As US President Barack Obama tries to green the US by slapping limits on carbon emissions, Congress on Wednesday was told to ignore his plan because climate change does not exist.
“The right response to the non-problem of global warming is to have the courage to do nothing,” said British aristocrat Lord Christopher Walter Monckton, a leading proponent of the “climate change is myth” movement.
The Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley argued before the Energy and Environment Subcommittee that for 14 years, contrary to broadly accepted scientific beliefs, “there has been no statistically significant global warming.”
The House hearing, titled “Adaptation Policies in Climate Legislation,” discussed ways to address Obama’s cap-and-trade proposal in his US$3.55 trillion budget plan, presented to Congress last month.
Obama’s proposal would limit emissions of greenhouse gases for manufacturers, and permit companies to trade the right to pollute to other firms — a similar cap-and-trade system to the European model.
The moves are now subject of intense political opposition in Congress, notably from lawmakers representing US states heavily invested in energy production through fossil fuels.
“Adaptation is at present unnecessary,” said Lord Monckton at the hearing. “Mitigation is always unnecessary. It is also disproportionately expensive.”
Addressing the hearing on the “balanced Biblical view” for environment and development issues, Pastor Calvin Beisner — national spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance, a coalition of clergy, theologians and religious leaders — questioned proposed efforts to combat climate change.
“I am convinced that policies meant to reduce alleged carbon dioxide-induced global warming will be destructive,” he said.
“The Biblical world view sees Earth and its ecosystems as the effect of a wise God’s creation and ... therefore robust, resilient, and self regulating, like the product of any good engineer,” Beisner said.
Beisner argued that policies to reduce carbon emissions would destroy jobs and be prohibitively expensive.
“The truth is that no alternative fuels can compete at present with fossil fuels for price,” he said.
Congressman Joe Barton, from Texas, said that “mankind always adapts,” and that “adaptation to shifts in temperature is not that difficult.”
Facing down the non-believers, an array of government agency representatives and environmental organizations described the mounting threats to humanity from devastating climate change.
Tom Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, stressed mitigation would not suffice.
“While increased mitigation measures will likely reduce the need for future adaptation, the United States and the world will continue to experience changing climate conditions and resulting impacts,” he said.
President of National Wildlife Federation, Larry Schweiger, urged lawmakers to back moves to tackle climate change, telling them that the US “must invest now in safeguarding the natural world from the inevitable impacts of global warming.”
Recalling the report from the Nobel Prize-winning UN intergovernmental panel on climate change, Schweiger warned that due to cataclysmic climate change, “in the lifetime of a child born today, 20 to 30 percent of the world’s plant and animal species will be on the brink of extinction, if we don’t take action now.”
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a