Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Arizona) is chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California) is chair of the Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife.
Climate Depot note: Rep. Grijalva has a long sad history. See: Political Left on with hunt: ‘This is scary’ – Congressman Raul Grijalva’s Witch Hunt
Some Republicans are finally talking about addressing climate change. First they need to stand up to the deniers in their own party.
By Dem Reps Raúl Grijalva and Jared Huffman:
Unfortunately, the power and position of leading Republican climate deniers in Congress has made real change impossible.
Regardless of their politics, anyone concerned about the resource scarcity, heat waves, more dramatic storms and droughts, and the other effects we know are already here — and we know will get worse unless we act now — needs to stand up to the denialists and demand they change their tune or get out of the way.
Old-school denial was on particularly stark display at a hearing we held in May in the House Natural Resources Committee on an issue that truly shouldn’t be political: the risk of mass extinctions in the age of climate change. (Climate Depot Note: Yes! It should not be political. Climate skeptics hijack House Dem hearing – Dominate discussion – Warmists lament: “How did these two dominate a hearing run by Democrats?”
The event was a perfect opportunity to work together. We convened the hearing to examine policy responses to an alarming report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, a United Nations-affiliated research group. Experts there found that up to 1 million species are at serious risk of extinction because of climate change and other human effects on the natural world.
We invited several of the world’s leading scientists to testify, including Sir Robert Watson, former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. He summed up the far-reaching effects of extinction and the need for all of us to act: “The loss of biodiversity is not only an environmental issue, but an economic, development, social, security, moral and ethical issue.”
We hoped our GOP colleagues would join us in a serious science-based discussion on solutions. Instead, they invited two professional climate deniers to testify, one of whom, Marc Morano, runs an industry-funded, anti-science pressure group and has been a repeat guest on the notorious conspiracy-focused “InfoWars” radio show.
Typical of their bombast was Morano’s opening statement, where he accused the authors of the biodiversity report — world-renowned scientists sitting next to him at the witness table — of being “leaders of the UN’s bastardization of species-endangerment science.”
Climate Depot Note: Yes! It was an accurate and much-needed opening statement! Excerpt:
Marc Morano comments: UN’s Robert Watson regurgitates all the usual UN tripe in a May 6, 2019, UK Guardian commentary:
Morano: Watson claims of “the future of humanity depends on action now.”
Watson also adds that our kids “will never forgive us” unless we give into UN central planning.
The UN schemes are “our last best chance” to save the planet! according to Watson.
He claims we can’t afford NOT to listen to the UN because — wait for it — Watson claims “the costs of doing nothing will be much higher.”
Morano: And of course, what UN science bureaucrat could resist the following,
“change of the magnitude required will mean a different life for everyone,” Watson wrote.
Ah yes, a “different life for everyone” brought to you by the United Nations.
Morano: I think we will pass on that offer. It’s time for Congress to recognize the UN ongoing “science con” and not let the UN expand its reach into yet even more regulations and self-interested aggrandizement. Humanity and nature deserver better than the UN’s alleged scientific efforts and proposed “solutions.”
Thank you.
End Morano’s statement.
Our GOP colleagues on the committee struck the same tone. Rep. Tom McClintock, the panel’s top Republican, stated that “carbon dioxide levels have varied widely throughout the planet’s history, including periods when they were many times higher than today.”
…
The fact that these kinds of statements, at a hearing of such magnitude, were not even deemed newsworthy speaks to how deeply anti-science thinking is ingrained on the political right. We hope our Republican colleagues on the Committee take note that elsewhere in this same Congress, Republicans are speaking more thoughtfully.
…
We would love to work on a broadly bipartisan response to the climate crisis. But that depends on whether climate deniers and the fossil-fuel industry continue to call the shots for congressional Republicans. Change is coming. The question is who will drive that change, and whose ideas voters will be compelled to take seriously.
Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Arizona) is chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California) is chair of the Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife.
#
Related Links:
Media Matters outraged: Skeptics “[Marc] Morano and [Dr. Patrick] Moore also got more time at the hearing than the four scientists invited by the Democrats, according to Public Citizen.”
“Morano and Moore made a mockery of the House hearing, and that’s exactly what Republicans wanted.”
Warmists demand to know: “How did these two dominate a hearing run by Democrats?”
“Fox News has helped to put Morano and Moore in the public eye by giving them a platform to sow doubt about climate change and other serious environmental issues, and now the two men’s latest Fox-worthy rants are part of the congressional record.”
“So far in 2019, Morano has appeared on Fox News shows at least 10 times…Morano has also appeared three times this year on President Donald Trump’s favorite show, Fox & Friends.”
Watch: Morano testifies to Congress on how government can’t legislate climate
#
Climate Skeptic Steve Milloy Cheers: “Thanks for having a hearing that allowed climate skeptics, Patrick Moore and Marc Morano, to totally outclass your climate bedwetters. Now you know what bedwetters generally avoid sharing a stage with skeptics.”
Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore on UN species scare: “You cannot call yourself a scientist if you pretend that there are 6.2 million species that have no names and have never been identified. That is not science. That is fiction. Fairy tale stories. And that’s what we’re being told here.”
Climate Depot’s Marc Morano described the report as a politically driven document, “the latest U.N. appeal to give it more power, more scientific authority, more money and more regulatory control.” “At best, the U.N. science panels represent nothing more than ‘authoritative bureaucracy,’ claiming they hype the problem and then come up with the solution that puts them in charge of ‘solving’ the issue in perpetuity,” Mr. Morano said in his prepared remarks. “A more accurate term for the U.N. than ‘authoritative science’ may be ‘authoritative propaganda.’”
Mr. Huffman fired back, referring to Mr. Morano as a troll. “I don’t know what inspires someone to make a career out of trolling scientists or monetizing contrarian ideology on the YouTube and Ted Talk circuit, but it’s just a very different kind of conversation than the science-based conversation I think many of us would try to have,” Mr. Huffman said.
No House committee hearing this year would be complete without a climate change row. Republicans took aim at the Green New Deal, the Paris climate agreement and the 97% scientific “consensus,” while Democrats’ witnesses stressed the impact of global warming on species.
Roger Pielke Jr.: ‘Thank You to Rep. Raul Grijalva, Narrative Killer’
Warmist Rep. Grijalva retreats: Now says a request for professors’ communications was an ‘overreach’ – “The communications back-and-forth is honestly secondary, and I would even on my own say that that was an overreach in that letter,” Grijalva, the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, told National Journal on Monday.
Political Left on with hunt: ‘This is scary’ – Congressman Raul Grijalva’s Witch Hunt
