Summary: Here is the video and transcript of a revealing discussion at yesterday’s Senate hearing about climate change. It shows in miniature how the debate about public policy to fight climate change has become gridlocked.

Hearing by the Senate Commerce Committee:

“Data or Dogma? Promoting Open Inquiry in the Debate

Over the Magnitude of the Human Impact on Earth’s Climate”.

I recommend attention to the Q&A at the hearing between Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), Judith Curry (Prof Atmospheric Science, GA Inst Tech), and Mark Steyn (arts reviewer and conservative activist, introduced by Senator Cruz as “an international bestselling author, a Top Five jazz recording artist, and a leading Canadian human rights activist”).

You can see a video of the hearing and the witnesses’ written testimony at the Senate website. Here is Prof Curry’s verbal testimony. The witnesses mostly rehashed material long-familiar to anyone following both sides of the debate (but, as usual, astonishing to the majority following only one side).

I found the Q&A more interesting, as it nicely illustrates why this important issue has become gridlocked — and policy discussions like Kabuki (formal opera, predictable but entertaining).

The transcript appears below, followed by a few comments by me.

——————– Computer-generated transcript ——————–

Curry: Is it possible for me to respond? You basically ..

Markey: I did not ask for ask you a question

Steyn: Really, why can’t why can’t she respond. You basically impugned her integrity. I think she’s entitled…

Markey: You are welcome to respond

Curry: I was basically called a denier, that I’m denying science. Did you read my written testimony? Are you aware that the IPCC in the consensus has no explanation for the increase of ice in the Antarctic? Are you aware that they have no explanation for the fact that the rate of sea-level rise from 1920 to 1950 was as large if not larger as it currently is Are you aware that temperatures have been warming for more than two hundred years and that in the 20th century 40% of the warming occurred before 1950 when carbon dioxide was not a factor in the warming? I could go on. Many of these issues are raised in my written testimony and our most of it is pulled from the IPCC itself. The IPCC has an explanation, so it says, for warming during the period 1975 to 2008. It doesn’t have an explanation for the flat period since 2000. It doesn’t have an explanation …

Markey: In my testimony corroborated by Dr. Titley this is the warmest year ever recorded. Last year is the warmest year ever recorded until this year. This is the warmest November ever recorded. October is the warmest October ever. You do not have an answer for that, doctor.

Curry: Yes, I do. …

Markey: You continue to ignore the chart which Doctor Titley has over his left shoulder. He has documented for this committee the warming trend which is inexorable inevitable in terms of its consequences unless we take action here. That’s the science and you’re having a hard time responding to.

Curry: The issue is what is causing the warming.

Markey: Is that natural variability for is that humans? Like Galileo, he said “no the science”. The science is clear. Are you depending upon perhaps this is God-made rather than dependent upon something that is man-made, which is anthropogenic and documented by 97%?

Steyn: Are you saying there’s no natural variability, Senator? There were alligators at the North Pole. What was that site you and your SUV?

Markey: What I am saying is that this warming is something that while it may have variability, year-to-year in specific parts of the planet that the trend is straight up.

Steyn: Yeah, do you know what the Little Ice Age was, Senator?

Markey: Again it is climate change. We had a hundred and ten inches of snow in Boston last year with measurements of water 21 degrees warmer than normal off the coast of Massachusetts. This was an unusual event for us. The warming of the ocean intensifies the amount of precipitation when arctic air hits that water. Now if you want to deny that, if you watch these changes are taking place and that they’re having a dramatic impact, you are in the right place.

Steyn: You know what the winters were like at Plymouth Rock, Senator.

Markey: Well here is the thing. We…

Steyn: You don’t know. How long has your family been in Massachusetts?

Markey: We are new arrivals and I have to admit …

Steyn: You should have been there in 1750.

