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POLICY RELEVANT CLIMATE 

ISSUES IN CONTEXT 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013 

Serial No. 113–24 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming 

DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

RANDY WEBER, Texas 

CHRIS STEWART, Utah 

VACANCY 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

DAN MAFFEI, New York 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

SCOTT PETERS, California 

DEREK KILMER, Washington 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC VEASEY, Texas 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

MARK TAKANO, California 

ROBIN KELLY, Illinois 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT

HON. CHRIS STEWART, Utah, Chair 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia 

RANDY WEBER, Texas 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

MARC VEASEY, Texas 

MARK TAKANO, California 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Thursday, April 25, 2013 

Page 

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2 

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3 

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Chris Stewart, Chairman, Subcommittee on 

Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House 

of Representatives ................................................................................................ 7 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 8 

Statement by Representative Suzanne Bonamici, Ranking Minority Member, 

Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................... 10 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 11 

Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee on 

Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ..................... 13 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 14 

Witnesses: 

Dr. Judith Curry, Professor, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 15 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 18 

Dr. William Chameides, Dean and Professor, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 34 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 36 

Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, President, Copenhagen Consensus Center 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 46 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 48 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 72 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Dr. Judith Curry, Professor, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology .................................................................................. 88 

Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, President, Copenhagen Consensus Center .......................... 90 

Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record 

Submitted statement by Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space and Technology .......................................................... 94 

(1) 

POLICY RELEVANT CLIMATE ISSUES IN 

CONTEXT 

THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:03 a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Chris Stewart 

[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 
7 

Chairman STEWART. The Subcommittee on the Environment will 

come to order. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to today’s hearing, entitled ‘‘Policy Relevant Climate Issues in Context.’’ In front 

of you are packets containing the written testimonies, biographies, 

and truth in testimony disclosures for today’s witness panels. 

I now recognize myself for five minutes for an opening statement. 

First, I would like to welcome the witnesses today. I thank you 

for your service, and for your sacrifice in being here with us. We 

look forward to an interesting exchange with you. I will have a 

chance to introduce the witnesses later on. I would also like to welcome the full Committee Chairman, Chairman Smith. 

At his State of the Union address last month President Obama 

cited as evidence of climate change that heat waves, droughts, 

wildfires, and floods are all now more frequent and intense. After 

calling this issue one of the greatest priorities of his second term, 

he then signaled his intention to move forward with aggressive actions in climate change. While the details of the President’s plans 

are not yet known, today’s hearing is intended to provide Members 

a high level overview of the key factors that should inform our decision-making on what is, unfortunately, one of the most controversial public policy issues of our day. 

Nobel Prize winning physicist Niels Bhor, later followed by the 

noted philosopher Yogi Berra, famously said, ‘‘Prediction is very 

difficult, especially if it is about the future.’’ The scientific and political rhetoric associated with climate change would benefit greatly 

from the humility espoused by these two gentlemen. For example, 

the number and complexity of factors influencing climate, from 

land and oceans, to sun and clouds, make precise long term temperature predictions an extremely difficult challenge. This may 

help explain why consensus climate models, likely to serve as a 

basis for major economy-wide regulatory actions, have such poor 

track records. These models regularly overstate the actual temperature changes and have failed to predict the current 16 year absence 

of global warming. And I would like to emphasize that point, if I 

could. Contrary to the predictions of almost all modeling, over the 

past 16 years there has been a complete absence of climate—global 

warming. 

There are two obvious lessons here. First, modeling predictions 

are not infallible. And second, while we encounter those who claim 

to know precisely what our future climate will look like, and then 

attack anyone who may disagree with them, when that happens, 

we have stepped out of the arena of science and into the arena of 

politics and ideology. And it is important to recognize that the direction we choose to take on climate change is not resolved by 

science alone. Once the scientific analysis is complete, we must 

then make value judgments and economic decisions based on a real 

understanding of the costs and benefits of any proposed actions. It 

is through this lens that we should review the President’s forthcoming executive actions and proposed regulations. 

While we still don’t know the specifics of the President’s plans, 

we know enough to cause people such as myself great concern. I 

am worried that his anticipated restrictions in industrial CO2 emissions may have no discernible impact on the climate, but will 

amount to a significant energy tax on the American people. And it 
8 

is important to note this isn’t a cost that you can pass on to the 

millionaires and the billionaires that the administration likes to 

talk about. Much of these additional costs will be borne by those 

who can least afford it, retirees on fixed income, young families, 

and those on the bottom of the rung of the economic ladder. The 

President’s proposals will also reduce our economic activity at a 

time when we can least afford it, while sending jobs overseas to 

countries like China and India. 

If you care about the poor and the disadvantaged among us, then 

you must be very careful as you consider some of the President’s 

proposals to combat climate change. The bottom line is this, not 

only should we consider the science behind climate change, but also 

the economic costs of implementing any suggested remedies. I look 

forward to discussing this in further detail with our witnesses 

today, and learning more about the best approach to this important 

issue of energy, climate, and the environment. 

I yield back the balance of my time, and recognize the Ranking 

Member, Ms. Bonamici, for her opening statement. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stewart follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIRMAN CHRIS STEWART

Good morning and welcome to this morning’s Environment Subcommittee hearing 

entitled ‘‘Policy Relevant Climate Issues in Context.’’ 

At his State of the Union address earlier this year, President Obama cited as evidence of climate change that ‘‘heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods—all are 

now more frequent and intense.’’ After calling this issue one of the greatest priorities of his second term, he then signaled his intention to move forward with aggressive actions to combat climate change. Today’s hearing is intended to provide Members a high-level overview of the key factors that should inform our decision-making 

on what is unfortunately one of the most controversial public policy issues of our 

day. 

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Neils Bohr—later followed by noted philosopher 

Yogi Berra—famously said, ‘‘Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the 

future.’’ The scientific and political rhetoric associated with climate change could 

benefit greatly from the humility espoused by these two gentlemen. 

For example, the number and complexity of factors influencing climate-from land 

and oceans to the sun and clouds-make precise long-term temperature predictions 

an extremely difficult challenge. This may help explain why ‘‘consensus’’ climate 

models likely to serve as the basis for major, economy-wide regulatory actions have 

such poor track records. These models regularly overestimate actual temperature 

changes and have failed to predict the current 16-year absence of global warming. 

And let me emphasize this last statement—contrary to the predictions of almost all 

modeling, over the past 16 years there has been a complete absence of global warming. 

There are two obvious lessons here. First, modeling predictions are not infallible. 

Second, when we encounter those who claim to know precisely what our future climate will look like, and then attack any who may disagree with them, we have 

stepped out of the arena of science and into the arena of politics and ideology. 

It is also important to recognize that the direction we choose to take on climate 

change is not resolvable by science alone. Once the scientific analysis is complete, 

we must then make value judgments and economic decisions based on a real understanding of the costs and benefits of any proposed actions. 

It is through this lens that we should review the President’s forthcoming executive actions and proposed regulations. 

While we still don’t know all the specifics of the President’s plan, we know enough 

to cause me great concern. I am worried that his anticipated restrictions on industrial CO2 emissions may have no discernible impact on climate, but will amount to 

a significant energy tax on the American people. I am also concerned that his proposals will reduce our economic activity at a time when we can least afford to do 

that, while sending jobs overseas to countries such as China and India. I look forward to discussing this in further detail with our witnesses today, and learning 
9 

more about how best to approach the important issues of energy, climate, and the 

environment. 

I yield back the balance of my time, and recognize Ranking Member Bonamici for 

an opening statement. 
10 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding 

this hearing. I would like to thank our witnesses for being here 

today. This is an important issue. In fact, I want to thank the chair 

of the full Committee as well. Ranking Member Eddie Bernice 

Johnson and I sent a letter before this earlier scheduled hearing 

emphasizing the importance of this topic. 

The reality of climate change is increasingly impossible to deny. 

Over the past 25 years numerous scientists from the United States 

and around the world have appeared before Congress to testify 

about climate change. Countless peer review studies have shown 

that climate change is real, and that humans are a significant contributing factor. Now we must shift the debate to planning, and 

discuss what actions we should take to mitigate the environmental, 

economic, and health effects that will inevitably hit our communities. 

The stated subject of this hearing is policy relevant climate 

issues. Because a preponderance of scientific evidence shows that 

human activity is contributing to changes in the global climate, I 

submit that all climate change issues have become policy relevant. 

The United States, a large historical producer, and second largest 

current producer of greenhouse gases, bears a great responsibility 

to the rest of the world to ensure that we promote policies that will 

reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we continue to place in the 

Earth’s atmosphere. We have the talent and ability to take on this 

important leadership role. We should also, as a country, have the 

will to do so. 

Glacial withdrawal, loss of sea ice, ocean acidification, rising 

temperatures in sea levels are real and measurable problems. Although the effects of climate change are global, the impacts of this 

change are already felt throughout the United States. Recent 

droughts in the American southwest and historic severe weather 

events throughout the country are recent examples. According to 

the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA, 

2012 was the warmest year on record in the United States, and the 

nine warmest years have all occurred since 1998. 

