Maybe if the "committee" would include some real scientists and a few less uneducated politicians, they could get something accomplished. It's going to take more than a few Democrats & Republicans to determine if the climate change is something we're all causing by driving cars to work & keeping the gas heat turned on in our homes.

Someone once remarked that "forecasting is very difficult, especially about the future".

Since not one global warming model can predict the present, from past data, why should anyone think that this "crisis" isn't a chicken little phenomenon?

"Perhaps if our leaders stopped being so territorial and started working together, more would be accomplished in Washington."

What would they accomplish, Laura? Spending and wasting even more of our money? Raising our taxes even higher? I prefer gridlock and that they do nothing at all. The more they do, the greater harm they cause to all of us. Our founders understood that.

If all this committee accomplishes is travel junkets then we should count our blessings.

So...what's the carbon footprint of AccuWeather? Shouldn't they just shut everything down except for a few fax/wire services?

That's all we need for weather, right?

As someone else noted, since no one has been able to accurately predict the near future, why should we go to outrageous lengths because of something that maybe...possibly...might happen in 100 years?

I'm all for supporting things that make sense anyway, such as making cars and homes more energy efficient. That saves money up front.

However, there is a saying that "better" is the enemy of "good". By pushing for incredibly expensive changes that *might* save a fraction more energy you put yourself in the position of telling people they have to live much less well off for a payoff they won't be able to measure in their lifetime.

Oh, boy! Another government committee looking for ways to spend [i]my[/i] money! I can hardly wait! I wonder how anything our Congress can do will "end global warming," as Speaker Pelosi claimed in her announcement of this new boondoggle? Are we going to tell China and India to throttle back their industrialization? Are we going to force the rest of the world to do what we tell them to do to end global warming when they can't even live up to their own Kyoto promises?

I'm underwhelmed.

This committee is just Democratic grandstanding. Too many senior Democrates are too closely linked to the gas and auto lobbiest that oppose any kind of anti-gas initiatives. Those industries will try to continue to soak every drop of profit out of the public just like the tobacco companies during that industries demise.

The fossil fuel industry has two very big. well known flaws. Cancer causing vapors and emmissions, that also contribute to global warming and dependence on foriegn terrorist supporting governments.

Fossil fuels are a cancer to our society and the world in general. It has gone on long enough and our comatose government reacts much too slowly. It will take people, industry and technology to step forward to solve this problem. The government regulations will be too weak and too late and will only force the most stubborn to comply, the oil and auto manufactures.

I notice that as the media coverage about global warming gets more organized, cohesive, and factual, the right-wing histrionics get more and more intense.

Ad-hominems, cynical attacks on government, even bumper-sticker cheapshots at the host -- louder and louder. When you don't like the message, shoot the messenger.

The funniest part of this is that this same mob (and I use the word quite intentionally) are the first to yell about "name-calling" and "labelling" when they're nailed for their boorish, bullying, anti-intellectual, and generally barbaric behavior.

What does EVERY mob do when they seize power? Burn the books. Who is the FIRST community targeted when such a mob takes over? Intellectuals. What is the first casualty of such a takeover? Science and truth. It doesn't matter whether we call the mob "Nazi", "Stalinist", "Lynch", or even "Moral Majority" (remember "effete intellectual snobs"? "Nittering nabobs of negativism"? Thank you, Spiro and Pat).

The far-right got a free ride from the media for the last six years. The Rush Limbaughs, Bill O'Reillys, and Ann Coulters spread their venom far and wide while the civilized world wondered what in the WORLD was going on.

Guess what guys -- it's over. It reached it's zenith with the swiftboating of Kerry and the 2004 elections. Now we know that the swiftboaters were liars, Dubya was lying, Cheney was lying, Exxon/Mobil was lying, Foley was lying -- all of them lies and liars.

During a precious few years, while the very future and nature of whatever civilization or lack thereof that we hand on to our children and grandchildren is at stake, liars like Rove, Foley and Cheney were attempting to beat our society into a froth about the "evil" of "homosexuality" and "horrors" of gay marriage.

