Global Warming: From Bipartisan to Partisan

George C. Landrith

My, how things can change! In 1997, the Senate voted 95-to-0 for the Byrd-Hagel Resolution which stated that “it is the sense of the Senate that ... the United States should not be a signatory to [the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty].” Ninety-five Senators voted in favor of this resolution. Zero opposed it. That means that every single Republican and Democrat who voted, voted for the resolution condemning the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty. That’s not just bipartisan, that’s unanimous!

It is nearly impossible to get a unanimous vote in the Senate. The fact that a unanimous Senate had such serious reservations about Kyoto Global Warming Treaty says something.

Since President Bush took office over three years ago, he has been constantly attacked and excoriated by radical greens as being anti-environment. Even ABC News and John Stossell ran a special news report about how the radical greens are trying to brainwash school children into believing that Bush is reflexively anti-environment.

Often the President’s detractors have centered their criticisms around his position on the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty -- which happens to be very close to the 95-to-0 position of the U.S. Senate. John Kerry has even argued that if he would agree to Kyoto's terms, the French and Germans would have supported us in Iraq. This is so absurd that it is beneath the dignity of a man who would like to be president.

To listen to eco-radicals tell the story, it is a proven scientific fact that the climate is warming and that mankind is to blame. Moreover, they accuse Bush of being irresponsible and virtually alone in his stand against the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty.

Yet, nothing could be farther from the truth. President Bush is simply acknowledging what the responsible scientific community has been saying for some time -- the scientific evidence behind global warming theory is weak. He is standing with the 95 Senators who voted not to sign the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty unless its many shortcomings were adequately resolved.

It is the leftist greens who stand with the ZERO Senators who voted against the resolution. If the leftist greens couldn’t find even ONE Senator -- Republican or Democrat -- to cast a vote in their direction, what does that tell you about the leftist greens’ position? So who is out of the mainstream? Who is extreme? Whose position flies in the face of science, sound public policy, and common sense? It isn’t the 95 Senators and it isn’t President Bush.

Here are the facts. First, the earth's temperature naturally fluctuates. Ice once covered much of North America. Fortunately, warmer weather melted that ice and made the land habitable. Second, roughly 80% of the CO2 which radical greens complain causes warming was emitted after 1940. Yet, most of the 0.5º C "warming" they blame on CO2 emissions occurred between 1850 and 1940 – after several centuries of cooling known as the Little Ice Age. If the one-half degree warming occurred before the CO2 was emitted, then the CO2 could not have caused the warming. You don't have to be a scientist to understand that a cause-effect relationship implies a sequence – first the cause, then the effect.

President Bush is not a scientist, but he understands that the great weight of current scientific evidence does not support the eco-radical’s global warming agenda. He also understands that signing a treaty that has little chance of improving the environment and that will dramatically reduce the supply of energy and increase its cost is not in our best interest. Finally, he understands that agreeing with a unanimous U.S. Senate and literally thousands of scientists does not make his position extreme or fringe. It is time for the real extremists to face and accept these facts.

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Mr. Landrith is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was Business Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Politics. He had a successful law practice in business and litigation. In 1994 and 1996, Mr. Landrith was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's Fifth Congressional District. He served on the Albemarle County School Board. Mr. Landrith is an adjunct professor at the George Mason School of Law. He is recognized as an authority on constitutional law and jurisprudence, federalism, global warming, and property rights.

george@ff.org