Climate change affects our economy. In my State of Oregon, we 

have developed a reputation for growing quality wine grapes, including world renowned Pinot Noir. Much of the quality is attributable to the climate in Oregon, where the Pinot grapes grow at 

a temperature range between 57 and 61 degrees. Even a minor variation in temperature can threaten the continued quality, and 

hence value, to the Oregon economy of wines in the region. 

Another important impact of global climate change on the economy in the Pacific Northwest, and other coastal areas, includes the 

effect of ocean acidification on the shellfish industry. The district 

I represent is home to a thriving fishing community, and in recent 

years oceanic and atmospheric changes have caused low oxygen 

content in the water, hypoxia, that has created dead zones that kill 

fish, crab, and other marine life. Agriculture and fishing are just 

two examples of industries concerned about climate change, and 

they are looking to their policymakers for solutions. 

Climate change also has broad implications on other aspects of 

our Nation’s economy. The Federal Government assists those who 

are hard hit by harsh weather events, and scientists point to in-
11 

creasingly severe weather patterns as further evidence of the 

changing climate. The Government Accountability Office recently 

released a report that, for the first time, lists climate change as a 

significant financial risk to the Federal Government. The report 

adds that the Federal Government is not well positioned to address 

the fiscal exposure presented by climate change. 

As a Nation, we are becoming too familiar with the consequences 

of waiting until the 11th hour to develop solutions to the problems 

we face. Let us not make the mistake with something as serious 

as climate change. And even though we may have differences of 

opinion about what is causing climate change, we can still discuss 

the economic gains we can make by investing in a clean energy 

economy, modernizing our infrastructure, and seeking energy independence. The United States has been a leader in renewable energy technology and climate research. We must continue our leadership if we intend to leave our children and grandchildren a clean 

and healthy environment in which they can thrive economically. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to the testimony from 

these experts today, and I yield back the balance of my time. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bonamici follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE RANKING MEMBER SUZANNE BONAMICI

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing, and I would like to thank our 

witnesses for being here today. 

The reality of climate change is increasingly impossible to deny. Over the past 25 

years, numerous scientists from the United States and around the world have appeared before Congress to testify about climate change. Countless peer-reviewed 

studies have shown that climate change is real and that humans are a significant 

contributing factor. Now we must shift the debate to planning and discuss what actions we should take to mitigate the environmental, economic, and health effects 

that will inevitably hit our communities. 

The stated subject of this hearing is ‘‘policy-relevant’’ climate issues. Because a 

preponderance of scientific evidence shows that human activity is leading to changes 

in the global climate, I submit that all climate issues have become ‘‘policy-relevant.’’ 

The United States, a large historical producer and second largest current producer 

of greenhouse gases, bears a great responsibility to the rest of the world to ensure 

that we promote policies that will reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we continue to place in the Earth’s atmosphere. We have the talent and ability to take on 

this important leadership role; we should also, as a country, have the will to do so. 

Glacial withdrawal, loss of sea ice, ocean acidification, and rising temperatures 

and sea levels are real and measurable problems. Although the effects of climate 

change are global, the impacts of this change are already felt throughout the U.S. 

Record droughts in the American Southwest and historic severe weather events 

throughout the country are recent examples. According to the National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA, 2012 was the warmest year on 

record for the United States, and the nine warmest years have all occurred since 

1998. 

Climate change affects our economy. Oregon has developed a reputation for growing quality wine grapes, including the world-renowned pinot noir. Much of the quality is attributable to the climate in Oregon, where the pinot grapes grow in a temperature range of between 57 and 61 degrees, and even a minor variation in temperature can threaten the continued quality—and hence, value to the Oregon economy-of wines in the region. 

Another important economic impact of global climate change in the Pacific Northwest and in many coastal areas is the effect of ocean acidification on the shellfish 

industry. My district is home to a thriving fishing community. In recent years, oceanic and atmospheric changes have caused low-oxygen content in the water—a condition known as hypoxia—that has created dead zones that kill fish, crab, and other 

marine life. 

Agriculture and fishing are just two examples of industries concerned about climate change—they are looking to their policymakers for solutions. 
12 

Climate change also has broad implications on other aspects of our nation’s economy. The federal government assists those who are hit hard by harsh weather 

events, and scientists point to increasingly severe weather patterns as further evidence of the changing climate. The Government Accountability Office recently released a report that, for the first time, lists climate change as a ‘‘significant financial risk to the federal government.’’ The report adds ‘‘the federal government is not 

well-positioned to address the fiscal exposure presented by climate change.’’ 

As a nation, we are becoming too familiar with the consequences of waiting until 

the eleventh hour to develop solutions to the problems we face. Let’s not make that 

mistake with something as serious as climate change. And even though we may 

have differences of opinion about what is causing climate change, but we can still 

discuss the economic gains we can make by investing in a clean energy economy, 

modernizing our infrastructure, and seeking energy independence. The United 

States has been a leader in renewable energy technology and climate research. We 

must continue our leadership if we intend to leave our children and grandchildren 

a clean and healthy environment in which they can thrive economically. 

Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time. 
13 

Chairman STEWART. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici. 

I now recognize the chair of the full Committee, Mr. Smith, for 

his opening statement. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, climate change is an issue that needs to be discussed thoughtfully and objectively. Unfortunately, it is sometimes 

surrounded by claims that conceal the facts and hinder the proper 

weighing of policy decisions. I believe in the integrity of science, 

and challenging accepted beliefs through open debate and critical 

thinking is a primary part of the scientific process. To make rational decisions about climate change, we need to examine the relevant 

scientific issues, along with the costs and benefits, and better understand the uncertainties that surround both. 

As we will hear today, there is still a great amount of uncertainty associated with our understanding of human influences on 

climate. A recent article in ‘‘The Economist’’ pointed out that climate models have greatly over-predicted warming. In fact, global 

temperatures have held steady over the last 15 years, despite rising greenhouse gas emissions. ‘‘The Economist’’ calls the lack of 

warming a surprise. It notes that the climate might be changing 

in ways not properly understood, which could have profound significance for climate science, and for environmental and social policy. This statement, from a respected publication that had previously supported aggressive emission controls, highlights the complexity of the climate issue. It calls attention to the limits of our 

understanding as to its causes. There is still much we don’t know. 

I am concerned that the administration now seeks to lock in an 

inflexible regulatory framework based on a limited understanding 

of the challenge. I am also concerned that these regulations may 

hinder economic development and our ability to deal with this and 

other challenges that lie before us. Several Federal Government 

agencies have implemented policies that drive up energy prices, 

burden employers, and cost us jobs, but many of these rules have 

no meaningful impact on climate change. 

For example, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed 

standards that virtually prohibit new coal fired power plants from 

being built, and regulations that affect existing power plants and 

refineries may soon follow. Analysis of EPA’s regulatory options reveal that these regulations will significantly increase the price of 

electricity and gasoline. At the same time, the agency has stated 

that cutting U.S. emissions will have little or no effect on global 

greenhouse gas concentrations due to growing emissions in a developing world, particularly China and India. 

A recent Energy Information Administration report shows that 

U.S. reductions in emissions have little effect globally. It found that 

U.S. domestic carbon dioxide emissions decreased by 12 percent between 2005 and 2012, more than any other nation. Global emissions actually increase by 15 percent over roughly the same period. 

Affordable, reliable energy is key to a healthy economy. American 

consumers and small and large businesses all depend on reliable 

and affordable energy. It is only through sustained economic 

growth that we will be able to make the investments in research 

and technology necessary to fully understand and properly deal 

with problems like climate change. We should take a step back 
14 

from the claims of impending catastrophe and think critically about 

what we know, and what we don’t know, about this issue. While 

it may require us to question some accepted views, that may be 

what is necessary for us to fully understand the signs of climate 

change and determine a rational policy response. 

Mr. Chairman, I just want to make the observation that I think 

this is an exceptionally knowledgeable panel of experts and witnesses we have before us today, and I very much look forward to 

their testimony. Now I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN LAMAR S. SMITH

Climate change is an issue that needs to be discussed thoughtfully and objectively. Unfortunately, it’s sometimes surrounded by claims that conceal the facts 

and hinder the proper weighing of policy options. 

I believe in the integrity of science. And I find it unfortunate that those who question certain scientific views on climate have their motives impugned. Challenging 

accepted beliefs through open debate and critical thinking is a primary part of the 

scientific process. To make a rational decision on climate change, we need to examine the relevant scientific issues along with the costs and benefits and better understand the uncertainties that surround both. 

As we will hear today, there is still a great amount of uncertainty associated with 

our understanding of human influences on climate. A recent article in The Economist pointed out that climate models have greatly over-predicted warming. In fact, 

global temperatures have held steady over the past 15 years despite rising greenhouse gas emissions. 

The magazine calls the lack of warming a ‘‘surprise.’’ It notes that the climate 

might be changing in ways not properly understood, which ‘‘could have profound significance for climate science and for environmental and social policy.’’ 

This statement, from a respected publication that had previously supported aggressive emission limits, highlights the complexity of the climate issue. It calls attention to the limits of our understanding as to its causes. Indeed, there is much 

we don’t know. I am concerned that the Administration now seeks to lock in an inflexible regulatory framework based on a limited understanding of the challenge. 