Talk about re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic, these guys were inside polishing the silverware in the dining room instead of suggesting to the Captain that perhaps the ship might change course or slow down -- and loudly berating anyone who dared challenge them.

It's over. The global warming issue is one VERY IMPORTANT issue among many. The right wing had absolute control of the most powerful and most affluent nation in human history -- and made a complete, disgusting, total mess of it. Now the rest of us have to sweep up their mess. The global warming committee is just the start.

We have a LOT of work to do, so please either help or get out of the way.

This is indeed a rare occasion... I actually agree with Dingell. I guess that could be called a Flying Pig Moment. I think he is more worried about this committee being a collosal waste of not only money, but time and resources on a subject that is based on shakey computer models. All the doom and gloom scenarios are predicated on these models, because they have no direct proof that carbon dioxide, that dreaded pollutant, has been the catalyst for a warming trend that is entirely natural.

This sounds more than a bit jaded and defeatist after 6 years of a government that only wants to live by "Gotterdamerung" capitalism.

I think we should reserve judgment on the committee's intentions and abilities until some time has passed.

Dear Laura:

Respectfully, I believe your comments about Congressman John Dingell are naive and unwarranted. As initiated by physicists decades ago, they represent the unfortunate politicization and unscientific groundswell that has accompanied the issues of atmospheric carbon dioxide and global warming for private gain. Many of these 'climate experts' clearly lack adequate training in organismal physiology, aqueous chemistry, and biology although disingenuously indicating otherwise through their formidable announcements to the media and public about carbon dioxide, a nutrient required by all terrestrial life, and its speculative impact on the atmosphere and climate. Meanwhile, they cheekily avoid the primary importance of water and water vapor on global warming.

Are you aware that Rep. Dingell is a chemist by training and has steadfastly pursued clean air and water since being elected to the House in the 1950's? He is not a lawyer or political crusader. Since 1972, he has repeatedly sponsored the Clean Water, Clean Air, and Resource Conservation and Recovery Acts for this country. He is a senior representative with the wisdom of experience regarding the American environment. I'm not yet sure we can make such claims about Nancy Pelosi who may use the speculative, negative spin associated with global warming for her own political future and that of her party. Remarkably, Dingell is a Democrat and obviously recognizes that our new House Leader may in fact be politicizing this issue for publicity while sacrificing science in the process. Deceptively, she may use global warming as an end around attempt to influence energy policies outside of the usual house committee on Energy and Commerce chaired by Dingell.

Consequently, Dingell has worked with many personalities over the years in the spirit of consensus. His comments may recognize that Ms. Pelosi is inadequately informed about environmental issues and attempting to avoid due process and consensus via the bully pulpit of a new committee on global warming, which truly has as its motives, energy policies and political agendas. We can only hope this new committee does not become a witch-hunt and political perversion of due process in the manner of Sen. Joe McCarthy. Dingell's comments about junketing are highly appropriate as he has undoubtedly seen other Congressional crusaders fiscally abuse their power at the expense of the American taxpayer. As a registered Democrat who has voted three times for Al Gore, and one time each for Senators Boxer and Feinstein, I have grave concerns about this woman and her agenda. I hope time proves those concerns unwarranted.

Shamelessly, it was Pelosi who unnecessarily politicized the Katrina disaster using it as an opportunity to politically joust with FEMA and the President. Disasters are acts of nature lacking party affiliations and should be above politics. Having survived Pennsylvania's Hurricane Agnes two weeks after my high school graduation in June 1972, with five feet of water in our home and seven feet in our business, I can assure you no community can accommodate federal aid for its citizens unless it has effectively planned for Emergency Preparedness and has a system of emergency infrastructure in place for distribution. Water was twenty-two feet deep in places in Lock Haven, especially at Piper Aircraft Corporation located near the confluence of the Susquehanna and Bald Eagle Creek. However, local residents and their representatives worked tirelessly and cooperatively with state and federal officials to negotiate the severe human crisis after Hurricane Agnes's prolonged, three day rampage. Needless to say, unemployment in Clinton County was rampant after Agnes and remained abnormally high for years afterwards. Its main waterline severed by flooding on Harvey's Run, Lock Haven lacked freshwater for many days after the storm. All its grocery stores, except one small establishment, had been destroyed. Numerous bridges across local creeks had been destroyed, stranding many rural citizens from access to larger communities. I stood in a line behind a Red Cross truck to get bread for our family and went to local springs with my grandfather to get water to boil. For weeks afterward we traveled thirty five miles up Nittany Valley to purchase groceries in State College.

