Rep. McKinley moderates debates on global warming - AP — Weirton Daily Times
There were plenty of opinions and recommendations, though, from professors, attorneys, free-market activists and authors. They ranged from taxation strategies and carbon-capture technology investment to the blunt prescription from climate science denier Marc Morano: Do nothing.
Morano, a former aide to climate skeptic and Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, calls global warming debates a "silly display of politics" built on "sub-prime science." The suggestion that carbon dioxide in particular is fueling climate change "is absolutely not holding up," he argued.
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But Annie Petsonk, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund, said government must lead, and the time for change is long overdue.
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"A rate of warming of roughly a tenth of a degree Celsius per decade ... is the rate at which trees can't run fast enough to get away from higher stress," she said...
That drew an immediate retort from Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute, who said things need not remain unchanged for trees, plants and animals to survive.
"Every organism on the planet is proving they can withstand a 16-degree change," he said, "because they've done it."
"Including the dinosaurs?" Petsonk shot back.
Richard Thomas, biology professor at West Virginia University, has been studying the impact of carbon emissions on forests for years and said the damage is clear.
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But Scott Denning, a professor at Colorado State University's department of atmospheric science, said the anti-regulation camp should stop telling "scary stories." Our ancestors once used candles and horses but adopted new technologies like oil and electricity even when they were more expensive.
"I think when people tell scary stories about how our society can't adapt to a changing environment, they do a disservice to the power of the free market," he said.
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