I’m also concerned that these regulations may hinder economic development and our 

ability to deal with this and other challenges that lie before us. 

Several federal government agencies now implement policies that drive up energy 

prices, burden employers and cost us jobs. But, many of these rules have no meaningful impact on climate change. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency 

(EPA) has proposed standards that virtually prohibit new coal-fired power plants 

from being built. And regulations that affect existing power plants and refineries 

are soon to follow. Analyses of EPA’s regulatory options reveal that these regulations will significantly increase the price of electricity and gasoline. 

At the same time, the Agency has stated that cutting U.S. emissions will have 

little or no effect on global greenhouse gas concentrations due to growing emissions 

in the developing world, particularly China and India. A recent Energy Information 

Administration report shows that U.S. reductions in emissions have little effect 

globally. It found that U.S. domestic carbon dioxide emissions decreased by 12 percent between 2005 and 2012—more than any other nation. Global emissions actually increased by 15 percent over roughly the same period. 

Affordable, reliable energy is key to a healthy economy. American consumers and 

small and large businesses all depend on reliable and affordable energy. It is only 

through sustained economic growth that we will be able to make the investments 

in research and technology necessary to fully understand and properly deal with 

problems like climate change. We should take a step back from the claims of impending catastrophe and think critically about what we know and what we don’t 

know about this issue. 

While it may require us to question some scientific views, that may be what is 

necessary for us to fully understand the science of climate change and determine 

a rational policy response. 
15 

Chairman STEWART. Thank you, Chairman Smith. 

If there are Members who wish to submit additional opening 

statements, your statements will be added to the record at this 

point. 

At this time I would like to introduce our witnesses, and, as the 

full Committee Chairman recognized, this is an extraordinary 

panel. 

Our first witness is Dr. Judith Curry, Professor and Chair of the 

School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of 

Technology, and President of the Climate Forecast Applications 

Network. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, she had faculty positions 

at the University of Colorado, Penn State University, and Perdue 

University. Dr. Curry also currently serves as the NASA Advisory 

Council, Earth Science Subcommittee, and the DOE Biological and 

Environment Research Advisory Committee. Dr. Curry received a 

Ph.D. in atmospheric science from the University of Chicago in 

1982. 

Our second witness today is Dr. William Chameides, Dean and 

Professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University. Dr. Chameides has over 30 years of experience in academia 

as professor, researcher, and teacher. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Previously Dr. Chameides worked at 

the Environmental Defense Fund as a chief scientist. He received 

his Ph.D. from Yale University. 

Our final witness today is Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, and adjunct professor at the Copenhagen business school. Dr. Lomborg is one of ‘‘Time’’ magazine’s 

100 most influential people, and one of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century, according to ’’Esquire’’ magazine. Dr. 

Lomborg received his Ph.D. in political science at the University of 

Copenhagen. 

As our witnesses should know, and I am sure that you do, spoken testimony is limited to five minutes each, after which the 

Members of the Committee will have five minutes each to ask you 

questions. 

I recognize now Dr. Curry for five minutes to present her testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. JUDITH CURRY, PROFESSOR, 

SCHOOL OF EARTH AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES, 

GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 

Dr. CURRY. I would like to thank the Subcommittee for the opportunity to offer testimony this morning. My name is Judith 

Curry. I am chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences 

at Georgia Tech. For the past 30 years I have conducted research 

on topics that include climate feedback processes in the Arctic, the 

role of clouds and aerosols in the climate system, and the impact 

of climate change on hurricanes. As president of a small company, 

Climate Forecast Applications Network, I have worked with decision-makers on climate impact assessments and using short term 

climate forecasts to support adaptive management. I am also proprietor of the weblog Climate, Et Cetera. 

For the past several years I have been promoting dialogue across 

a full spectrum of beliefs and opinion on the climate debate. I have 
16 

learned about the complex reasons that intelligent, educated, and 

well-informed people disagree on the subject of climate change, as 

well as tactics used by both sides to try to gain political advantage 

in the debate. Through my company, I have learned about the complexity of different decisions that depend on weather and climate 

information. I have learned the importance of careful determination and communication of forecast uncertainty, and the added 

challenges associated with predicting extreme weather events. I 

have found that the worst prediction outcome is a prediction issued 

with a high level of confidence that turns out to be wrong. A close 

second is missing the possibility of an extreme event. 

If all other things remain equal, it is clear that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will warm the planet. However, the 

real difficulty is that nothing remains equal, and reliable prediction 

of the impact of carbon dioxide on the climate requires that we better understand natural climate variability. My written testimony 

summarized the evidence for and against the hypothesis that humans are playing a dominant role in global warming. I will make 

no attempts to summarize this evidence in my brief comments this 

morning. I will state that there are major uncertainties in many of 

the key observational data sets, particularly before 1980. There are 

also major uncertainties in climate models, particularly with regards to the treatment of clouds and the multi-decadal ocean oscillations. 

The prospect of increased frequency or severity of extreme weather in a warmer climate is potentially the most serious near term 

impact of climate change. A recent report from the inter-governmental panel on climate change found limited observational evidence for worsening of most type of extreme weather events. Attempts to determine the role of global warming and extreme weather events is complicated by the rarity of these events, and also by 

their dependence on natural weather and climate regimes that are 

simulated poorly by climate models. Given these uncertainties, 

there would seem to be plenty of scope for disagreement among scientists. Nevertheless, the consensus about dangerous anthropogenic climate change is portrayed as nearly total among climate 

scientists. Further, the consensus has been endorsed by all of the 

relevant national and international science academies and societies. 

I have been trying to understand how there can be such a strong 

consensus, given these uncertainties, excuse me. How to reason 

about uncertainties in the complex climate system is neither simple 

or obvious. Scientific debates involve controversies over the value 

and importance of particular classes of evidence, failure to account 

of indeterminacy and ignorance, as well as disagreement about the 

appropriate logical framework for assessing the evidence. For the 

past three years I have been working towards understanding the 

dynamics of uncertainty at the climate science policy interface. 

This research has led me to question whether these dynamics are 

operating in a manner that is healthy for either the science or the 

policy process. 

The climate community has worked for more than 20 years to establish a scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. The 

IPCC’s consensus-building process played a useful role in the early 
17 

synthesis of scientific knowledge on this topic. However, I have argued that the ongoing scientific consensus seeking process has had 

the unintended consequence of oversimplifying both the problem 

and its solutions, introducing biases into both the science and related decision-making processes. 

When uncertainty is not well characterized, and there is concern 

about unknown unknowns, there is increasing danger of getting 

the wrong answer, and optimizing for the wrong thing. I have argued in favor of abandoning the scientific consensus seeking approach in favor of open debate and discussion of a broad range of 

policy options on the issues surrounding climate change. There are 

frameworks for decision-making under deep uncertainty that accept 

uncertainty and dissent as key elements of the decision-making 

process. Rather than choosing an optimal policy based on a scientific consensus, decision-makers can design robust and flexible 

policy strategies that are more transparent and democratic, and 

avoid the hubris of pretending to know what will happen in the future. The politicization of the climate change issue presents dawning challenges to climate science and scientists. 

I would like to close with a reminder that uncertainty about the 

future climate is a two-edged sword. There are two situations to 

avoid. The first is acting on the basis of a highly competent statement about the future that turns out to be wrong, and the second 

is missing the possibility of an extreme catastrophic outcome. 

Avoiding both of these situations requires much deeper and better 

assessment of uncertainties and areas of ignorance, as well as creating a broader range of future scenarios than is currently provided 

by climate models. 

This concludes my testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Curry follows:] 
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Chairman STEWART. Thank you, Dr. Curry. 

Dr. Chameides, please, sir, for five minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. WILLIAM CHAMEIDES, 

DEAN AND PROFESSOR, 

NICHOLAS SCHOOL OF THE ENVIRONMENT, 

DUKE UNIVERSITY 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. Thank you, Chairman Stewart, Ranking Member Bonamici, Chair of the Full Committee Smith, and other Members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to testify today. My 

name is Bill Chameides. I am the dean of the Nicholas School of 

the Environment, and a member of the U.S. National Academy of 

Sciences. I am atmospheric scientist who has focused principally on 

the chemistry of the lower atmosphere, trying to understand the 

causes of environmental change, and identify pathways towards a 

more sustainable future. 

My main message today is the risks posed by human caused climate change are significant, and warrant timely action to minimize 

these risks. Yes, there are uncertainties, but these uncertainties do 

not justify inaction. What they do suggest is that our response 

should be a flexible one that allows for course corrections as new 

information and knowledge comes available. Much of what we 

know about the climate is the product of more than 100 years of 

research, founded on the most basic laws of science, and grounded 

by ever improving observations of the climate system. Thermometer measurements show that the Earth’s average surface temperature has risen substantially over the past century. Much has been 

made of the so-called recent pause, or hiatus, in global warming, 

but we should keep the following context in mind. Present day temperatures are anomalously high. The last decade was the warmest 

on record. Nine of the 10 warmest years on record occurred since 

2001, and 2010 and 2005 were the warmest and second warmest 

years on record, respectively. 

