Fred Thompson, Presidential Candidate On Global Warming.......

Politics......it is going to be interesting....
Peter

from: http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200709/POL20070906d.html

Candidate Thompson Praised for Global Warming Views
By Kevin MooneyCNSNews.com Staff WriterSeptember 06, 2007(CNSNews.com) - Free market advocates in search of a champion who will take a firm stand against draconian global warming laws might have one in former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), who announced his run for the presidency Wednesday on NBC's "Tonight Show With Jay Leno."This vote of confidence comes from a Senate colleague, James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who believes the weight of scientific evidence has shifted decisively against the notion of human-induced global warming in recent years.

Unfortunately, many Republican and Democratic leaders, as well as leading presidential contenders continue to push for legislation that would "shut down America" in the name of "misguided alarmism," Inhofe told Cybercast News Service. "The Republicans will need a nominee for president who is willing to tell the truth, and so far the one out there with the most courage is Fred Thompson," said Inhofe. "He is aware of all the issues I've raised on global warming, and right now he's the only one I see who is willing to take this on."Unlike many of his fellow Republicans, Thompson has demonstrated a willingness to confront elite opinion, Inhofe said.

While Thompson is sure to antagonize the news media with his stand on global warming, Inhofe thinks he will find a receptive audience among average Americans."Far-left environmentalists," "Hollywood elitists," and "the mainstream media" continue to peddle anthropocentric (man-made) global warming theories, but there is no scientific consensus on these matters, said Inhofe. In fact, a substantial number of scientists who had previously embraced positions supporting a link between human emissions and the current warming cycle, he said, have now reversed their position.

For instance, 60 scientists wrote to the Canadian prime minister last year to express their misgivings. "If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate," the Kyoto Protocol to combat climate change "would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary," the scientists wrote. Moreover, numerous peer-reviewed studies released in recent months show that natural variability, as opposed to human carbon dioxide (Co2) emissions, are primarily responsible for altering the earth's climate.

Some of Thompson's recent commentaries have picked up on these latest findings and indicate he will not submit to false notions of a "scientific consensus," said Inhofe. Thompson does, however, seem intrigued by new discoveries that suggest there is a strong correlation between solar activity and warming cycles. Some scientists, such as Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, have surmised that the current warming cycle on earth also affects neighboring planets, such as Mars. He points to data gathered in 2005 from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions as evidence for this claim. The data make it clear the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars' South Pole have been diminishing for three consecutive summers, according to Abdussamatov. This view is gaining currency among other climate scientists who now dismiss man-made global warming theories.

"Solar activity can explain a large part of 20th -century global warming," Nir Shaviv, an astrophysicist in Israel declared earlier this year. Meanwhile, Ian Wilson, a former operations astronomer at the Hubble Space Telescope Institute in Baltimore, Md. - in response to some of the new studies - has now concluded that under the Kyoto Protocol, the world economy is being forced to spend "trillions of dollars" that will only result in a negligible environmental impact. Wilson, in his written correspondence to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said he was particularly impressed by the findings of a new report in the Journal of Geophysical Research that shows that even a substantial increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide would not impact temperatures in a catastrophic manner.

Inhofe, now the ranking minority member of that committee, said the political class continues to press ahead with policy prescriptions modeled after Kyoto despite the evidence that undermines man-made global warming theories. While the U.S. government has not officially signed on to the Kyoto Protocol, state and local officials have been calling for caps on carbon dioxide emissions. In July, New Jersey became the first state to mandate significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. With the U.S. Supreme Court officially declaring carbon dioxide a pollutant, Inhofe sees more opportunities for mischief among politicians eager to seize control of the private sector. A strong presidential candidate, who is not cowed by adverse press coverage, will be needed to help reverse this trend, and Thompson could do that, said Inhofe.

A Nexis search of news articles that describe Inhofe as being either a "skeptic," "denier," or "contrarian" on the issue of global warming produced 256 results so far for 2007. A similar search under Thompson's name yielded 10 results, with global warming mentioned within a mix of other issues. Nevertheless, it is evident the Tennessee Republican's broadsides against "elite opinion" are beginning to attract attention. "Thompson seems to have taken particular pleasure in mocking global warming," a July 27 Washington Post story asserted.Back in March, during a radio broadcast, Thompson took issue with those who claim there is a scientific consensus in favor of human-induced global warming."Some people think that our planet is suffering from a fever," he said. "Now scientists are telling us that Mars is experiencing its own planetary warming.

It seems scientists have noticed recently that quite a few planets in our solar system seem to be heating up a bit, including Pluto." Thompson also invoked the name of Galileo, the Italian astronomer who was criticized when he used his telescope in 1610 to argue that the earth and other planets orbit around the sun. His ideas were considered heretical at the time. What passes for conventional wisdom, often collapses in light of new evidence, said Thompson.