Kowabunga

Debra Saunders over at the SF Gate, and picked up by the Star Tribune, has a lot to say about Barbara Boxer and Global warming. It's a fine piece and I encourage reading it.

Sen. Barbara Boxer of California delivered a speech in the Senate last week in which she linked global warming to the San Diego wildfires, Darfur, the imminent loss of the world's polar bears and even a poor 14-year-old boy who died from "an infection caused after swimming in Lake Havasu," because its water is warmer.

Forget arson. Forget genocide. Forget nature. There is no tragedy that cannot be placed at the doorstep of global-warming skeptics.

I missed Boxer's speech, but I am not surprised by her claims that all that is bad in the world right now can be blamed on Global warming and, consequently, on America as it is the biggest producer of greenhouse gases alleged to be causing the current warming trends (despite the volumes of scientific evidence to the contrary!).

Saunders enlightens us to some history on Boxer's stand on Global Warming: Boxer was one of 95 senators that voted in support of a resolution directing then President Clinton NOT to sign on to any global warming treaty (Kyoto!). Now she has changed her tune, and she has done so with a vengeance.

There is also the ongoing battles between Boxer and Inhofe on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Inhofe strikes me as someone who looks at the facts and doesn't eliminate those that do not fit the conclusions he wants to push.

Last month, Inhofe took on the Al Gore suggestion that polar bears are in peril because of global warming. Inhofe pointed to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services estimates that show the polar bear population at about 20,000 to 25,000 bears -- up from the estimated 5,000 to 10,000 polar bears in the 1950s and 1960s.

The polar bear population, much like the timber wolf and bald eagle, has been on the rise, despite global warming. Yet Boxer is cited as claiming otherwise:

Boxer rejected Inhofe's claim that there are more polar bears, selectively citing the "best-studied population" of Canada's western Hudson Bay that found a 22 percent reduction of polar bears from 1987 to 2004. Then she referred to a World Conservation Union prediction that the polar bear population will drop by 30 percent by 2050

Of course for the area that Boxer cites to prove her point is accurate FOR THAT AREA. That is not sufficient to make a global claim when other data shows just the opposite.

Saunders mentions the new book by Bjorn Lomborg called "Cool It, the Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming," which mentions the polar bear population studies, and what Saunders cites from his book also refutes the Boxer/Gore claim that polar bears are heading towards extinction. I'll have to add this book to my reading list.

The bottom line isn't a matter of whether or not the Earth's temperature is climbing and that the climate is changing. It is! We can debate the causes of the changes on end, as long as scientific fact is fully included and recognized in the debate. But to use scare-mongering tactics and blaming all of the Earth's woes on global warming doesn't do anybody any good. Unless you are running against Boxer when she comes up for re-election in 2010. This could provide plenty of ammunition to a GOP opponent looking to unseat Boxer.

Let's face it: fear-mongering makes good press and plays well to the Leftist agenda while scientific fact is forced to take a backseat.

Tags:

Debra Saunders Boxer Gore Polar Bears