Significantly, the frequencies of extremely hot summer days has 

increased by more than a factor of 10 globally. The climate in the 

United States has become more variable and extreme. Over the 

past 50 years we have seen an increase in prolonged stretches of 

excessively high temperatures, more heavy downpours, and in some 

regions, more severe droughts. The preponderance of evidence suggests that most of the recent decadal scale warming can be attributed to fossil fuel burning and other human activities that release 

carbon dioxide and other heat trapping greenhouse gases into the 

atmosphere. 

I have noted that Dr. Curry, in her written testimony, states that 

a 2012 paper by Tonen Xiao suggests that the anthropogenic global 

warming trends might have been overestimated by a factor of two 

in the second half of the 20th century. Now, Dr. Curry has been 

a colleague of mine for many years. I respect her as a scientist. In 

fact, I was—I enthusiastically helped recruit her to her present position at Georgia Tech. But I find some of her statements to be 

problematic, and this is one of them. In the case of the Tonen Xiao 

paper, it is germane and important to also note that one of the implications of their result is that virtually all of the net warming 

over the past 100 years can be attributed to human activities. 
35 

Human caused climate changes and impacts will continue for 

many decades, even centuries, however, the precise nature of these 

impacts cannot be predicted with great certainty. But we do know 

that the risks are considerable, and we haven’t discussed at all the 

problem of ocean acidification from CO2, which is a virtual certainty. 

So how should we, as a Nation, respond? There is, of course, 

room for debate about what climate policies should be implemented, but uncertainty is not a reason for inaction. We, as individuals, and as a society, often act in the face of uncertainty. I, for 

example, cannot predict if, let alone when, there will be a fire in 

my house, but I pay for fire insurance. Similarly, in the face of uncertain but substantial risk from climate change, it is prudent to 

develop and implement a risk based flexible response to the climate 

change challenge. Such a response should have the following elements, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, mobilizing—investing 

in science, technology, and information systems, participating in 

international climate change efforts, and coordinating a national 

response. 

Let me highlight a few of these, and more details are in my written testimony. The nation will need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The magnitude and speed of emissions reductions depends, 

of course, on societal judgments about how much risk is acceptable, 

and what cost. However, given the long lifetime associated with infrastructure for energy production, and the potential for irreversible climate change, the most effective strategy is to begin ramping 

down emissions as soon as possible. 

Because we cannot predict the exact path climate change will 

take, we cannot prescribe a set of climate policies today that we 

know will be optimum for decades to come, and so we need an 

iterative risk management approach that systematically and continuously identifies risks, advances a portfolio of actions that reduce risks, and revises responses in light of new knowledge. And 

it is my impression that, on this issue, Dr. Curry and I are in 

agreement. 

America has choices to make about climate change, choices that 

we must face in the face of uncertainty, but also risks that are 

growing with every new ton of greenhouse gases we emit. We cannot avoid these choices. Bear in mind that making a choice to do 

nothing is, in fact, a choice. It is a choice that our children, and 

their children, and their children after them, will face increased 

risks from human induced climate change. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Chameides follows:] 
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Chairman STEWART. Dr. Chameides, thank you, sir. 

And now Dr. Lomborg. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. BJORN LOMBORG, PRESIDENT, 

COPENHAGEN CONSENSUS CENTER 

Dr. LOMBORG. Thank you very much. My name is Bjorn 

Lomborg. I work at the Copenhagen Consensus Center, and adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School. We are talking 

about policy relevant climate issues, so I would like to show a little 

bit of my testimony, in terms of saying what is actually relevant 

for the decisions that you will have to make. Yes, as I think all of 

us agree, global warming is definitely partly, and mostly manmade. It is a long term problem. I have tried to indicate what is 

the total cost of this, but we are probably talking about 1.4 percent 

of GDP over the next couple of centuries. Obviously that is an 

order of magnitude impact. So it indicates it is not the end of the 

world, as it is sometimes being portrayed, but it is certainly not 

nothing either, so let us try and get this right. 

We also need to recognize that the last 20 years of what we have 

tried to do has managed to do almost nothing. What you see here 

is the CO2 emissions from 1950, and out until 2035 from the International Energy Agency. You see a little bit of crosses around 2010, 

which was what we promised with Kyoto. We managed virtually 

nothing. We have spent 20 years, and managed to do virtually 

nothing. And we need to recognize that the current approach, that 

focuses very much on saying, it is about wind turbines and solar 

panels, yes, they are going to help, but not very much. By—right 

now, about 0.8 percent of all energy comes from modern green 

agency, and in 2035, with very optimistic scenarios, it is going to 

be 3.2 percent. So we are talking about a very small part of the 

solution. If we are going to fix climate change, we will need game 

changers. 

We also need to recognize, as several Members pointed out, cutting CO2 is not free. There is a strong correlation between how 

much more economic growth we have and how much more CO2 you 

put out. So, again, we have to recognize we are not polluting the 

atmosphere with CO2 just simply to annoy the environmentalists. 

We are doing it simply because it is what powers everything we 

like. And so, unless we find technologies that allow us to continue 

economic growth without the CO2 emissions, I think we are going 

to find it very hard to get most nations on board to reduce their 

carbon emissions. 

We also need to recognize that, whatever we do, it is only going 

to have long term impact. No matter what we do, it is really only 

going to impact the temperature development in the second half of 

the century. And, as some of the Members also pointed out, we 

need to get China and the rest of the developing world on board. 

We can do a lot of good, certainly. I come from the European 

Union. We feel incredibly virtuous, but we have done virtually 

nothing. Let me just show you one graph, which I think, in many 

ways, shows you—this is for Britain, but this is true also for the 

European Union. If you will look at the blue curve, you see how 

much Britain has actually cut its carbon emissions, and they are 

very, very proud of this too. But if you look at the red curve, it in-
47 

cludes how much they also import, minus what they export, of 

their carbon emissions. And, of course, what they have essentially 

done, and what a lot of us have done, is we have simply exported 

a lot of our stuff to China. So we get China to emit all the CO2

for us, we feel virtuous, but it doesn’t actually help the planet. 

So, again, we need to find a way that actually works not just to 

make us feel good, but something that will actually end up doing 

good. So, fundamentally, if I have to summarize why it hasn’t 

worked so far, well, we have done Kyoto style cuts, which actually 

cost quite a bit, they do very little good, and we need to recognize 

that right now, and certainly in the next 10 or 20 years, green energy is not really ready to take over in any major way. We need 

to recognize that currently we are just spending lots of money 

doing fairly little good. 

This is—I am—I apologize, this is the most complicated graph, 

but it shows you how much different—of the main countries are 

paying in implicit CO2 costs per ton of CO2. Germany is paying almost $150 per ton. The United States is probably paying a little 

less than $50 per ton. Compare this to the fact that the best and 

the largest meta-study of what is the damage cost for an extra ton 

of CO2, I estimate it is probably around $5 per ton. So you are— 

you guys are paying perhaps 10 times too much, Germany is paying perhaps 30 times too much. South Korea, obviously, is just paying through the roof, and there are a lot more expensive solutions. 

We need to find cheaper ways to tackle global warming. 

And that is why I think we need to—if I—in summary, we need 

to recognize this cannot be about trying to make fossil fuels so expensive nobody wants them. That is never going to work politically, 

and it is bad economics. Instead, what we do need to do is to focus 

on making green energy so cheap that everyone eventually will 

want them. And, of course, that is especially China and India. That 

is going to happen through innovation. This will take time, and we 

would all wish this not to be the case, but we have got to face up 

to the fact that that is the only way we are really going to cut carbon emissions. 

We need to recognize we are spending very little on research and 

development right now. We are spending a lot of money on inefficient cutting of carbon emissions. Why don’t we spend more on innovation, and less on cutting carbon emissions? Ultimately, that 

will end up doing a lot more good. 

Let me just—and I don’t mean to beat advice or anything, but 

if you looked at what President Obama said in the—in his State 

of the Union, he actually proposed an energy security trust. And 

if you—and it was very sketchy what exactly was going to come out 

of that, but if—the thrust of that was to say, let us take a little 

money and spend it on research and development to make green 

energy cheaper for the future, that way we will cut carbon emissions much cheaper by making it cheap for everyone, also the Chinese and the Indians. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lomborg follows:] 
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Chairman STEWART. Thank you, to all of you, for being available 

to us in your questioning today. The Committee rules limit questioning to five minutes, and alternating between Republican and 

Democratic Members of the Subcommittee. And the Chair now recognizes himself for five minutes to begin questioning. 

Again, in a sincere way, thank you for a very intellectual—and 

I appreciate the tone of your testimony today. I do think the nuts 

and bolts of this issue are fairly straightforward, and several of you 

indicated that it is risk management, it is risk analysis. What are 

the actual risks, what are the actual costs, and what is the most 

effective way to getting and arriving at a desirable outcome, which 

all of us want to do? I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to arrive at the same outcome on this. Of course, analyzing the risk is 

where this has become so politicized, I am afraid. 

And then I think something that I appreciate with this panel 

here, once the risk is determined, trying to determine the actual 

cost to it, and what that means. And as I indicated in my opening 

statement, this can’t be borne by a small percentage of people. The 

cost of this will be borne by all of us, and in some cases by people 

who can least afford it. And I am not only talking about those of 

us here in the United States, but around the world, and people who 

will be, in a very real way, denied a standard of living that allows 

them for the minimal standards of power, and, in many cases, the 

things tangent to that. For example, health care. 

