Quotes on Politicization of Global Warming & Climate Change

"Late for a party? Miss a meeting? Forget to pay your rent? Blame climate change; everyone else is doing it. From an increase in severe acne to all societal collapses since the beginning of time, just about everything gone wrong in the world today can be attributed to climate change. Here’s a list of 100 storylines blaming climate change as the problem."

We can only hope that world leaders will do nothing more than enjoy a pleasant bicycle ride around the charming streets of Copenhagen come December. For if they actually manage to wring out an agreement based on the current draft text of the Copenhagen climate-change treaty, the world is in for some nasty surprises. Draft text, you say? If you haven't heard about it, that's because none of our otherwise talkative political leaders have bothered to tell us what the drafters have already cobbled together for leaders to consider. And neither have the media.

The Guardian's Leo Hickman interviews James Lovelock, an independent scientist, environmentalist and futurologist. Lovelock discusses the value of skeptical scientists and the politicization of science at the 2009 UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen.

The IPCC encouraged deeply disturbing departures from sound scientific research that significantly undermine Live Earth's alarmist message. Yet, the problems with the IPCC report go much further than politicized science.

"When Energy Secretary Stephen Chu announced a half-billion dollars in federal stimulus loans to solar panel maker Solyndra, he called the move part of an aggressive effort to put more Americans to work and end U.S. dependence on foreign oil. But nearly two years to the day later, the bankrupt Solyndra needs help just to keep it own electricity service from being shut off."

Just five years ago, Charles Monnett was one of the scientists whose observation that several polar bears had drowned in the Arctic Ocean helped galvanize the global warming movement. Now, the wildlife biologist is on administrative leave and facing accusations of scientific misconduct.

Richman explores his thoughts on the chapter and says what he thinks about the issues of the politicization of science.

This piece describes how evidence for global warming has eroded over the years. Booker then discusses the BBC's lack of reporting on the issue, declaring their bias a near "scandal."

Politically active climate scientists and their allies seek to shut down a useful discussion with intimidation, bluster, and name-calling. It is a function of the destructive politics of science in the global warming debate.

In referring to the theology of global warming, one is not focusing on evidence of the earth's warming in recent decades but rather on the widespread insistence that such warming is primarily a consequence of man.

On the three networks, 80 percent of stories didn't mention skepticism or anyone at all who dissented from global warming alarmism.

Admittedly, the contest over global warming is a challenge for the referee because it's a tag-team match, a real free-for-all. In one corner of the ring are Science and Reason. In the other corner: Poisonous Polluters and Right-wing Ideologues.

"This collection of eight articles and reports on Al Gore’s film, 'An Inconvenient Truth,' was assembled for parents, taxpayers, teachers, principals, and school board Members by Joseph Bast, president of The Heartland Institute, an independent nonprofit organization. It includes the complete text of Justice Michael Burton’s October 2, 2007 British High Court decision, which found Gore’s film was “partisan” and “propaganda” and should not be shown to students without a guidance document pointing out Gore’s mistakes and exaggerations."

The following report summarizes results drawn from national level surveys in the United States and Canada that examine public perceptions regarding various aspects of climate change.

The coincidence of increasing CO2 and the small warming over the past century hardly establishes causality.

This paper aims to describe the evolution of US greenhouse gas emissions and of US domestic climate policy to date, in particular the essentials of the current leading legislative initiative – the Lieberman-Warner 'Climate Security Act' – and discuss some issues of the policy design. We will also examine the potential implications for the evolving global framework of climate change policies and for transatlantic convergence.

Professor Michael Zimmerman discusses whether or not scientists have really come to a consensus about human caused climate change and warns of the dangers of the increasing politicization of science.

Scientist Bruce Ames of the University of California at Berkeley helps show how scientific debates have been politicized by appealing to the fears of an uninformed public

Controversial Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg explains why it's important to question orthodox opinion -- even the widespread fear of global warming.

It is an honor for me to join this distinguished group of leaders from nations around the world. We come here in Copenhagen because climate change poses a grave and growing danger to our people. All of you would not be here unless you, like me, were convinced that this danger is real. This is not fiction, it is science. Unchecked, climate change will pose unacceptable risks to our security, our economies, and our planet. This much we know.

Produced by the English Parliament, this piece of climate change legislation seeks, among other things, "to set a target for the year 2050 for the reduction of targeted greenhouse gas emissions; to provide for a system of carbon budgeting; to establish a Committee on Climate Change; [and] to confer powers to establish trading schemes for the purpose of limiting greenhouse gas emissions or encouraging activities that reduce such emissions or remove greenhouse gas from the atmosphere...."

The legitimate questions that have been raised about the processes used to generate climate change science and policy have thus far been cast aside. The reluctance to engage in conversations with people who have doubts or question the veracity of climate science is at the heart of the wrong doing that undermines trust in climate change science.

Commonly known as the Lieberman-Warner bill, this document sought "To direct the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to establish a program to decrease emissions of greenhouse gases, and for other purposes." The bill, however, failed to pass the U.S. House and Senate.

"The issue of climate change respects no border. Its effects cannot be reined in by an army nor advanced by any ideology. Climate change, with its potential to impact every corner of the world, is an issue that must be addressed by the world."

The main activity of the IPCC is to provide at regular intervals Assessment Reports of the state of knowledge on climate change. The latest one is "Climate Change 2007", the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.

"The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012."

Testimony that compares the benefits of early actions to defuse the building climate crisis with the dangers of continued business-as-usual fossil fuel emissions.

"By Repowering America with a transition to a clean energy economy and ending our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels, which is the common thread running through all three of these crises, this bill will simultaneously address the climate crisis, the economic crisis, and the national security threats that stem from our dependence on foreign oil."

This is an issue which has been of great concern to me for a long time. When I decided to seek this office back in 1991, I did it after having spent more than a decade as a Governor deeply frustrated by what seemed to me too often to be inevitable, persistent, aggravating conflicts between the impulse to promote economic opportunity for the people that I represented and the clear obligation, the moral obligation, on all of us to try to preserve this planet that we all share.

The book calls into question the entire campaign led by Vice President Al Gore and others to ratify the proposed treaty on global warming scheduled to be debated in the U.S. Senate early in 1998.

This book boldly confronts specific environmental laws, asking whether they were motivated by environmental concerns, whether they achieve their goals, whether they are cost-effective - and ... whether they ... generate perverse results.

Economists, political scientists, and philosophers show how environmental quality can be enhanced more effectively by relying less on government agencies that are increasingly politicized and unaccountable and more on environmental entrepreneurship and the strict enforcement of private-property rights.

The Great Global Warming Blunder unveils new evidence from major scientific findings that explode the conventional wisdom on climate change and reshape the global warming debate as we know it.

ClimateWiki is an encyclopedia of climate change research organized by topic.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for the assessment of climate change.

National Review Online’s Planet Gore blog was launched in February 2007 to track the news, data, and misinformation that feed the global-warming/climate-change debate. The blog additionally serves as a resource for accurate information about fossil fuels, alternative energy, environmental activism, the climate-change political process, and Al Gore’s carbon footprint.

A chronology of the strengthening science on global warming -- and the United States' failure to address the issue.