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ing that pollution is going to produce global cooling, a nuclear winter; that large percentages of our people around the globe would starve as a result of this nuclear winter.

Something happens like Mt. Pinatubo, and there is a noticeable, although short-term, drop in temperatures as a result of this.

I guess that where I come down on all of this is that I think back at an observation that Abraham Lincoln made, that the government ought to do for its citizens only what they cannot do for themselves.

And I think that collecting data about the future of our climate, putting up the satellites, I think this is something that reasonably government ought to be involved in. There are a whole lot of things we are involved in that I think do not stand the test that Abe Lincoln gave us, that we should only do for our citizens what they cannot do for themselves.

I am concerned in looking to the future. We have an uncertain fossil fuel future. It is not forever. And I am not sure that it is for even the foreseeable future.

You know, I think that in the generation of my children, we may see problems with the availability of high quality, readily available fossil fuels.

I am concerned that we are not focusing, I think adequately, on alternative energy sources, on renewable energy sources, and on conservation.

It is unclear to me what the proper role of government is. I guess I have but a single question.

And that is, that from my perspective we are kind of standing on the threshold, both politically and scientifically, of these questions. And that there is a whole lot more that we do not know than that we do know.

Just look at these contrasting views of where we are going as a planet. Either we are going to get very warm or we are going to get very cold as a result of various types of pollutants.

I am just wondering if you would agree that we are kind of at the threshold in both of these areas, the policy areas and the scientific research areas, and that the kind of debate that we are having today, and it ought to be lively debate and it ought to be ongoing is a very healthy thing, so that more attention will be drawn to it, and that we will understand better what the potentials are for both policy decisions that will help us, and for contributions that the federal government might make that would provide more and better research, so that we can have perhaps a little more control of our future.

You are all nodding your heads yes, that—
Dr. MICHAELS. Is that a question?

I think we are on a threshold, and I suspect that when you look at even-not even, sorry-Dr. Mahlman's agreement that warming can be a lower level of the projections and models attract the past best producing not that much future warming, seeing a lot of it at night and in winter rather than the summer.

There has been no significant change in the-in fact, it is been a significant decline-sorry-in the intensity of Atlantic hurricanes over the last 50 years, regardless of what the insurance agency says. I know they like to raise rates.

We are in a threshold and a threshold I think is that we are going to approach a new paradigm of a new view of the world, which is going to change from fragile earth, meaning if you do one little thing, there are tremendous ecological consequences, more to the concept that the earth is more resilient than we had once. feared it might not be.

Dr. MAHLMAN. I would offer a different perspective.

I think that the question you raise is important and appropriately agonized. How does society respond?

I said in my testimony that I did not think it is appropriate for climate scientists to offer political or sociological opinions on what the solutions should be. But I do feel it is appropriate for climate scientists, such as myself, to speak to what the problem is.

The problem is that global warming is something that is a harsh and inexorable reality. We do not know, quite sure, whether it is at the lower end or the upper end of the range.

Pat Michaels' arguments do not resolve that debate, by the way. But we do know that it takes a long time to build up carbon dioxide to levels that are high enough to be scary. But we also know that if we do not like those numbers, it takes a very, very long time for them to go away.

So it focuses the debate a little differently than you posed it, but I think very consistent with the tone of your question.

And that it seems reasonable to me, as a public citizen, that this issue has many aspects of it that are genuinely deserving of legitimate concern but is fraught with complexities, not just on a climate side but on the impact side, which we will hear from the next panel, and on the social side.

And so, as a climate scientist, I can say that the problem is difficult, uncertainties are significant, the cost of doing something about it, particularly if you grew up in a coal producing part of the country, is very, very large. You know, to change the way we do business has enormous global and political consequences.

The other side of the same coin, however, is that the cost of not doing something about it may be prodigious in the sense that the problem may last for hundreds to maybe even a thousand years. And so that is the difficulty of the debate. There is no soft landing spot independent of one's rhetoric or one's political position.

Mr. GUERRERO. I would like to make two observations, one on the notion of-are we at a threshold, and I would like to suggest that our understanding will continue to improve. Our ability to model will continue to improve, but despite those improvements, we will never have a hundred percent certainty in this area. The models will never produce that.

Even if the scientists at this table today completely understood the physical processes that they are modeling and completely understood the climate systems, we would still need to make assumptions regarding emission rates, population growth, technology development.

And that there is a large degree of uncertainty associated with making those assumptions.

In effect then, what we are doing is we are trying to model a future climate based on a set of physical elements, some of which are known well, and some of which we need to study further, and a set

of economic assumptions and sociological assumptions which we can only guess at.

But that the models themselves and the estimates that are produced, the range does reflect the uncertainty in both of those areas. And that when the modelers try to estimate impacts on future climates, they take that uncertainty into effect. And when you have a temperature range expressed, it involves some sensitivity of what if those assumptions come in at this end and what if they come in at that end, and that range does embody that.

Now hopefully over time, we will see is that range becoming more narrow as we gain further knowledge and information, but there is still a large degree of uncertainty that will always be there, and that you gentlemen will always have to face regarding the socioeconomic assumptions that inevitably have to be made. Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Bartlett, you get to have one more question.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.

It is not really a question, more a comment.

If you disagree with me, disagree. I think you probably will not. I think that we are faced with exciting challenges and questions, because I think at this time our ignorance far exceeds our knowledge and understanding. And that is an exciting place to be in science because there is a whole, long journey that you can take. Dr. MICHAELS. If I would respond to that, I always tell students in my classes that whatever you think of this issue, it will allow you to see fascinating visions, not only of science but about the way that science works in society.

