What is it about Democrat Congresswomen from California that gives them the ability to actually see global warming?
I'm not sure of the answer, but am positive that for the second time in about two months, a high-ranking Democrat from California went to Greenland, and actually saw global warming.
To refresh everyone's memory, the first was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who in late May claimed to have seen "firsthand evidence that climate change is a reality."
Well, according to the Orange County Register, Sen. Barbara Boxer had a similar vision in Greenland last weekend (emphasis added):
Leading a bipartisan delegation of 10 colleagues to Greenland, Sen. Barbara Boxer said today she saw first-hand the effects of global warming and received a plea from the country's officials to do something to change it.
"I think everyone who has seen this is changed,'' Boxer, D-Calif., said in a telephone interview from Kangerlussuaq, Greenland.
Actually, Senator, not everyone present was changed. Marc Morano, the communications director for Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), having been on the trip with you, filed this report Monday (emphasis added):
As a representative of Environment & Public Works Committee Ranking Member, Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), I made the trek to the Arctic Circle with the Senate delegation to the land the Vikings once farmed during the Medieval Warm Period.
Senators and their staff viewed majestic giant glaciers and icebergs in the Kangia Ice Fjord and in Disko Bay via helicopter, boat and on foot, during the three day 24 hours of daylight trip which began in the Arctic city of Kangerlussuaq, Greenland.
[...]
The July 27-29 2007 U.S. Senate trip to Greenland to investigate fears of a glacier meltdown revealed an Arctic land where current climatic conditions are neither alarming nor linked to a rise in man-made carbon dioxide emissions, according to many of the latest peer-reviewed scientific findings. Recent research has found that Greenland has been warming since the 1880's, but since 1955, temperature averages at Greenland stations have been colder than the period between 1881-1955.
A recent study concluded Greenland was as warm or warmer in the 1930's and 40's and the rate of warming from 1920-1930 was about 50% higher than the warming from 1995-2005. One 2005 study found Greenland gaining ice in the interior higher elevations and thinning ice at the lower elevations. In addition, the often media promoted fears of Greenland's ice completely melting and a subsequent catastrophic sea level rise are directly at odds with the latest scientific studies. These studies suggest that the biggest perceived threat to Greenland's glaciers may be contained in unproven computer models predicting a future catastrophic melt.
Doesn't appear that the Greenland trip changed Morano's views, does it?
Quite the contrary, Morano cited ten different studies about Greenland's glaciers that don't fit with Boxer's hysteria. Readers are encouraged to review these reports here.
Moving forward, it is quite discouraging that in the Register's report about this trip, there was not much skepticism shared about man's role in global warming besides this one sentence buried deep in the story:
Opponents of Boxer's view, that an economy-wide solution is needed, dispute how much human factors have influenced the change in the planet's climate.
As this was indeed a bipartisan trip, it does seem likely that some of the Republican guests shared this skeptical view. Wouldn't it have been appropriate to quote at least one of them?
Or, would that be too much like journalism?
