Posted: 06/03/2005
Schwarzenegger Vow on Climate Change Short-Sighted
Policy Will Only Harm Citizens of California, Says NCPA Scholar
DALLAS (June 3, 2005) – As the so-called science underpinning most current claims about the causes of climate change continues to erode, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) this week vowed to lead the world’s response to global warming by unveiling a plan to reduce his state’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent over the next 50 years.
“Gov. Schwarzenegger, in particular, and California, in general, like to tout themselves as being ahead of the curve in politics and policy, but they are now not only ahead of the science, they have put California taxpayers behind the 8-ball of the economic impact of this policy,” said NCPA Senior Fellow H. Sterling Burnett. “More and more frequently peer-reviewed research is increasingly linking the current warming cycle to natural variations, rather than to humans.”
Declaring the debate about climate change and global warming to be over, Gov. Schwarzenegger said the time for action is now because, in his words, “We know the science. We see the threat.” Yet many scientists, especially those writing for peer-reviewed journals rather than the popular press, are finding that climate change is better explained by natural climate cycles and other cosmic events and may not be due to human activity at all.
For example, the “scientists” who declare the climate change debate to be over, cite global warming as the reason for this year’s destructive hurricane season, yet fail to observe that this season’s occurrence of tornados has been the mildest in years. In addition, the same “scientists” note that the Arctic ice cap is melting, yet fail to observe record snowfalls in the Antarctic.
“Gov. Schwarzenegger’s proposed climate change policies are likely to keep California energy prices high and undermine his efforts to keep businesses in the state,” Dr. Burnett noted. “More than a few credible studies have shown that greenhouse gas restrictions do nothing to prevent global warming, but result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs and waste billion of taxpayer and consumer dollars.”