And that is one positive benefit that is going to come out of this thing over the next decades.

Mr. BARTLETT. I remember when I was working on my doctorate, I came in one morning and my major professor asked me, well Roscoe, what do you know today? I said, well, I do not know very much. He said, well we can probably give you a PhD then.

[Laughter.]

Mr. GUERRERO. Well, I have to say that I got a PhD today and I do not have one, so I must know absolutely nothing. [Laughter.]

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Mr. Guerrero.

We will be calling on people to question in relationship to when they actually came in, rather than going back and forth, because some of our Members came in early, and I think so we are going to go in that way if that is all right.

Mr. Baker?

Mr. BAKER. Mr. Ehlers was here first.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Ehlers?

Mr. BAKER. I will be very brief.

In California, where the climate is always beautiful, we found that after seven years of drought, we not only have to learn more about climate and how it changes, but also how to make better use of our resources, and that includes water resources.

So the reform we are going to have in Congress here is how we allow humanoids to live on the earth without destroying its environment. And the word environment to me means balance.

And so we have to find that balance between what we need to do, including building a dam if that is necessary to save water, or taking down a dead tree. But we are not going to do it capriciously, and we are not going to do what my fellows on the other side of the aisle did, and ladies, and that is make determinations before we study. At least I would hope we would not.

We put out the Clean Water Act and we just put a statement in there. We are going to abolish chlorine. Well, the bubonic plague took a great jump and everybody else was happy, but without studying it, do we really want to do that?

And so of course we pulled that out of the bill, after much wrangling, unnecessary wrangling, and now we will study what are the effects and the cumulative effects of chlorine, where should it be used, where can it be used safely, all for the questions that science would have asked before something stupid like that was placed in a major piece of legislation.

So I really appreciate your being here regardless of what your position is, and I am happy that you are going to work with us to help us understand better how we achieve the balance and how we base it not on politics or the next cheap shot mailer or who is going to gut the clean water act. But how can we allow humans to live better on this earth and actually improve our environment.

So I am thrilled to be here to listen to you, and I apologize for being in Transportation Committee markup. We had four bills go out of there in the middle of your testimony. And I apologize, I will be here from now on, Mr. Chairman, because I would not miss an exciting, thrilling second of this.

But I appreciate your listening through our wrangling and you are here at one of the most partisan times you could be here. But it is important we listen to you, regardless of whether you are the most green person in the world, or whether you have got a chain saw in your hand, we want to hear your viewpoints, and what we can do to better make this world a place for not only us, but for the future generations that are going to enjoy the environment that we have left.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. We are also lucky to have, and I am sorry, Mr. Ehlers, if you had actually arrived here before Mr. Baker. My staff did not note that.

We have our second, one of the other few scientists in this body with us today, and I deeply appreciate his contributions to this subcommittee and to our overall effort.

Mr. Ehlers?

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, a quick question for Dr. Michaels, which I hope will get a quick answer because I have a much broader question to ask of everyone.

In your testimony is the statement that critical scientists are still being denied data, what data are you being denied and by whom are you being denied?

Dr. MICHAELS. It was the transient grid cell output of the UKMO coupled sulfate greenhouse model. I was of the opinion, when I was reviewing the draft of the 1995 intergovernmental panel on climate change, that that model was making an error in the high latitudes that was similar to other climate models that did not have the cool

ing effect of sulfates. This is a generic error that has plagued this problem for a very long, long, long time.

And the only way that I could ascertain whether that was true was to have the actual output of the model sent to me by the intergovernmental panel on climate change. I requested it and was denied, and I requested it repeatedly and they said, no, we think it is inappropriate.

That is fine. That is their opinion.

But how can one conduct a review process of a document so important to global policy if one cannot see the laboratory book?

The main rule of science is, "I trust you." "I trust you, but can I see your laboratory notes." And in this case, that was not forthcoming.

Mr. EHLERS. You mentioned you were interested in getting the model output, but that is not really data. You know, that is already been massaged.

Dr. MICHAELS. No.

Mr. EHLERS. Was that sufficient for your needs, or?

Dr. MICHAELS. The model output would have been fine, it would have been fine.

Mr. EHLERS. And the panel is the one who denied that?

Dr. MICHAELS. I requested Dr. Mitchell from the UKMO. He denied it. He was one of the senior authors on the chapter that I was reviewing.

Mr. EHLERS. This was not published material then?

Dr. MICHAELS. It was, the initial denial said, "Well, we are going to be publishing this," and I knew they were and that it would be published long before the IPCC report would be out. So that was not a germane reason for refusal. And in fact it was published on August 10th.

Mr. ROEMER. Would the gentleman from Michigan yield?
Mr. EHLERS. I am reluctant to yield, even though I-

Mr. ROEMER. Well, we had a number of colloquys within members'

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I will be very happy to grant you an extra minute if

Mr. EHLERS. All right, fine.

Mr. ROEMER. I would just say that I find it difficult to understand why the United States Congress and this Committee would have jurisdiction over your request to get information from the United Kingdom.

Dr. MICHAELS. The IPCC is funded by the taxpayers of the United States.

Mr. ROEMER. Well, I would still say that that is not a problem that we have to deal with-your quarrel with the United Kingdom and their particular findings.

Dr. MICHAELS. The charge that I was given by this Committee was to look at the science and the science basis for policy. One of the bases of science is open, open peer review, particularly of a document that is this important.

So therefore you need to know this.

Mr. ROEMER. I would say again

Mr. EHLERS. All right, if I may reclaim my time.
Mr. ROEMER. [continuing] this is not our fight.

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