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Originally Posted by dc_dux
... and more recent news of how the Bush administration treats government scientists and scientific findings is here.
[/INDENT]Unfortunately Waxman was blocked repeatedly by the Repub majority on the Govt Reform Committee from conducting any serious or credible hearings on any of these findings.
BUT, that will change in 2007 and we can expect the Bush administration to called before the Committee to explain their past actions and current policies. |
I went to the website and looked at the first item listed. Waxman points to this memo:
http://www.democrats.reform.house.go...4822-87686.pdf
The authors of the memo simply question the methology used to generate the "hokey stick" temprature graph that showed 900 years of flat global tempratures followed by a spike in the last two decades. Exxon Mobil (a private organization) provided funding to the organization who published the memo. It appears Waxman was concerned more about Exxon Mobil providing funds to the organization than the question presented in the memo. Perhaps Waxman is making a political issue out of the matter and not Bush (given Bush had nothing to do with the memo).
But perhaps the UN is making a political statement also, here what one of their reports stated:
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Apocalypse Cow
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 12/15/2006
Climate Change: A U.N. report indicates that a major contributor to global warming may be the barnyard animals your kids see at the petting zoo, not the SUV you used to drive them there.
Just when conventional wisdom had settled on your SUV and the Industrial Revolution as the culprits in imminent and disastrous global warming, a 400-page report by the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization identifies emissions from livestock and the world's rapidly growing cattle herds as the greatest contributors to climate change.
So as the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court ponder whether to force the Environmental Protection Agency to treat life-sustaining carbon dioxide as a "pollutant," and in so doing impose job- and growth-killing regulations on the American economy, U.N. scientists say a goodly percentage of greenhouse gases emanate from the east end of westbound livestock.
Titled "Livestock's Long Shadow," the FAO report also surveys damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But it mostly puts the blame on the world's 1.5 billion cows. Altogether, the report says, flatulent livestock and farming are the source of 18% of the greenhouse gases said to cause global warming — more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.
The report has created quite a stink by documenting the impact on Earth's climate by gases from manure and flatulence, deforestation (including destruction of rain forests to create grazing land) and the energy used in farming.
"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation," said the report's senior author, Henning Steinfeld.
The FAO has projected a doubling of global meat production by 2050, with a corresponding impact on climate.
Steinfeld, chief of FAO's livestock information and policy branch, stated: "When emissions from land use and land-use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9% of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases."
While producing a relatively small portion of carbon dioxide, livestock produce 65% of nitrous oxide emissions, which have 296 times the "global warming potential" of CO2, Steinfeld said. "Most of this comes from manure."
North America alone has more than 100 million cattle, hundreds of millions of hogs and pigs, and more than 2 billion chickens, all emitting billions of tons of greenhouses gases each year. And not one comes equipped with a catalytic converter.
Now, we're as skeptical about cattle's dooming the planet as we are about the Ford Expedition's being a mortal threat. But the U.N. said cows and other critters produce methane — lots of it — and each molecule of methane has 21 times as much warming impact as a molecule of carbon dioxide, according to those who figure such things.
The FAO says livestock emit 35% to 40% of the methane put into the atmosphere. One cow produces half a pound a day. Multiply that by 1.5 billion gas-producing cows, and you don't feel so bad about driving your Hummer.
The U.N. may have stumbled on some more inconvenient truths. We just hope Al Gore doesn't have a cow.
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http://www.investors.com/editorial/e...0882260&view=1
We have created quite a stink