And, Dr. Chameides, I appreciated your analogy with the fire insurance. And, of course, all of us understand that, but I wonder if 

you have a scenario where your house is worth $100,000, but it 

costs you $200,000 to buy an insurance policy for that, and I won’t 

ask you if that is a good decision, because of course it is not, and 

I think that is where many of us are wondering, what is the cost 

of that insurance, then? And you list several suggestions in your 

testimony of things that we could do to substantially reducing 

greenhouse gas emissions, which is incredibly expensive, and, 

frankly, changes our whole economy—mobilizing new—now for adaptation. And I won’t read your entire list, but, I mean, have you 

seen any analysis that would give you a figure for that of economic 

input in dollars? 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. Certainly. There have been many, many that 

had indicated—I mean, it depends, again, on how rapidly you want 

to decrease, but most analyses have indicated that the price to our 

economy for decreasing emissions at a substantial rate over the 

next decade or two are fairly modest, on the order of about one percent or less of GDP. 

I think the important thing to bear in mind is—— 

Chairman STEWART. Could I just interject? 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. Sure. 

Chairman STEWART. I mean, to some people one percent may be 

modest, but it is a meaningful amount of money. We are talking 

trillions of dollars there. Again—yes? 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. Yeah, it is true, but it is one percent, okay? 

Without making a value judgment. But I think the important thing 

to bear in mind is—I mean, and, again, we can argue about how 

rapidly we should cut, and how much we should cut, but we are 

talking about a process of cutting emissions that will need to occur 
73 

over many, many decades. We don’t necessarily need to make 

major cuts now. I think it is important that we get started. 

One of the analogies that I would make—sometimes there has 

been discussion about this or that has virtually no impact on the 

temperature in 2050. I would like to make the analogy of, you 

know, at some point at the end of this hearing, I am going to head 

over to the Metro, and it is going to be—let us say 1,000 steps. And 

I have got to make that first step, and that first step is really important. But someone could say, don’t take that first step. It doesn’t 

get you anywhere. I think we have to recognize that that first step 

in setting us down the road will be very, very important. And it 

could be very modest. I think we could decide on that. 

Chairman STEWART. Okay. If I could shift gears for just a 

minute, and I will just allow any on the panel to address this, and 

that is—it is interesting to me that the—if you take the top 20 primary modeling of this, and yet we are about to drop out of the lowest level of that modeling, with this pausing in temperature rise, 

and none of them predicted that. And, I mean, is there any idea— 

might that continue for five years, for ten years, for 20 or 30 years? 

Do we have any idea? Dr. Curry? 

Dr. CURRY. I can address that. There are some hypotheses that 

this could go out for another 20 years or so. Associated—we have 

recently seen a shift to the cool phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which means we will see more La Ninas, which have a cooling effect. And this could keep us in a—basically a flat period for 

several more decades. So we don’t quite know—we are also—people 

are projecting that the sun will be acting in a direction that is towards cooling, relative to what we saw in the latter half of the 20th 

century. 

So there are signals that we could see cooling for the next few— 

or steady temperatures for the next few decades. 

Chairman STEWART. Okay. 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. Take a couple of seconds—— 

Chairman STEWART. Yes. 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. —the time has expired. I think we don’t know, 

and there is a chance that it may continue. And, in fact, there is 

equal chance, and perhaps less—more of a chance that it will increase again at a rapid rate. I think the important thing to do is— 

if you look at the graph of model predicted temperatures over—and 

observe, you will find many instances in the record over the 20th 

century where the model over-predicted the warming for a period 

of time, like it is now. And what happens is eventually the atmosphere catches up, and, actually, at some points the model underpredicts the warming. So the fact that we are over-predicting the 

warming right now is not unprecedented, although it is troubling 

for many of us, yes. 

Chairman STEWART. Okay. Thank you. I will give the time over 

to the gentlewoman from Oregon. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 

you, panel, for your testimony. 

Dr. Chameides, in your testimony you state that most of the recent decadal scale warming can be attributed to fossil fuel burning 

and other human activities that release carbon dioxide and other 
74 

heat trapping greenhouse gases into the environment. Will you 

please expand on what the other human activities are? 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. Certainly. A good deal of it is biomass burning, 

deforestation, for example. There are also greenhouse gases that 

other than carbon dioxide. For example, diesel burning, and other 

solid fuels that give rise to black carbon, or soot emissions. Methane emissions, some from agriculture, some from landfills and so 

forth are also quite important, for example. Fertilizers tend to emit 

nitrous oxide, which is also a very effective greenhouse gas. And 

then there are fluorocarbons that are used in the chemical industry 

that also contribute to global warming. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much. And you also state in your 

testimony that uncertainty is not a reason for inaction, and suggest 

taking the risk based and flexible response to the climate change 

challenge. And I appreciate the analogy, like buying insurance for 

your house, and the Chairman also talked about that, you know, 

considering what if the insurance costs more than the house? I 

think I have to submit that it is easier to replace a house than a 

planet, if we have the kind of damage that could come from climate 

change. What are the main risks to humans if we don’t decrease 

our emissions? And are there increased risks if delay action? And, 

in the same vein, you talked about the greater risks from further 

climate change. Are the risks different as greenhouse gas emissions 

increase, or are they the same risks, only amplified? 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. I would say that, as far as we know, we have 

a long list of risks. Some of the impacts that we see potentially 

happening now, and some that we think will come. And I don’t necessarily think that qualitatively that will change, although they 

might become more severe. And, of course, those risks relate to loss 

of life and property due to extreme weather, droughts. Sea level 

rise, of course, is a large one. We are seeing what we believe is a 

decimation of forests in the west from pine bark beetle infestation, 

which seems to be in part due to the fact that temperatures are 

so high, and the climate is so dry, and a variety of other things. 

I think what is very, very important to bear in mind, in terms 

of making a decision about the future and the risks, is that the impact of emissions today won’t be fully felt for a number of decades. 

It is sort of the flip side of what Dr. Lomborg was saying. And so 

if we say, well, let us delay and see what happens in 20 years, basically not only then have we locked in what is happened in the intervening 20 years, but we have now locked in to a future. 

And so the issue of the risks that we face is the fact that what 

we do today will have a major impact in the future, and do we 

want to take that chance, or do we want to begin to do something 

to mitigate that? 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. Dr. Lomborg, you talked about investing in—heavily in research and development into green technologies. In times of budget constraints, oftentimes those investments are targeted for cuts, unfortunately. And we are committed, 

I think, in the United States to investing in renewable technology 

and renewable energy. So could you talk a little bit about what 

green technologies you would propose, what are the benefits, other 

than, of course, for the industry itself, of investing in green technology? 
75 

Dr. LOMBORG. Absolutely, and thank you. The important part is 

to recognize that investing in research and development, investing 

in smart minds—come up with new idea is much, much cheaper 

than the support that we give to existing inefficient technologies, 

like subsidizing solar panels or wind turbines right now, so we 

could actually make money and invest a lot more in research and 

development. My point is simply to say, we don’t know which technologies—and I think we would all agree we don’t know what technology’s is going to power the middle of the century. But what we 

need to do, and what America has been so amazing at doing, is to 

show the way for the rest of the world, coming up with great innovations. 

I love—if you know Craig Venter, the guy who sequenced the 

human genome, he is working on making a bacteria that will essentially be producing diesel. I don’t know if it is possible—it is 

probably technologically possible, but we also know that it is not 

economically feasible right now, but imagine if we could do it? And 

those are the kinds of ideas—there are thousands, literally thousands, of ideas out there. They cost very little to support each one 

of those, and we really just need one, or a few, of those technologies 

to come through, and they will then make it possible for everyone 

else, the Chinese and the Indians, to cut their carbon emissions 

dramatically. 

So I agree with Dr. Chameides. Obviously, if we don’t do anything for 20 years, we would just have wasted 20 years. But if we 

actually make sure that the future will have viable alternatives, we 

could see a dramatic reduction in CO2 in just a short while, once 

we get the economics right. 

Ms. BONAMICI. I see my time has expired. I yield back. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman STEWART. Thank you. 

Chairman Smith. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is probably an 

indication of the expertise of this panel that almost all my questions have already been answered, but I do want to make a couple 

comments, and maybe come at some of these issues from another 

way. 

Dr. Lomborg, in your last answer, I think you answered one of 

my questions, which was—you are not suggesting doing that—you 

are not suggesting delaying. In fact, just the opposite. It is a very 

active proposal that will actually, I believe, not only benefit America economically, but will actually lead to a greater reduction in 

carbon dioxide, or other greenhouse gases, and actually lead to a 

cleaner environment. And I just have a hard time understanding 

why that doesn’t hold more attraction, rather than plowing ahead 

with policies that we know is going to hurt American economically, 

and obviously not produce the results that many of us would like, 

and we could probably agree upon. 