Governor Shapp immediately made the dormitory facilities at Lock Haven State College available for emergency housing. Wisely, the Governor had the National Guard called to duty during the storm and their helicopters were used for dramatic rescues from flooded neighborhoods. Lousiana's Democratic governor did not call the National Guard to duty until many days after Katrina! Frankly, she and the Mayor of New Orleans should be impeached for their malfeasance, but it won't happen with Democratic politicians like Pelosi protecting their scandalous behavior. We stayed on the second floor of our home, without water and electricity, and watched as our neighbors were rescued by boat from their split-level, riverside home as the powerful currents of the main river channel slowly began to rip into the house's structure through broken windows.

Our local radio station WBPZ tirelessly served local citizens via public and private announcements of relief efforts and the whereabouts of missing individuals. I'm not sure the same can be claimed in New Orleans. Apparently, their local TV stations ceased broadcasting during the storm. Not without controversy, Lock Haven began planning for the design and construction of the levees that now protect it from floodwaters of the Susquehanna's West Branch and Bald Eagle Creek. The federal government does not undertake flood control projects or their improvements without a local sponsor and financial participant. Clearly, Louisiana and New Orleans, both lead by Democratic administrations failed their citizens in this regard. NOAA and the Army Corps of Engineers made it clear after Hurricane Camille in 1969 that New Orleans had dodged a bazooka blast, but another storm may have better aim. Thirty-six years later, Katrina did just that. Unfortunately, the state and city clearly failed to educate, prepare, and protect their citizens, continuing the cycle of corruption that has long dominated Democratic Party politics in that state. Remarkably, Pelosi is an amazing tactician. Ruthlessly, she turned the malfeasance of local Democratic administrations against FEMA and the President, deflecting the 'blame' for inadequate response onto the federal government. Most amazingly, President Bush foolishly left her get away with it.

Having once served as Chief of the Environmental Services Division and Capital Projects Administrator of the San Antonio River Authority, a sub-division of Texas state goverment that is charged with flood control and water quality protection in four South Texas counties, I can assure you that this country owes much to Rep. Dingell's efforts to protect our air and water, especially during the Reagan Era of environmental backsliding and the return of nineteenth century attitudes of using the environment, especially natural bodies of water to subsidize the cost of wastewater treatment for industries and municipalities. I can still vividly remember piles of foamy wastes taller than a man floating down Bald Eagle Creek in Lock Haven upstream of its confluence with the West Branch of the Susquehanna River during the 1960's from the local pulp operations of a major paper manufacturer no longer in operation. The so-called 'free energy' of hydration, which is really an energy subsidy, turned shallow Lake Erie into a cesspool of paper and municipal wastes. It also begat the nation's legacy of Superfund Toxic Waste sites as industries used the 'free energy' of water to avoid wastewater or solid waste treatment to reduce their operating expenditures. Although abated, it still illegally happens to this day.

Anecdotally, in another posting I'll share with your readers and you how municipalities and industries have willfully used the 'Free Energy' of the environment for private gain. Without John Dingell, a chemist who understands there is no such thing as 'free energy', our nation would still be a stinking mess of wastes directly impacting our quality of lives. Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, and Barbara Boxer, all leading the good life in the Golden State and feeling guilty about it, would do well to counsel with Rep. Dingell before pontificating and politically posturing on environmental and energy issues.

Hayes Galitski
Claremont, CA

Why would you want more to be "accomplished" in DC? For those of us who believe that less government is best, the more these folks argue about issues, the less we have to worry about being legislated into oblivion. Efforts to curb global warming are hubris at best, and political brinkmanship at worst.

