McCain, Clinton To Look At Glaciers - Stevens, Murkowski Deny Warming

[hatrack]

Two senators with presidential ambitions are planning a trip to Alaska in two weeks to see first hand the consequences of global climate change in the high latitudes, Alaska's two senators told reporters Monday. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the co-author of a bill to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., are expected to tour Alaska and northwestern Canada, where permafrost is melting, glaciers are in rapid retreat and coastal villages are threatened with increasing erosion. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are also slated to make the trip, tentatively scheduled for Aug. 16 to 19.

Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Ted Stevens, meeting with reporters in Anchorage at the start of Congress' August recess, will not be joining the tour, they said. Both Alaska senators oppose the bipartisan Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act, authored by McCain and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., for its mandatory emission reductions. Stevens pointedly told reporters Monday than any legislation on climate change must go through him as chairman of the Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee. He said he continues to be skeptical that human activity is responsible for the climate changes being observed around the globe, pointing instead to cyclical geophysical forces over which Congress has no power. Murkowski has said that she doesn't believe scientists have conclusively demonstrated that human activity is the main cause for global warming, and without that proof, mandatory emission standards could unnecessarily harm some segments of the economy. But she told reporters Monday that she wasn't sitting still, and pointed to her support of a provision in the recently passed energy bill that provided incentives to develop technologies to reduce greenhouse gas production.

McCain and Lieberman argue that incentives aren't nearly enough. Their legislation would require a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions to 2000 levels by the year 2010 by capping the overall greenhouse gas emissions from power generation, transportation, industry and commercial sources, and creating a market for companies to trade pollution credits. Their measure is milder yet than the Kyoto Accords, which were rejected by the Bush administration.

EDIT

http://www.adn.com/front/story/6773731p-6662694c.html

[Larkspur]

1. Maybe they should ask Al Gore to give them his acclaimed presentation

Grist Magazine says that Gore's got a great presentation http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2005/06/09/little-gore/

[Old and In the Way]

2. Probem is......

If Stevens and Murkowski are right, all we've done is make the environment a little better.

If they are wrong.....

[cdb]

3. I am still baffled

As to why conservatives are so much in denial about global warming?

Is it:

Because it is detrimental to business/industry and profits?

Because it requires regulations imposed by the government?

Because intellectual scientist who believe in evolution are postulating the teory?

What?? What is it??

[phantom power]

4. I'm sure it's all 3 of those, working together.

I would add one more factor, which is that it hasn't hit most Americans where they live: in their wallet, or in their pantry.

The early warning signs have so far been happening in far away places that your typical American doesn't really give a shit about.

That may be beginning to change with recent events, but I think it will be a few years yet before the effects become evident on a daily basis for an American.

[Boomer]

8. But wait, there's more!

Conservatives have a rigid framework for thinking, one that portrays the word in stark black and white. So ditching established scenarios and pondering possibilities for an indefinite future is not a comfortable process for them.

It can take a considerable jolt of harsh reality before that type of person acknowledges what others have at least considered. And sometimes they simply can't make the change at all. The discomfort of giving up cherished beliefs is simply too great, and they continue in denial long past the point of rationality.

Then they break.

[BarbaRosa]

5. It's a science thing

and you know how we all feel about science things now.

[cdb]

6. science=BAD.... faith=good, right n/t

[NNadir]

7. I really don't understand Alaska politics.

What do they think all that melting is exactly? Devine intervention?

How do these people get elected?

Never mind. I really don't want to know.

[XemaSab]

9. These people are like marsupials

gestated in the pockets of the oil industry.