WASHINGTON - Last weekend's conversion by a California scientist from climate change skeptic to climate change believer isn't causing any doubts for Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson. Scalise, who famously challenged former Vice President Al Gore's view that global warming posed a major threat unless the world took immediate steps to reduce greenhouse emissions, reiterated his view that the evidence isn't clear.
Over the weekend, Richard Muller, a University of California at Berkley physics professor, who previously expressed strong doubts about studies supporting global warming, said he's now a "converted skeptic."
"Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming," wrote Muller, who previously did research funded by the Koch brothers that cast doubt on other studies linking greenhouse emissions to rising temperatures. "Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct."
Now, Muller said, he's going a step further: "Humans are almost entirely the cause," Muller wrote.
Scalise said Muller's new position isn't persuasive.
"One Berkeley professor flip-flopping his opinion on global warming doesn't create any kind of consensus on this issue, and there's still vast amount of disagreement throughout the scientific community on the causes of climate change. In fact, recent scientific data shows that the earth is currently in a cooling period, and it's predicted that it will continue to cool over the next 20 years," Scalise said.
At a 2009 House hearing, Scalise challenged Gore, arguing that there isn't anywhere near the overwhelming evidence for global warming cited by the former vice president. He accused Gore of championing solutions that would put many Americans out of work while enriching people and businesses that were close to him.
Still, the National Academy of Sciences concluded in 2011 evidence is overwhelming that "climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems." There have been warnings about rising sea levels that would pose a serious threat to coastal communities like New Orleans, as well as more intense storms and elimination of key habitat for a wide range of fish and animals.
Muller said studies he and his research colleagues have conducted can lead to no other conclusion than that global warming is real and caused by human activities.
"Our results show that the average temperature of the earth's land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years," Muller wrote. "Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases."
Still, Muller won't go as far as some climate change researchers.
"I still find that much, if not most, of what is attributed to climate change is speculative, exaggerated or just plain wrong," he wrote. "I've analyzed some of the most alarmist claims, and my skepticism about them hasn't changed."
"Hurricane Katrina cannot be attributed to global warming," Muller said. "The number of hurricanes hitting the United States has been going down, not up; likewise for intense tornadoes. Polar bears aren't dying from receding ice, and the Himalayan glaciers aren't going to melt by 2035."
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