An amazing thing happened in the Georgia Legislature Tuesday that national media seem guaranteed to ignore: House members dismissed claims that man is responsible for warming the planet.
As reported Wednesday by the Atlanta-Journal Constitution (emphasis added throughout):
And now for a message on global warming from your Georgia Legislature: Don't sweat it.
Climate scientists and environmental activists like former Vice President Al Gore are alarmists. They use flawed statistical models to predict a catastrophic future of thawed glaciers, super-charged hurricanes, swamped coastlines and scorched crops.
That's some way to start an article, don't you agree? But there was more:
While other states are looking for ways to reduce the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, Georgia officials are not convinced there's a problem they can do anything about.
"In the media, we hear the gloom and doom side," said Rep. Jeff Lewis (R-White), chairman of the House Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications Committee that held the hearing. "There is alternative information out there."
Georgia's hearing, held on a 98-degree day during a record-setting heat wave, showcased three of the nation's leading skeptics on climate-change science. They don't even all agree that the Earth is significantly warming, a question long considered a scientific slam-dunk. And together they ridiculed the worst-case scenarios presented this year by an international panel of more than 2,000 climate scientists.
"I believe this issue is being driven by hysteria right now," said Patrick Michaels, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank with Libertarian leanings.
Think Katie, Charlie, and Brian will be reporting this tonight? Nah, I don't either.
