Harvard-Smithsonian Global Warming Skeptic Helps Feed Strategy of Doubt, Gridlock in Congress
The work of Soon, and a handful of like-minded scientists, is seen by critics in Congress and elsewhere as a case study in how this deadlock has been engineered by energy companies and antiregulation conservatives.
“They are merchants of doubt, not factual information,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who delivers a Senate speech every week demanding stronger air-quality standards. “Their strategy isn’t to convince people that the scientists are wrong. Their strategy is simply to raise the specter that there is enough doubt that … you should just move onto the next issue until this gets sorted out,” he said. “It gives credibility to a crank point of view.”
No fewer than 13 US agencies spend more than $2.6 billion a year gathering and analyzing evidence on climate shifts — in land, at sea, at the poles, in space.The conclusion? Global warming is real, and human activities are almost certainly a major cause.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, has likewise prepared a series of reports documenting the dangers. The latest, released in September, said there is a 95 percent certainty that human activity is the primary cause of the planet’s warming. The report predicts oceans will rise by nearly 3 feet by the end of the century.
And here is the official view of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society: “The scientific evidence is clear: Global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society.”
Yet that global scientific consensus is changing few minds in Congress. By latest count, 127 US representatives and 30 senators believe that global warming is not happening or, if it is, that human activity is not the cause, according to a tally by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a liberal advocacy group.