California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher asked a panel of economists and one scientist if they agreed with rather comical solutions some studies proposed to combat man-made global warming.
Rohrabacher, a skeptic of catastrophic man-made warming, cited studies calling for the banning of pets, frequent flier miles and raising of energy taxes as solutions to climate change.
“I have read a number of studies that have indicated there are certain solutions that are being advocated,” Rohrabacher, a Republican, said during a Wednesday hearing on technological solutions to warming.
“One study is that we should be eliminating pets — dogs. Dogs should be eliminated and that’s part of their solution, that we’re going to do that,” Rohrabacher said. “There was one that talked about ending frequent flier miles” and others suggesting a “major increase in parking fees and gas taxes.”
Rohrabacher’s concern was that many proposed solutions to global warming rely on controlling human behavior, instead of market-driven ones. Rohrabacher has previously called global warming a plot “to create global government to control all of our lives.”
“Do any of you on that panel agree that, that approach — no more dogs … no more frequent flier miles?” Rohrabacher asked. “Do any of you support that type of human control in order to come to grips with what you’re telling us is undebatable, the man-caused global warming?”
The only panelist to answer was economist Ted Nordhaus, who said he did not endorse those policies to fight global warming. Nordhaus said he supported some tax and regulatory policies, but said technological change would play the biggest role.
Also on the panel were Oren Cass, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and Phil Duffy, president of the Woods Hole Research Center. Climate scientist Judith Curry was also invited to testify, but “extreme weather” prevented her from travelling to D.C.
However, Curry did post her testimony on her blog. Curry’s testimony stressed “that we cannot know exactly how the climate will evolve in the 21st Century, we are certain to be surprised and we will make mistakes along the way.”
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