Climate experts & Pelosi testify before Congress on Global Warming - Repulics become comedians

[tex-wyo-dem]

Little doubt on cause of global warming, experts tell Congress
By Barbara Barrett

McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT)

WASHINGTON - Four of the world's top physical scientists told Congress on Thursday that there's little doubt the world is getting warmer because of mankind's influences. They painted a dire portrait of rising sea levels, worsening storms and widespread droughts, which they said could result if humanity doesn't change its ways.

The panel's appearance raised the curtain on the political theater that will be the global warming debate in a Democratic Congress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., broke ground by testifying before a House committee; a Republican lawmaker insisted on cross-examining her; and others peppered the scientists with questions about dinosaur flatulence and China's fleet of coal plants.

"Does (it) mean to stop this increase in methane we've got to put catalytic converters on the backs of cows?" Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., asked one scientist.

<snip>

For the first time in recent history, a House speaker testified before a House committee.

Pelosi, seated alone at the witness table, spoke for 15 minutes against the clicking of a half-dozen photographers' shutters. An overflow crowd poured into the hallway.

"Where once we thought the effects of global warming would occur decades away, change is already under way," Pelosi said.

<snip>

In the House hearing, Sensenbrenner invoked a House rule to insist on questioning Pelosi despite the usual courtesies members receive as witnesses.

<snip>

If cows are partly responsible for methane gases, Sensenbrenner said, that "could hit Wisconsin's economy right between the horns."

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., an outspoken skeptic of global warming, questioned whether the temperature changes weren't cyclical.

"We don't know what the other cycles were caused by in the past," he said. "It could be dinosaur flatulence. Who knows?"

<more>

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/16655326.htm

Sensenbrenner is hilarious! He should take his show on the road!! :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

What a complete embarassment this idiot is...I wish the good people of Wisconsin would remove his sorry ass.

Thank you Ms. Pelosi for taking a stand against these liars!

[KansDem]

1. "...we've got to put catalytic converters on the backs of cows?"

No, Senator, just over your mouth should be adequate.

[unpossibles]

2. has anyone seen Idiocracy?

I highly recommend it. The new movie by Mike Judge (Office Space, King of the Hill), it portrays a future where stupid people outbreed the rest of us and everyone in the future is really, really dumb. One funny part is that as the world gets dumber, FOX news doesn't change much...

Anyway, without giving too much away, the protagonist must save the world, and the people are ready to kill him because his solution, even though it can save people from literal starvation, will hurt the economy.

It's no wonder the movie was not released anywhere, as it's pretty scathing. Statements like the ones about cows crack me up though, and remind me of Papa Bush's statement about jobs being more important than owls. Which sounds great, until you realize that eventually there will be more and more loggers and we'll be out of trees and jobs.

Sigh. Why do we tend to be so short sighted as a species?

[tex-wyo-dem]

3. I haven't seen that movie, but I'll definitely rent it...

Your description pretty much sums up the difference between enlightened reasoning and provisional consumerism. The sad reality is that there is a sizable segment of the population that has been propagandized to the point of idiocy and they will believe anything their authoritarian conservative leaders tell them and immediately discount anything they think or are told is "liberal."

[YankeyMCC]

5. Or read "The gods themselves" by Asimov

In the future a fantastic - seemlingly - free, cheap energy source is found. After the world converts to it for a couple of decades and become dependant on cheap limitless engery a scientist discovers there is after all a terrible price that will have to be paid soon.

But of course no one is willing to even listen.

[checks-n-balances]

11. Interesting! And I suggest as a sequel: "The Uglican Party"

whose title is inspired by those 3 congressional dodo-birds, whose attitudes should be extinct already...

[tex-wyo-dem]

4. A related article from SFgate...

Speaker, Republicans clash in global warming hearing
GOP member insists Pelosi take questions about her plans

Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Friday, February 9, 2007

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used the bully pulpit of her new position Thursday to pressure fellow lawmakers to get legislation to combat global warming ready for a vote this summer.

In a highly unusual move for a speaker, the San Francisco Democrat appeared as a witness before the House Science and Technology Committee along with scientists who co-wrote the new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which warns of dire consequences if the world does not rein in greenhouse gases.

"We hold our children's future in our hands -- not just our grandchildren or great-grandchildren, but our own children," Pelosi told lawmakers. "As the most adaptable creatures on the planet, it is time for us to adapt."

Pelosi's testimony -- combined with her recent creation of a new House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming -- reflects a deliberate strategy to elevate the issue in Congress this year and press her own Democratic committee chairmen to act quickly.

<more>

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/02/09/MNGEKO1R451.DTL&type=politics

[vickitulsa]

6. Love the thread title.

I've seen Sensenbrenner being a moronic clown many times in the past regarding important matters -- why should he change his ways on a topic of dire consequence to all living things?

(No disrespect to all decent clowns, btw.)

I just finished watching for the third time the two-hour program Tom Brokaw presented on the Discovery Channel during the last few weeks, titled Global Warming: What You Need To Know.

I watch shows like this repeatedly because my memory isn't what it used to be and I need more than one go-round in order to fix the data in my head, not to comprehend the situation.

I have in fact believed the earth was in for a dramatic upheaval due to human pollution since 1976, when I read a seven-page letter Jacques Cousteau sent out to all members of the Cousteau Society. He warned then of the oceans reaching a "tipping point" where there would be no hope of turning back the tide of change, so to speak, if major steps to reverse the damage weren't taken globally within ten years.

Guess we all know how that went.

Ever since then, I've kept up with the science developing on this overall topic, since there have been people talking about climate change due to humans for a long time. I've been a little bit shocked that it's taken the scientists as a whole as long as it has to recognize that we're looking at a doomsday scenario on this issue.

I understand why that is, now, after seeing the Discovery program a third time; but still, it was obvious to me over 30 years ago how serious the situation was getting, and I'm no scientist, just an observant and concerned citizen.

What I wanted to say here, however, is that suddenly in the last couple of years it seems even some of the most hardheaded koolaid drinking deniers of global climate change are starting to change their tune, and I believe it's for one reason only: They are seeing it for themselves in their very own hometowns!

So at least there's one thing that can apparently break through all the brainwashing they've so willingly accepted -- drastic weather and climate changes that they are living through all the time right now.

Too bad it may well be way too late, due to the speed-up of the climate disaster caused by multiple "feedback loops," to turn the trend around. While we who have tried (and failed) to be heard for decades on this issue can only laugh bitterly at the wicked "comedy" of Repuke deniers on sorry display....

[midnight]

7. I'm in Sennsenbrenner's dist. we tried to replace him with a

well spoken professors-Bryan Kennedy. It is the dardest thing.

[roguevalley]

8. I saw this. Rohrbacher is getting a nasty note from me and another

senator, brian brand (?) is getting a love note. He pulled the message back on after Rohrbacher. They embarrass me so.

[IDemo]

10. I watched this as well

One of the repubs, I think it was Rohrabacher, repeatedly accused the witnesses of evading his question of how much atmospheric CO2 is from human input (questions and accusations accompanied by a smirk). One was finally able to get out that there is a natural baseline, and that current levels are the result of many decades of human carbon inputs added to that baseline. He seemed smugly unimpressed with the answers that the panel was able to slip through his tirades, however.

[sellitman]

9. Global warming is caused by O Reilly's hot air escaping into the atmosphere.

Nothing more, nothing less.

:wow: