about a fellow who went back to his college and he is waiting to see his economics professor, and he is waiting in the outer office, and he notices that the exam time is coming up and there are the examinations.

He looks over and he is shocked to find out that it is the same final exam that he took when he was there 15 years before. His professor comes out, and he is a renowned economist. He says, "Professor, I couldn't help but notice your final exam is exactly the same one that you gave me 15 years ago. Aren't you afraid that some of the students will cheat?"

The professor said, "Why, no." He says, "We're not afraid of that at all." He says, "We don't change the questions, but every now and then we change the answers." [Laughter.]

So you have already heard that, I know. I just couldn't hold back. Moving right along, Dr. Corell, can you clarify for me which of these impacts claimed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are projected by climate models and which ones are based on assumptions made on climate models, which is different, which is a totally different way of coming to a conclusion?

Do, for example, climate models project that one-third of the world's forests will be lost or changed?

Mr. CORELL. Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, I would like to pass this to Dr. Watson, since he chaired the group that did that and I was not personally involved.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right.

Dr. Watson?

Mr. WATSON. That particular conclusion comes from a complex forest ecological model, where it takes plausible changes in temperature, precipitation, evapotranspiration, and soil moisture, and it looks to see to what degree ecological systems, how its species move, how its ecosystems disassemble and reassemble. So it is a model. It is based first on the climate model, but then also a forest ecological model.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And is this true also of the projection that rangelands will be lost?

Mr. WATSON. Yes. Based on ecological modeling.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And that desertification will increase?

Mr. WATSON. You don't even need a model to come to that conclusion. The answer is quite clearly "yes."

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. Do models project that one-third to one-half of existing mountain glaciers will disappear?

Mr. WATSON. That comes from simply understanding the relationship between mountain glaciers and thermal structure of the glaciers.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So I take that as a "no."

Mr. WATSON. No, it is a glacial model. Now, with each of these, it starts with changes in temperature, and for that you would have to understand the glacial model.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I am just getting you on record.

Mr. WATSON. Yes. Absolutely.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. As someone who knew about this report.

The models that project crop yields will decrease?

Mr. WATSON. Complex agricultural models.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. Do they project that diseases such as malaria are the ones you were talking about, this came from scientific models and not extrapolation?

Mr. WATSON. Absolutely.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. We got that.

For some reason, I am getting a different concept from what I heard from the earlier panel here. I was left with the impression that these things could not be stated absolutely for certain that this would be the outcome. And of course Dr. Nierenberg is suggesting to us that when we are making these type of apocalyptic predictions, that may not be the best approach and the most defensible approach to looking to the future. Am I wrong? I mean maybe I will go back and review our notes in terms of what the earlier panel said.

Let me ask Dr. Watson, you suggested, am I wrong, that there was a one-half degree, centigrade degree, temperature rise in this century? Is that what we found? Is that what you testified?

Mr. WATSON. That is what the IPCC has. 0.3 to 0.6 degrees centigrade has been a consistent view of the IPCC.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Now, I will have to say that I found, and I know that my good friend and colleague Mr. Olver doesn't agree with me on this, we had a little discussion on the way, or he might, but we will see, but the fact is that I found Patrick Michael's, Dr. Michael's chart to be absolutely understandable and devastating to your argument.

Mr. WATSON. That was actually the vertical distribution of temperature only over the last 30 years.

What we have is hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of data points on the surface of the Earth, both land and the ocean, since 1860. And it is that database that suggests, strongly suggests, and I would imagine that Bill Nierenberg would agree, that there is direct evidence, I am not saying cause and effect, direct evidence that the Earth's surface has warmed .3 to .6 degrees centigrade.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes. I would say that that minor of a change in variation, and again I am going to just frank with you, I find impossible to understand that scientists are sitting here telling me that that is a significant as you suggest.

Mr. NIERENBERG. I will imitate a congressman again. I agree with you, of course.

Mr. WATSON. Yes.

Mr. NIERENBERG. It is a tremendous. It is the only good data we have, and it is often the case we have to use it. In fact, I am surprised you even say .3. I always say .6 degrees.

Taking your point of view, that is on the other hand, you realize that you heard this morning also something that you would agree with, namely that very few of the scientific community, you see, really accept this as necessarily completely global warming. Bob will tell you this.

It is just like what I was saying before, they vary in between. Some of it may be, some of it likely is, and some of it likely isn't, because unfortunately it is in the range of natural fluctuations.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, now, Dr. Nierenberg, that is exactly my point.

Mr. NIERENBERG. I know.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Especially in relationship to Mr. Moore's testimony about an historical perspective on changes in climate that has taken place even within our mankind's limited time on this Earth. I mean I took one class in geology, and I know that there were times when the glaciers came down and they came back up. In this period of time, having a situation that we might be in a time when the glaciers are receding does not seem to justify spending billions of dollars building sea walls rather than bridges, talking about the apocalypse that is coming up in order to get people to spend money on other things that perhaps are higher priority for this society.

Mr.OLVER. Would the chairman yield?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. First I would like Dr. Watson to be able to answer my outburst here, and then I would be very happy to yield. Mr. WATSON. One needs to also look at rates of temperature change, and if you look at the paleo record, it shows the types of projections we are making, one to 3.5 degrees centigrade over the next hundred years, is a rate that is unprecedented in the last 10,000 years. That is a rate that these complex forestry systems can't keep pace with.

The other point we make, and I agree with Bill, in fact, where there is no vision the people will perish. The vision we need is indeed there are cheap ways to adapt, there are cheap ways to use energy efficiency, and there are cheap ways to change our energy policies.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Dr. Watson, I would agree with that, but what happens when we get these type of what I consider to be unjustified scare scenarios is that we start ignoring the economics that Dr. Moore is talking about.

For example, I believe that cars will be made cleaner-burning automobiles and that we will actually have more efficient machinery because it economically makes sense for that to happen. As we have more knowledge in this world and people have more knowledge, the innovation will take its course and we will see these changes take place.

But instead, if we end up building billion-dollar sea walls instead of investing money in fuel technology for automobile dealers who want to sell cars because they want to sell to the public on the economic basis, well, maybe we won't have the money to invest in that new technology.

Mr. WATSON. But we need to stimulate that new technology. If there is not a recognition that global warming is at least an issue that must be taken seriously, the marketplace probably won't be stimulated in the correct way to look at these energy efficiencies, whether it's cars, whether it's buildings, whatever.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I believe that what you just said is the motive of most people that I have met in what I consider to be the environmental movement that are hyperactivists in that movement feel totally justified. And the reason why you find skepticism from this chairman is that I have met so many people who feel absolutely justified in not lying, they don't look at it as lying, but as at stating a problem and then exaggerating it to the point because we have got to get public attention on this because that is their priority.

I have seen this ever since I was a reporter, and that was 25 years ago.

Mr. WATSON. But you don't see it in the international assessments. The international assessments don't use the word apocalypse. You don't see it in the testimony of any of the people in front of you here.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. To be fair, after hearing some of your either predictions or projections, I would have probably used this headline, even though you didn't use the word apocalypse.

But I would be very happy to yield, and then I would like to thank Dr. Moore, and we will be ending this in a few minutes. But thank you very much, Dr. Moore.

Mr. MOORE. I would like to have a chance to answer some of these.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay.

Mr. MOORE. But my plane won't wait.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes, sir. And I will certainly give my colleague, I don't want him necessarily to have the last word.

If you would like to say a few words and then we will close it

out.

Mr.OLVER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Listening to your comments, Mr. Chairman, I was beginning to wonder whether there was any implication that the Corps of Engineers was involved in the promotion of this exaggerated, in your view, view of the apocalyptic view of global warming.

I didn't know we were. I think it is rather a red herring to be talking about building sea walls. It would be exceedingly expensive and probably quite useless if we are talking about what would happen if Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets were to melt.

I mean the implications of that, with what would ultimately be the rise of land in the surfaces underneath and so forth and what that would do to territory all over, I don't know whether that has been modeled sufficiently carefully to really even predict what would be likely to be going on.

I am interested that Dr. Nierenberg and Dr. Watson essentially, I think, corroborate each other's view that the best data are these surface data, the surface data which we have for at least 100 years, 130 years, the beginning of good data over a period of time, surface and water data over a period of time. And even then I doubt if they would argue that these are evenly taken all over the world. It is very spottily taken in different places around the world, the best we have available if we could go back and figure out. First we would have to agree what all of the parameters are that ought to be taken into account in a model and then the record is probably there, although we may never have a reliable set of that record along the way.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. If I could just interrupt.

Mr. OLVER. Yes.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let me give you an example. In the 1970s all the data, and I mentioned the Global 2000 report earlier, all the data showed that we were going to run out of energy, and all the scientists, I am sure, that were testifying right before all these committees came here and swore up and down that within a few

years it was going to be a total catastrophe in terms of the price of oil and et cetera, et cetera.

Well, what happened? Some of the things we did were very good. That's correct. You know, I think most of the good things happened because of market pressure, because of the increase of the price, but we did other things.

Right now, I happen to be sucking on a cough drop. I don't have a cold. Do you know what I have got? I have got some sort of problem with the air conditioning in here and I have a lot of problems with buildings that I visit because all of these building codes that we established during that time because of this oncoming energy crisis said you had to seal the windows to consume energy and we got no fresh air in those buildings, and my body reacts to that. That is all I am trying to say.

Mr. BAKER. I think you've got a lawsuit. [Laughter.]

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All I am trying to say is that when we are talking about issues like this, we cannot, number one, afford to exaggerate, we cannot afford to let people extrapolate from scientific models and then base our policy on that.

Mr. OLVER. Well, but at the same time, and this will be one last very short thing.

On the data from Mr. Michael this morning, I am certainly happy to hear that you now understand that problem quite completely. I certainly do not. I am quite puzzled by it. I suspect it was a look at one parameter of a very limited set of data that we have considerably less than the surface data from weather balloons.

Now, I don't know where they were. I don't have any idea whether these data are normalized properly and whether it's one parameter out of a whole bunch of parameters.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That's true of Dr. Watson's view.

Mr.OLVER. Well, yes, in all of these cases. But none of us here, at least. The professionals behind the table at the other end probably have looked at many different aspects of those data. We are only being given the pieces that each side wants to tell us, in a sense, probably from both sides. But the weight of the numbers is certainly in one direction in this process.

Mr. BAKER. Mr. Chairman, if I could ask a question through you. Mr. ROHRABACHER. I think we will do that, and then we better close because this could go on and on.

Mr. BAKER. Mr. Chairman, the reason I am a little concerned about the apocalypse now and causing the huge crisis in order to make small steps in the right direction is we are often blinded by that. We all like pristine forests. I will give you a very pertinent example to California and then, hopefully, the scientists can get back to the committee and tell us where I am wrong or what we ought to do.

We like pristine forests.

So we made the ruling that we are not going to take beetle-ridden, drought-weakened, dead trees out of the Sierras. So they are going to stand there until they rot. Right now they are worth a thousand dollars apiece as 2x4s, but if they wait five years or ten years they will rot and they'll go into the ground.