Rob McClendon: Now while there may be some
consensus over global warming in the scientific
community, in the halls of congress the debate
itself is getting pretty heated. Oklahoma
Senator, Jim Inhofe, is an outspoken opponent
of the Kyoto Agreement that would limit the
amount of greenhouse gases the U S could emit.
In fact, last fall, as the Senate debated
a bill that would have created regulations
to combat global warming, Senator Inhofe led
the opposition, and went so far as to call
global warming a hoax. I sat down with him
earlier this week to find out why he feels
so strongly about the global warming debate
and its threat to our economy. Senator, we
hear a lot about global warming these days,
but you like to use the word climate change.
Why is that?
Senator Inhofe: Well, first of all, the liberals
like to use climate change just in case they’re
wrong and it ends up getting cooler. Climate
change and global warming are actually synonymous.
The whole idea is that the alarmists, and
I call them the alarmists, the same ones who
said back in 1975 that an ice age was coming
and we were all going to die, they contend
that the weather is getting warmer, and it
has since the turn of the century, and that’s
due to anthropogenic gases, or manmade gases,
CO2, methane, and that kind of thing. So really,
you could use the term synonymously.
Rob: Now, much of the world is critical of
the U S, for not doing more. What would you
say to those critics that criticize the U
S?
Inhofe: Well, I say first of all, that this
has been an orchestrated event started by
the United Nations back in the late 90s to
make people, using scare tactics, think that
global warming is coming and all kinds of
bad things are going to happen to us. So,
when I became chairman of the environment
and public works committee three and a half
years ago, I thought, let me find out. If
it’s going to cost this much money to sign
the Kyoto Treaty, as the Horton School of
Economics, the Horton Econometric Survey stated,
then let’s make sure the science is right,
only to find out that almost all of science
since 1999 has refuted what one man, Michael
Mann, said about the hockey stick. Remember
the thing with the hockey stick?, where he
plotted out the temperatures from about third
century to the 20th century, then all of a
sudden, they started getting warmer? What
he forgot to do, he neglected to do, intentionally,
I think, was put in the medieval warming period,
when temperatures were warmer than they are
today. That was around 800 to 1200 AD. Then
we went into the little ice age, and came
out of that around the turn of the century.
Now, if they really believe that there’s
a relationship between CO2 and climate change,
then how can they explain the fact that the
largest emission of CO2 in recorded history
occurred in the middle and late 40s, and that
precipitated a cooling period, SO SEVERE,
that the same magazines like, TIME magazine,
who is now trying to scare people into thinking
that all the ice is melting and all that,
they were writing articles that another ice
age is coming and we’re all going to die.
So, the thing has been, well orchestrated,
and when I became chairman of this committee
I thought, why are politicians so afraid of
the environmental extremists? And the answer,
I guess, a lot of it is, they’re the ones
who pump the money into the campaigns.
Rob: Let’s talk economics then. If the U
S did adhere to the Kyoto standard, do you
think that would make our country vulnerable
to other economies that maybe weren’t adhering
to it?
Inhofe: Well, first of all, we know that China
is not going to do it. We know that India
is not going to do it. And so if we did it
according to the Econometric Survey that Horton
put on, that would cost the average family
of four 2,750 dollars a year. It would increase
the cost of our energy. It would be, almost,
economic destruction of our nation. Would
the other countries that are competing with
us do it? NO! They wouldn’t do it. China’s
not going to do it; they’ve never indicated
that they would do it. India’s not doing
it. So, it wouldn’t put us in a less competitive
position with other countries. Now, let’s
keep in mind also, of these some 17 nations
in Western Europe, only two have met their
Kyoto standards. So, you know, they’re not
doing it anyway.
Rob: Despite what we hear, both sides of the
debate, would it not be prudent, to control
the level of CO2, in some way, in the United
States?
Inhofe: Well, if they can show scientifically
that there is a problem with it, then I’d
say go ahead and do it. But science is now
showing that there’s not a relationship
between manmade gases or CO2 and climate change.
For that reason, the only justification for
using it, is if they can make things more
economical, and just the reverse is true.
So, I would probably say, no. Let’s keep
in mind, these countries, who signed on to
the Kyoto Treaty early on, like Canada, they’re
now reexamining their positions. In the 60s,
scientists in Canada, are now petitioning
Prime Minister Harper to re look at perhaps
getting out, since the science is showing
that the relationship between CO2 and climate
change doesn’t seem to exist.