Whoa! I can't wait for Pelosi's GWC's ( Global Warming Committee's) GHG reduction bill recommendations to come out. That old "tempest in a teapot" is starting to get out of hand. I wonder if they will recommend passing out duct tape. Everyone inside the Washington D.C. beltway should place a nice, wide sticky strip of it across That opening on their face which spews forth ozone depleting CO2...and not much else. I should probably get ready to change out engines in my Tahoe. Maybe some sort of wood pellet burning steam boiler. We'll just let the guys at NASCAR figure out how to get some performance out of that rig. I wonder if they can design a steam boiler to fly Nancie's lear jet?
This is our government in action..."now, we simply must form a committee to decide which is the best end,the small, or the large, from which we can open this egg".
Grow trees, grow kudzu, grow grass. This stuff thrives on CO2. Plant the sahara desert with Kudzu (there are actually knowledgeable scientists who suggest these methods for co2 reduction), if there is actually a need for CO2 reduction. ....but putting government in charge of a real or imagined Global warming event is like shoveling sand against the tide.

From Brookline Tom: "What does EVERY mob do when they seize power? Burn the books. Who is the FIRST community targeted when such a mob takes over? Intellectuals. What is the first casualty of such a takeover? Science and truth." And, "The funniest part of this is that this same mob (and I use the word quite intentionally) are the first to yell about "name-calling" and "labelling" when they're nailed for their boorish, bullying, anti-intellectual, and generally barbaric behavior."

Too funny! Were you looking in the mirror when you wrote that, Tom? Was it a global warming skeptic who just the other day called for all meteorologists who question the validity of global warming to have their certification yanked? No, it was some dope from the weather channel. Was it the skeptics who said that anyone questioning the validity of global warming should be treated like holocaust deniers and subject to Nuremberg style trials for crimes against humanity? I didn't think so. Why have Scientific American and Nature proclaimed the unassailable truth of global warming and refused to publish papers that may point out he opposite? Why is that? When Professor Lindzen at MIT complained in a letter to the Wall Street Journal that scientists who have valid research that may disagree with the global warming consensus at the science journals (that's the journals, not the scientific community) they are being shut out, that they are being intimidated by other scientists and the media into silence.

So just who is the mob, Tom? Looks to me like its you and yours. And as for barbaric behavior who is it that has wished for pandemics to wipe out large portions of the population? Why, I even read a post by you proclaiming that you think a good portion of misery would go a ong way toward helping people finally see things your way. We know who the real barbarians are, Tom. Is it the skeptics? No, I don't think so. In fact Tom, when it comes to labels I think Stalinist is an appropriate one for you as well. But then, I find that is true of most liberals.

You seem to be outnumbered by sensible people who know the science global warming is ambiguous at best. I think it is you and your buddies who can't stand the fact that the louder you and the MSM and your pet scientists shriek, the less attention we pay you.

As for the government, I think Ronald Reagan said it best when he said," The most feared words in America are, I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you."

The only thing important about global warming is how much you and the other global warmers are trying to impoverish the rest of us. The government wastes enough of my money now, I don't want to give it more to throw away while trying to prevent me from turning on the lights, or heating and cooling my home, or filling my gas tank so I can go to work to pay the already far too high taxes I pay now.

By the way, Kerry is a dope and a traitor(notice the present tense). The swift boaters were courageous soldiers (God bless them).

"The right wing had absolute control of the most powerful and most affluent nation in human history." That's right, and you don't - HaHa! Here's to laughing at you some more.

This is fun, and yes, I am smiling as I write this!

woodNfish

Woody just proved that people's "skepticism" about global warming is almost always aligned with their political beliefs, not with an objective view of the science.

If you were as skeptical about WMDs being in Iraq as you are about global warming, we may not be in the predicament we are in over there now. Eh?

Have these scientist determined the net increase in the atmosphere's enthalpy (total heat)? The increase in dry bulb temperature alone does confirm global warming. If there has been an increase in the enthalpy, how much has there been?

Right, woodNfish. Joseph McCarthy was a hero too, I'm sure. Just misunderstood. Nixon was framed, he was really a great American. To paraphrase the Sundance Kid -- "You keep thinking, that's what you're good at."