Market: The Irishman began arriving in 1750, so I apologize for being late to the country. And I’ll have to chastise my grandparents for not leaving until the economic conditions in 1902 forced them here but that notwithstanding there is as much consensus that man is causing climate change as there is in Galileo’s original theory. And climate changes causing …

Steyn: Senator, what percentage of climate change is man causing? What percentage of climate change is “anthropogenic”?

Markey: Well, according to the scientists who are in Paris right now — which would feel pretty much the entire base of the building in which we’re in right now — and the number of deniers would still be the ones who …

Curry: Are you aware of a recent survey of the professional members of the American Meteorological Society? When asked the question how much use the recent changes natural versus human caused, 52% of the memberships that it was majority human caused.

Comments about this dialogue

That Steyn had the good lines shows that this isn’t a debate so much as performance art. Scientists, like Judith Curry, spoke but few listened. Steyn’s argumentative skills forced Senator Ed Markey to respond, but such exchanges have no more political impact than speeches at a high school debate — providing exchanges that Left and Right cheered and booed.

Markey appeared to have been briefed by activists and didn’t listen to the testimony, so not only does not understand the other side of either the science or policy debates, he does not even know there is another side (he just sees error). He ignored material that contradicted his belief. He illustrated the “dogma” side of the “Data or Dogma” debate.

Markey sounded two major themes of climate activists. First, conflating the two centuries of warming (the warming before WWII predates substantial anthropogenic CO2) with the largely anthropogenic warming since 1950. For another example, see the Nov 2015 Science of Climate Change presentation by the Canadian government that goes all in on this error.

Second, like many warmists he asserts that “97% of climate scientists” believe whatever he wants them to believe. There are multiple surveys testing agreement with the headline finding of the IPCC’s AR5 (it’s not in the previous ARs) that “It is extremely likely (95 – 100% certain) that human activities caused more than half of the observed increase in global mean surface temperature from 1951 to 2010.” For more about this see…

Update: about the analysis by Mark Steyn

Why did the Republicans invite art critic and political activist Mark Steyn to testify? He sent the debate wildly off course with his deliberately provocative far-right rhetoric (e.g., his islamophobic rant about the people of the Maldive Islands).

In a post at his website Mark Steyn made some perceptive observations about the hearings. He compares them unfavorably with the serious hearings he attended at Canada’s Parliament, and makes several trenchant observations, such as these…

“Americans are the chumps of the planet for putting up with {Senators’ behavior in hearings}. Since the 17th Amendment, senators have been citizen-legislators like any other, and so their contempt for the citizenry who have graciously consented, at their own time and expense to appear before them, demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the relationship. “… there was some extensive discussion of the satellite record: They have the scientist who created and developed the satellite temperature record sitting at one end of the table: John Christy. This is a remarkable scientific accomplishment. Yet they directed all their questions on the subject to the bloke down the other end – Rear Admiral Titley, who knows no more about the satellite record than I do. This is like inviting Sir Isaac Newton to a hearing on gravity and then only asking questions of Mr Timeserver sitting next to him. ” “… Unfortunately, the ‘decorum of the Senate’ means that there are never any debates and only performance art …”

As for the suitability of him testifying about technical details of climate science, he says…

“Sad that there’s no longer a place for a Renaissance man…”

Exactly. I don’t want a Renaissance man doing neurosurgery on my son, or testifying about climate science. This is the 21st century, not the 19th (when amateur scientists make many important contributions to science).

Steyn says something I did not realize, but is true and important: “It’s easy for Fabius Maximus to fight vainly the old ennui at this particular bit of performance art…” See my explanation in the comments.

One important correction: Stein says “To Fabius Maximus I’m an “art critic” (no art critic would regard me as such).” I had read only his excellent reviews of music and musicals (years ago). I have updated this post to reflect his other accomplishments.

For More Information

If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. For more information about this vital issue see The keys to understanding climate change and My posts about climate change. Also see these posts about the campaign for public policy action to fight climate change — how it went wrong and how it can be fixed…