Let me ask something else. The United States, as I mentioned 

in my opening statement, has reduced carbon dioxide emissions 12 

percent of the last seven years. The reset of the world has increased carbon dioxide emissions by 15 percent. That is as good of 

a record as, I think, any industrialized country in the world has, 

so we can be grateful for what we have been doing in the United 
76 

States. And I don’t think we need to keep punishing our citizens 

economically for doing the right thing. But you mentioned a while 

ago that we are paying 10 times more than we should for I guess 

energy, but I wanted to ask you to expand a little bit on that. I 

know you mentioned Germany 30 times or greater, but why are we 

paying 10 times too much, and how—what is the answer to not 

doing that? 

Dr. LOMBORG. Thank you very much. Yes, fundamentally we 

have a split in the climate conversation between feeling good and 

doing good. The feeling good part is where we put up a solar panel 

that is not yet effective, or a wind turbine that is not yet effective, 

but telling ourselves, but we are at least cutting carbon emissions. 

Which is true, but for every ton we cut, we pay perhaps $50—— 

Chairman SMITH. I see 

Dr. LOMBORG. —when the benefit of that ton is only about $5. 

Now, again, obviously, you can quibble about the exact numbers, 

but it indicates that we are paying a large sum of money to do a 

little good. 

And I would like to get back to your point of—on the fracking. 

Fracking is a technology that we invested in from the, what, late 

’70s in the United States, and we are only just seeing the benefits 

now. Essentially the United States probably reduced about eight 

percent just from fracking. So, to put it very bluntly, with fracking 

you probably cut about 400 million tons every year of CO2, and you 

are getting paid for it. You are actually making—compared to 

prices before, you are probably making about $125 billion a year 

for the American—— 

Chairman SMITH. We ought to be encouraging that, rather than 

trying to—— 

Dr. LOMBORG. So my—— 

Chairman SMITH. —deter it, yeah. 

Dr. LOMBORG. The simple point is it is a lot easier to cut carbon 

emissions—— 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Dr. LOMBORG. —and make people money than it is—— 

Chairman SMITH. Right. 

Dr. LOMBORG. —to tell them, could you please cut carbon emissions, and it will cost them a lot of money. And that is what innovation can do. 

Chairman SMITH. Exactly. Thank you, Dr. Lomborg. Let me address my next question to all panelists, and, Dr. Curry, start with 

you. And this is the connection between extreme weather and climate change. 

Last year the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, 

IPCC, found that there is a high agreement that long term trends 

in weather disasters ‘‘have not been attributed to climate change. 

Droughts have become less frequent, less intense, were shorter in 

regions like central North America, and the absence of extreme 

weather trends caused by climate change is also true for floods, tornadoes, and tropical storms.’’ Let me just ask you all if you agree 

with that conclusion. That was a small part of a larger report by 

the Panel on Climate Change. Dr. Curry? 

Dr. CURRY. I do agree with that statement. The extreme events 

have been—seemed very extreme the last decade, and they were 
77 

certainly more extreme than we saw in the 1980s. But if you go 

back to the 1950s, and if you go back to the 1930s, you saw similar 

patterns. You know, droughts in the southwest, elevated hurricane 

activity, et cetera. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you. Dr. Chameides, do you agree with 

the IPCC? 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. Without saying I agree or disagree, let me just 

quote to you something that comes from our own U.S. National Climate Assessment. This just—— 

Chairman SMITH. Is it possible you might tell me whether you 

agree or disagree? 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. I have to see the statement in more detail. It is 

not—I am not—I just don’t know. I can’t comment on it. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. Well, what it says is that over the past 50 years, 

for the United States, we have seen an increase in prolonged 

stretches of excessively high temperatures, more heavy downpours, 

and, in some regions, more severe drought. 

Chairman SMITH. Right. 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. So there are some aspects that we are seeing 

changes. 

Chairman SMITH. Yeah. 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. This is the U.S.—— 

Chairman SMITH. I think the point the report is making is to— 

if you look at this over a number of years, and sort of put it in context that we are seeing that extreme weather occurs many decades 

ago, and is going to continue to occur, and there is not necessarily 

any correlation between that and, say, carbon dioxide emissions. 

But, Dr. Lomborg, do you have an opinion on that? 

Dr. LOMBORG. I think the fundamental point is that there are 

some things that are actually getting more extreme, but there is 

also a lot of hype, I would agree. But I think the real point is to 

recognize trying to regulate extreme weather through carbon cuts 

is an extremely inefficient way to do it, certainly in the next half 

century. Now, I think we all agree that eventually we need to fix 

this, but I would—— 

Chairman SMITH. Um-hum. 

Dr. LOMBORG. —surmise that, to the extent that you worry about 

people being hit by hurricanes, people being hit by heat waves, 

there are much more direct, and much cheaper, and much more effective ways to help them in the short and medium, and even rather long term. 

Chairman SMITH. And I agree with you. I think technology developments need to come first, and that will yield a better result, and 

a more cost efficient result as well. 

Thank you all for your comments. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman STEWART. Thank you, Chairman Smith. 

I now turn the time over to colleague from Maryland, Ms. Edwards. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member 

Bonamici. 

I had hoped that, in today’s hearing, we would be able to identify 

the remaining uncertainties about climate science, and understand 

our ability to mitigate them, and to inform policy decisions that 
78 

protect the public and our economy, and I am not totally sure I 

have heard that quite yet. And, in fact, it has been quite disturbing, because what I hear from our witnesses is that they agree 

that climate change is happening, that the globe is warming. They 

agree that it is some combination of natural occurrence and human 

activity. And, in fact, all of you are members of various scientific 

and other societies who conclude that a vast majority what is happening right now is caused by human activity. 

And yet, here we are, with one of our witnesses saying, well, you 

know, let us just wait and invest down the line to get cheaper technology, green technology, that helps us mitigate some of our concerns, and that is really disturbing to me. 

Dr. Chameides, in your testimony, you say that greenhouse gases 

that we emit now are going to linger in the atmosphere for generations, impacting our great-grandchildren, just as we are experiencing the impacts of fossil fuels burned over the last century. And 

so, considering the position that some are taking, that action now 

to address climate change is way too costly, and your point about 

the lingering consequences, isn’t the cost of inaction now great, or 

greater, than the cost of action? 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. Thank you. I—my testimony indicates that it is 

my strong opinion that a prudent course of action would begin to 

act now. I don’t think we can afford to wait. As I said, I think that 

the issues of how fast, and at what cost, are issues that we should 

discuss as a society. But I think it is imprudent to decide that we 

will simply wait and see what happens. 

One of the things I said in my testimony with regard to carbon 

dioxide that I think is useful to bear in mind as a measure, some 

of the carbon dioxide that we emitted, we emitted, in the first 

Model T car is in the atmosphere today. And some of the carbon 

dioxide that we are going to emit when we drive home or whatever 

tonight is going to be in the atmosphere of our great-great-grandchildren. So there is a decision we have to make about how much 

of that legacy do we want to leave for our future generations? And 

every day that we delay means more of our legacy will be that carbon dioxide. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you. One of the challenges we have—and, 

Dr. Lomborg, I agree that we need to make investments in green 

technology. In fact, I think many of the Members on my side of the 

aisle have voted repeatedly to make those investments in green 

technology, and in enhancing research and development activities, 

and we have been stopped in our tracks over and over again by 

folks who say, no, we don’t want to think about that at all, we don’t 

want to make those kind of investments, when we know that that 

would be good for the future at the same time that we are trying 

to reduce CO2 emissions. 

But I am interested in your testimony because you say—and it 

sounds that our Chairman kind of agreed with the investments in 

green technology over time, but you are calling for $40 billion of 

investment from the United States Government in green technology. And I am going to tell you, you go lobby that side of the 

aisle and see if you can find $40 billion for that kind of investment, 

because I rather doubt that that can happen, and especially in this 

constrained environment. And so wouldn’t you agree that there has 
79 

to be some sort of balance that says we have to both reduce our 

current emissions—the United States has to take a lead on doing 

that, try to encourage as much as possible China and India. We 

know what those contributions are, but we have a little bit of skin 

in that game, and we have to invest in green technology. But to 

think that we are going to somehow come up with a magic $40 billion to do that, I think, is—well, it is foolhardy. 

Dr. LOMBORG. And thank you very much for those comments. My 

point is simply to say that those are the technologies that will 

power the future. What we have seen right now—and let us just 

remember the last 20 years. We have been making these kinds of 

statements, especially in Europe, for a very long time. We want to 

cut carbon emissions, we have given subsidies to a lot of technologies, and we have managed to cut very, very little. And to the 

extent that we have, we have just exported a lot of our emissions 

to China. 

So my concern is really that, by continuing to say, let us cut carbon emissions, we actually just end up doing very little for a decade or two. I would hate to see that happen, whereas, if we invest 

in research and development, we could actually get possibly everybody on board. Just to give you a sense of order and magnitude, 

you are right now spending about $17 billion on biofuel subsidies. 

That would probably be a good thing to cut. I am sure I am going 

to offend somebody here. You are certainly also—I would like to 

just look into those numbers, I can’t quite remember them, but you 

are at least spending $20 billion on subsidies to solar panels. If you 

add that up, you would have $37 billion I—— 

Ms. EDWARDS. Well, we need to cut—see, my time is expired, but 

we must cut CO2 emissions. That is part of our responsibility. It 

is the responsibility to challenge our international partners to do 

that, and to make the investments in green technology and research and development that I would agree that we should. 

