittee hearing on climate change, outgoing Republican representative Bob Inglis challenged his Republican colleagues to stop mocking scientists, get busy tackling climate change, and put the US in a leadership position on innovating solutions.
From Think Progress
A ThinkProgress analysis found that 50 percent of the incoming freshman GOP class deny the existence of manmade climate change, while a shocking 86 percent are opposed to any legislation to address climate change that increases government revenue. Meanwhile, all of the Republicans vying to chair the House Energy Committee — which handles climate and energy issues — in the new Congress are climate change deniers. They include Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), who infamously apologized to BP shortly after the company’s catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico this summer.
Here’s the transcript of Rep. Bob Inglis remarks, to the House subcommittee hearing on climate change
I’m very excited to be here Mr. Chairman, because this is on the record. And it’s a wonderful thing about Congressional hearings — they’re on the record. Kim Beaszley who’s Australia’s ambassador to the United States tells me that when he runs into a climate skeptic, he says to them, “Make sure to say that very publicly, because I want our grandchildren to read what you said and what I said. And so, we’re on the record, and our grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, are going to read. And so some are here suggesting to those children that here’s a deal: Your child is sick — this is what Tom Friedman gave me this great analogy yesterday — Your child is sick. 98 doctors say treat him this way. Two say no, this other way is the way to go. I’ll go with the two. You’re taking a big risk with those kids. Because 98 of the doctors say, “Do this thing,” two say, “Do the other.” So, it’s on the record.
And we’re here with important decision to be made. And I would also suggest to my Free Enterprise colleagues — especially conservatives here — whether you think it’s all a bunch of hooey, what we’ve talked about in this committee, the Chinese don’t. And they plan on eating our lunch in this next century. They plan on innovating around these problems, and selling to us, and the rest of the world, the technology that’ll lead the 21st century. So we may just press the pause button here for several years, but China is pressing the fast-forward button. And as a result, if we wake up in several years and we say, “geez, this didn’t work very well for us. The two doctors didn’t turn out to be so right. 98 might have been the ones to listen to.” then what we’ll find is we’re way behind those Chinese folks. ‘Cuz you know, if you got a certain number of geniuses in the population — if you’re one in a million in China, there’s 1300 of you. And you know what?
They plan on leading the future. So whether you — if you’re a free enterprise conservative here — just think: it’s a bunch of hooey, this science is a bunch of hooey. But if you miss the commercial opportunity, you’ve really missed something. And so, I think it’s great to be here on the record. I think it’s great to see the opportunity we’ve got ahead of us. And, I also — since this is sort of a swan song for me and Mr. Barrett I’d encourage scientists who are listening out there to get ready for the hearings that are coming up in the next Congress. Those will be difficult hearings for climate scientists. But, I would encourage you to welcome those as fabulous opportunities to teach.
Rick Dobbs says:
hello?
Rick Dobbs says:
I don’t agree that there are actually that many scientists qualified to comment on anthropogenic climate change. There are relatively few who are qualified and many that disagree with the mainstream assessment do so on the grounds of solar cycles and other phenomena that are not fully understood.
The scientists who think we are changing our climate use models as evidence…I have used computer models for my own work in chemical transport and fate, and I know that modeling something like water flow through a pipe is a pretty difficult task, something like modeling water flow through a porous media is EXTREMELY difficult. Now these climate modelers are saying they can model global climate 100’s of years into the future. I just don’t buy it, especially since the relevant variables can’t be modeled accurately yet. We are still trying to describe all the variables, let alone model them.
Don’t get me wrong I still feel like the pros from defossilizing our energy portfolio FAR out way any cons. But if we could just wait 10,15 years to invest in green tech and use that time exclusively for R&D of tech we would be making a much better investment down the road. It is akin to waiting a few months to get the next generation of flat screen etc..
Midtra52 says:
Wow I’ve never seen this from a Republican. I wonder if it’s because he is outgoing and won’t need more bribes from coal companies.