Libertarians disagree with federal president on global warming urgency

Libertarians disagree with federal president on global warming urgency
Cato, Mar 28, 2009


"Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change.The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear."
— PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA, NOVEMBER 19 , 2008

With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true.

We, the undersigned scientists, maintain that the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated. Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now.1,2 After controlling for population growth and property values, there has been no increase in damages from severe weather-related events.3 The computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to explain recent climate behavior.4 Mr. President, your characterization of the scientific facts regarding climate change and the degree of certainty informing the scientific debate is simply incorrect.

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Footnotes

1 Swanson, K.L., and A. A. Tsonis. Geophysical Research Letters, in press: DOI:10.1029/2008GL037022.
2 Brohan, P., et al. Journal of Geophysical Research, 2006: DOI: 10.1029/2005JD006548. Updates at http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature.
3 Pielke, R. A. Jr., et al. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2005: DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-86-10-1481.
4 Douglass, D. H., et al. International Journal of Climatology, 2007: DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651.