And my time is expired. Thank you. 

Chairman STEWART. Thank you, Ms. Edwards. 

Mr. Neugebauer? 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank 

you for holding this important hearing, and thank our panelists for 

being here. 

You know, I am just an old land developer from Lubbock, Texas, 

and so I am not a scientist, but what I do know a little bit about 

is markets. And I think, Dr. Lomborg, you mentioned that we 

ought to shift some of our resources into the research side, and 

what we have been doing is subsidizing alternatives that we 

thought would be a part of the solution. And, as you mentioned, 

some of those numbers are big. 

And so if we are going to do a cost benefit analysis of these 

things, doesn’t it distort our ability to determine both the cost and 

the benefit if the government is distorting the marketplace? And, 

because many of the alternatives that are being offered out there 

are not commercially viable. And so what happens to things that 

aren’t commercially viable, if—unless the government determines 

that it is going to subsidize it, they go away, and so those become 

temporary solutions. So what is your thoughts for the government 

to step back? I mean, what we have seen from—particularly from 
80 

this administration is that you have gone out and given huge loans, 

and grants, and subsidies to commercial entities, but it turned out 

that the government thought that was a great idea, the customers 

didn’t agree with that. 

So is your—is it your testimony that we should basically get the 

government out of the subsidy business? 

Dr. LOMBORG. No, it is that we should be much smarter about 

how we make the argument. Let us remember, if global warming 

is a problem, and I am arguing that, with the best meta-studies, 

a ton of CO2 emitted about now causes about $5 of aggregate damage, we need to somehow reflect that. What we need to recognize 

is that right now we are possibly subsidizing green energy sources 

to the tune of $50 per ton of CO2 avoided, so we are paying too 

much to avoid too little damage. 

But that doesn’t alleviate us from actually having to do something to avoid those tons that the United States is responsible for. 

But, of course, we would also like to see all the tongs that the Chinese are responsible for, and the Indians are responsible for. And, 

as the Chairman rightly mentioned, I think the Chinese and Indians are more concerned about just getting their kids an education, 

and food on their table, and a lot of other issues. So it lies to our 

responsibility to make sure that we invest smartly so that we can 

avoid that extra damage down the line. 

If you invest in research and development—and there will be an 

under investment in research and development in the private market, simply because if you—imagine Mitchell, he did the first 

fracking back in ’78. If nobody had supported him, why on earth 

would he have done it? Because had he found out how to frack 

spending 30 years, he would have not been able to patent that. He 

would probably not have been able to recoup all those benefits. 

There are huge social benefits. That is why we invest in medical 

sciences, to—for people to come up with great new cures. And, likewise, we should be investing in long term innovation for technology. 

So my argument is to say stop subsidizing as much, and start investing a lot more in research and development. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Dr. Curry, do you concur with that? 

Dr. CURRY. Well, yeah. I didn’t hear much that I would disagree 

with. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Okay. And, one of the things that you bring 

up, and it is a concern I have, is that if the rest of the world—I 

mean, we almost make it sound like it is—that the United States 

is the number one contributor to greenhouse gases in the world, 

and that is, from my reading, is not the case. Is that—anybody disagree with that? So the question is, if the rest of the world isn’t 

going to either have the resources to make these investments, or 

decides not to buy into it, and what we have seen is many of the 

other countries have not bought into it, then doesn’t that diminish 

our ability to really have impactful changes, if, in fact, we are affecting the climate? Yeah. 

Dr. LOMBORG. Sorry. Just very briefly, if you do a cost benefit 

analysis, the current approach is probably not a good way to go. 

But if you invest in research and development, the benefits could 

be 10, or even more, the amount of dollars that you put in. So it 
81 

would both benefit the United States, because you would have better technology for the future, and you would also help the rest of 

the world. I would surmise that might be a good deal, even just for 

the United States. But, of course, it would be ideal if we could also 

get China and India on board. 

Chairman STEWART. Thank you again. It looks like our last questioner today is Mr. Weber. 

Mr. WEBER. Dr. Lomborg, I think—and I came in late, and didn’t 

get to hear all of you all’s testimony, I apologize, so I am—I will 

go with what I have got. I believe you testified you recommend $40 

billion in research from the United States, and my colleague down 

on the other side of the aisle said, you know, go lobby this side of 

the aisle. How much luck have you had lobbying China? 

Dr. LOMBORG. We asked some of the world’s top economists what 

are the smartest ways to deal with global warming, and what they 

suggested was we should be spending 0.2 percent—— 

Mr. WEBER. Are you lobbying China, and Russia—— 

Dr. LOMBORG. Yes. 

Mr. WEBER. —and India? 

Dr. LOMBORG. Yes, but it is—— 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. 

Dr. LOMBORG. —also important—— 

Mr. WEBER. How much money are they investing? 

Dr. LOMBORG. Well, they are investing some money, but, honestly, I don’t know what—— 

Mr. WEBER. Somewhere south of 40 billion, I suspect? 

Dr. LOMBORG. Yeah. Let us also say I am suggesting it is a percentage of—— 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. 

Dr. LOMBORG. —GDP, so they would be investing a lot less. 

Mr. WEBER. And this is a question for all three of you. Are you 

all aware of the amount of energy required, alternating current, to 

run an electrical grid, for example, the size of the one in Texas, 

which is 85 percent of the state? Are you all aware of how much 

energy is required, and how much of that is alternating current, 

how much direct current, which would be solar panels, produces for 

that grid? Dr.—is it Chameides, Chameides? Are you aware of 

that? 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. I don’t know the numbers. 

Mr. WEBER. How about you, Dr. Curry? 

Dr. CURRY. I don’t know the numbers, but I am doing research 

related to wind energy generation—— 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. 

Dr. CURRY. —and—— 

Mr. WEBER. All right. Well, I own an air conditioning company, 

and let me tell you, it is a huge amount of power required to power 

a compressor to enable us to sit here today without the windows 

open, with the lights on, and also to do things like refrigerate your 

food. Just minor details. 

Our quality of life is sustained by the energy that America produces. The things that make America great are the things that 

America makes. We have the most stable energy source in the 

world, and that is not by accident. That is by entrepreneurs getting 

out and developing their industry, and risking their capital. And I 
82 

will get off that soapbox for a minute, and I will ask you all questions. 

So—there is advocacy going on that the United States needs to 

cut their CO2 emissions, while the rest of the world, admittedly 

China, Mexico, India, and some of the other countries will not. All 

that does is puts us at an economic competitive disadvantage, and, 

in fact, would enable them to perhaps become the world leader in 

the market economy. Our quality of life would go down. We would 

export a lot of jobs overseas. Without really knowing that global 

warming is affecting us, are any of you able to adequately measure 

the amount of a tree’s ability to assimilate CO2 and carbon dioxide, 

and to reproduce oxygen? Do we know that? Is that factored into 

you all’s thought process? Do we need to plant more trees? Dr. 

Curry? 

Dr. CURRY. That is certainly a, you know, a good thing. It would 

have many beneficial impacts on the environment—— 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. 

Dr. CURRY. —but there are ways of natural sequestration of CO2. Dr. CHAMEIDES. There are a variety of ways of using land, farm 

land in particular, and forests, to what we call offset the emissions 

from the energy grid, and allowing those offsets into a system 

would greatly reduce the costs. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. And let me—my time is running short here. 

Dr. Chameides, I think you made the comment that the CO2 emissions from Model As and Model Ts are in still in the atmosphere, 

and I am curious how you have been able to identify those, because 

I can’t tell them apart from the ’56 Chevy I drove in high school. 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. I—they are playing ragtime music. No, I am 

sorry, I apologize. 

Mr. WEBER. That is all right. 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. So we—first of all, we know that the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is largely coming from burning of 

fossil fuels from isotopic data. And from that isotopic data as well, 

we can estimate fairly well, accurately, how long a carbon dioxide 

molecule ultimately stays in the atmosphere, in a sense, after it 

has been emitted. And from those two things we can estimate how 

much of the carbon dioxide that was emitted, say, in 1920, or ’15, 

or whenever it was—— 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. —is still in the atmosphere today. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. And then, lastly, if we are wrong on global 

warming, and if global cooling results in the next—does—that become the discussion in 40, or 50, or 75 years, how does the United 

States recover from losing its market edge in the world, from a policy standpoint? How do we recover from that mistake? Dr. Curry? 

Dr. CURRY. Well, this is why I suggest we need to consider a 

broad range of possible future climate scenarios on time scales, you 

know, out to 3, 4, 5 decades, versus, you know, this century. What 

may happen, you know, on the near term decadal time scales may 

going in a different direction than the longer term change, and I 

think those are the kinds of scenarios that we need to consider if 

our policies are going to be robust. 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. I guess I—with all due respect, I would question 

the premise. I think we can intelligently come up with a large port-
83 

folio of options and policy responses, including investments in research and other types of activities that will not substantially 

change our market position. 

