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Climate change scientists, deniers clash in W.Va.
By VICKI SMITH, Associated Press
Updated 2:27 pm, Thursday, May 30, 2013
FAIRMONT, W.Va. (AP) — A Republican congressman sought common ground in the climate change debate Thursday but found the same clash of science and ideology that paralyzes Washington had followed him to West Virginia, a state long built on fossil fuel production.
For more than three hours, U.S. Rep. David McKinley quizzed a panel of national experts about the causes of global warming and what to do about it. McKinley acknowledges climate change is occurring but is unconvinced human activity is to blame.
What is clear, he said, is that a state rich in coal, oil, natural gas and timber will be affected by any federal policies that attempt to curb greenhouse gases. Equally clear is that carbon dioxide limits in the U.S. won’t prevent growing air pollution from developing nations like China and India.
“We tried to get an answer: What is the end game?” McKinley said. “And we couldn’t get an end game.”
There were plenty of opinions and recommendations, though, from taxation strategies and carbon-capture technology investment to the blunt prescription from climate science denier Marc Morano: Do nothing.
Morano, a former aide to climate skeptic and Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, calls global warming debates a “silly display of politics” built on “sub-prime science.” The suggestion that carbon dioxide in particular is fueling climate change “is absolutely not holding up,” he argued.
“We must have the courage to do nothing when it comes to regulating CO2 emissions,” Morano declared, calling carbon-based energy like coal “one of the greatest liberators in the history of mankind.”
But doing nothing isn’t the right answer, McKinley said later. Something will have to be done, perhaps tariffs or fees on countries that don’t meet U.S. standards. Whatever Congress considers, he said, “we have to move in a very cautious manner.”
But Annie Petsonk, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund, said government must lead, and the time for change is long overdue. The late U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., first called for action in 1997.
“To hear that global warming is happening — or if it is happening, we shouldn’t do anything about it — is not leadership,” Petsonk said, adding that forests, farms, watersheds and human health are at risk.
“A rate of warming of roughly a tenth of a degree …