With regard to the China and other countries, I think, you know, 

we need to recognize that it is a double-edged sword. We are in a 

bit of a bind, because their emissions threaten our well-being. And 

so it behooves us to not only worry about what we are doing, but 

to engage with those countries to get them to get—be serious about 

their emissions. And China is a strange animal, but they have actually built a lot of coal fired power plants, but they have also invested in a lot of renewable energy. I think about 25 percent of 

their rebuilds—— 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. —is—— 

Mr. WEBER. And, I am sorry, I am out of time, but, Dr. Lomborg, 

Mr. Chairman, if I may very quickly? How do we recover? 

Dr. LOMBORG. Well, I think your point is well taken that you are 

not going to see dramatic reductions if it actually starts impacting 

people’s life quality. And I think that is really the argument for 

why we haven’t done anything in the—— 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you. 

Dr. LOMBORG. —last 20 years. So we need to find smarter ways 

that is actually going to bind everyone together, and it is going to 

be cheaper. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you. I yield back the time I don’t have. 

Chairman STEWART. Yes, Mr. Weber. And I misspoke, you are 

not the last questioner today. 

Mr. Rohrabacher? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. And I did hear your 

testimony, and I had to run off to the Foreign Affairs Committee 

to see that we don’t borrow money from China, in order to give 

money to China, because of predictions of global warming. 

Now, I can remember at least 10 different occasions in my memory of scientists who have said, case closed. Remember that expression? Case closed, there is global warming. And I remember my colleagues picking up on that, on the other side, case closed. And you 

still hear that ringing, that—well, this is—what—the change in the 

climate is due to man-made activity, and this was done in order to 

suppress debate. Let me just say that I have in 24 years in Congress, and I was a journalist and a writer before that, and spent 

some time in the White House, I have never heard such an effort 

go on among academic people to cut off debate on an issue than 

this one. I have never seen it before. 

Let me ask you some specific questions. You have some experts 

here now. It appears to me that the baseline for deciding how much 

warming is taking place is around the 1850s. And the baseline that 

we are talking about, in the 1850s, happens to be at the very tail 

end of a couple hundred years of what is recognized cooling. Have 

we come back to the point yet that there was a natural thing before 

that cooling started. Is the temperature of the Earth yet back to 

what it was before it went through the mini-Ice Age? Are we back 

to that temperature yet before the mini-Ice Age? 

Dr. CURRY. Well, there is debate about what the, you know, what 

the global temperature was during, say, the medieval warm period, 
84 

and it is very hard to sample and infer all that. So that is an area 

of active debate. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Do we have—anybody else have any suggestions on that? 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. A wide number of studies, in a variety of different ways, indicate that the present day temperature is warmer 

than it has been probably for at least 1,000 years or longer. Let me 

just give you one—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well—but, wait—but we don’t know the—— 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. One—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. One question. We don’t know that—even if it 

is hotter than it was before the decrease in temperature, when we 

are claiming that this is some abnormal—— 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. It is higher—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. —change? 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. —than—it is higher than temperatures that we 

have seen for 1,000 years, so it goes—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. Okay. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. Let me just give you one simple example—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yeah, you said it. The reason why I stopped 

is to clarify that, because you said it is hard to tell—— 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. No. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. —but—— 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. There is—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. These analyses are difficult, but there are many 

of them. Let me just give you one example that I think well illustrates what we are talking about. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Um-hum. 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. There is a glacier in Peru, it is the—I will—I am 

going to do a terrible job. I think it is Quelccaya Glacier, that we 

have been following for rather a long time. Ice that had been in 

that glacier continuously for 6,000 years has recently melted. So, 

in other words, that glacier’s ice has been sitting there for 6,000 

years, through the medieval warm period, all this other stuff—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Um-hum. 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. —and now it is melted. Those kinds of—that 

kind of information sort of indicates to me, more than sort of for 

me, anyway, that something unusual is going on. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Dr. Curry, do you agree with that? 

Dr. CURRY. Well, the issue of trying to infer globally what the climate was like, you know, 1,000 years ago is very, very difficult, you 

know, and so we have regional expressions, such as what was mentioned. But how to infer what was going on globally, you know, the 

estimates are very indirect, and, again, there—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, especially mankind’s—when people are 

advocating not just that we are in some kind of a warming trend— 

I don’t know anybody that denies that we have gone through 

warming and cooling trends, but how much of this has anything to 

do with human activity, and gives an excuse, by government, to 

control human activity, meaning our lives and our freedom? There 

is no way to know whether that glacier was melting as a result of 
85 

a natural trend, or by the fact that too many people drive cars now, 

and too much combustion from—too much CO2. There is no way to 

know what that—what actually caused that glacier to go back. 

Now, let me ask—people have told me that this melting in the 

Arctic, that we actually had very similar meltings in the Arctic in 

the 1930s. Is that correct? 

Dr. CURRY. Actually, the analogy was in the 1950s we saw a melt 

back in the western Arctic, the European Arctic, that wasn’t quite 

as big as today. But in terms of, you know, trying to put together 

this—hemispheric sea ice records prior to the satellite era, prior 

to—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Um-hum. 

Dr. CURRY. —1979 is challenging. And—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yeah. 

Dr. CURRY. —there is a lot of Russian data that really needs to 

be incorporated. And there is an international effort, trying to take 

the sea ice record back to 1880 in a more robust way. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. And I would like to know—when you 

mentioned, Doctor, that we have the warmest nine years on record 

now in the last nine years, what is on the record mean? Where 

does that start at the—— 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. I meant—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. —bottom of—— 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. —the instrumental record, yes. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Are we talking about the bottom of the global 

cooling era there, those hundreds of years where you had that 

mini-Ice Age? Is that what you are starting there as on the record? 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. Yes, but it is the warmest. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yeah. So on the record there could mean 

something, it could mean nothing. Because—— 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. Well—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. If we are talking about using a baseline that 

is way below some average, well, then that base—then it is irrelevant. 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. Well, your point is well taken, but the other data 

that we have, this paleo climate data, would indicate that the temperatures we have seen, not necessarily on a decadal time scale, 

but several decadal time scales, are warmer than we have seen for 

a long, long time. As I said—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Long, long time? 

Dr. CHAMEIDES. —1,000 years, 2,000 years, something like that. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Before mankind existed, there were times 

when more CO2 was in the air. We had times before mankind existed when it was warmer. And when we had, before mankind, cycles of warming and cooling. Maybe the sun has something to do 

with it. 

Chairman STEWART. And the gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you. 

Chairman STEWART. Thank you. 

I would like to thank the witnesses once again for your valuable 

testimony, and for—the Members for their questions. The Members 

of the Committee may have additional questions for you, and we 

will ask you to respond to those in writing, if that is the case. The 

record will remain open for two weeks for additional comments and 
86 

written questions from the Members. Witnesses, once again, with 

our gratitude, you are excused, and this hearing is now adjourned. 

Thank you very much. 

[Whereupon, at 11:20 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 
(87) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
88 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. Judith Curry 
89 
90 

Responses by Dr. Bjorn Lomborg 
91 
92 
(93) 

Appendix II 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
94 

SUBMITTED STATEMENT BY EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, RANKING MEMBER, 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY

Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this hearing today. Climate change is one 

of the greatest challenges facing our Nation, and indeed, the entire world. Unfortunately, since the Republican Party took over the House in 2011, the issue of climate 

change has been largely ignored. This is a problem that cannot be dismissed. Putting our heads in the sand and hoping for the best is a recipe for disaster. So I am 

glad we are having this hearing today, and I hope it is the first of many. 

The science surrounding this issue reached a consensus a long time ago, and that 

consensus is that the world is warming and most of that warming is being caused 

by humans. In our own country, organizations like the National Academy of 

Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical 

Society, American Geophysical Union, American Meteorological Society, American 

Physical Society, and the Geological Society of America have all acknowledged this. 

Moreover, these prestigious organizations have been joined by national academies 

of science from numerous countries around the world, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Mexico, Canada, Russia, China, Brazil, India, and Japan 

among many others. It has been reported that since 2007, not a single scientific society of national or international standing maintains a formal opinion dissenting 

from this fundamental point. The consensus is literally overwhelming. 

Unfortunately, many of my colleagues in the Majority don’t seem to have gotten 

the memo. Many openly dispute the science or allude to some unspecified but supposedly vast scientific conspiracy. Others, while less conspiratorial, insist that nothing can be done about the problem. This is a failure of leadership of the highest 

order. 

Many prestigious organizations and individuals have laid out the terrible economic consequences of inaction, including in recent reports by the World Bank and 

the World Economic Forum. These organizations also note that the brunt of these 

effects will be borne by people around the world who can least afford to deal with 

them. A slow motion human tragedy could be unfolding before our eyes, and it is 

unconscionable for us to sit and watch it progress when we know how to avoid it. 

So I am happy we are having a hearing on this important issue. I am also pleased 

that the Majority has called a witness, Dr. Lomborg, who in both his current testimony and previous testimony in Congress, has supported placing a price on carbon 

and dramatically increasing green energy research investments. These types of solutions may not be easy, but they are absolutely critical to ensure that we don’t pass 

a terrible problem onto our children and grandchildren. 

Mr. Chairman, I hope that this hearing will mark the start of a serious conversation on the Committee about climate change, and I hope it will be followed by hearings with testimony by the organizations I’ve cited. 

Æ