CHEYENNE—Sen. Cheri Steinmetz was clear: The committee chairwoman did not want to hear prevailing viewpoints about carbon dioxide and climate change.
Those who accept what climate scientists have known for decades — that the planet is warming because of human-caused CO2 emissions — need not speak up, the Lingle Republican said.
“If proponents of a different viewpoint wish to express that,” Steinmetz said, “they are free to have a hearing of their own.”
That left room for only alternative theories, those that deny or discount the world-changing effect carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses are having on human beings, other species and the climatic conditions of the planet.
Purported experts invited to testify, and other speakers, including each lawmaker who spoke, expressed either disbelief that climate change was happening, or a belief that it is inconsequential, even beneficial.
Flanking Steinmetz in the Wyoming Capitol extension building auditorium were four members of the Senate Agriculture, State and Public Lands and Water Resources Committee: Sens. Dan Laursen (R-Powell), John Kolb (R-Rock Springs), Tim French (R-Powell) and Bob Ide (R-Casper).
They nodded and smiled as they listened to presentations from speakers brought in from the CO2 Coalition. The group touted its theory — discredited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other climate scientists — that loading more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere will not tip the planet’s climate into unlivable conditions.
William Happer, a physicist and co-founder of the CO2 Coalition, told lawmakers and attendees that those who believe climate science have been brainwashed.
“I don’t know how you deprogram people from a cult,” Happer said, “it’s really sort of a cult.”
But the science is clear. In fact, human-caused climate change has pushed Wyoming’s annual mean temperature upward by 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit from 1920 to 2020, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data. Wyoming’s highest elevations are warming even faster, already changing the seasonal pulse of water flows that the state’s economy is built around.
Climate change, which is already changing people’s lives in Wyoming, will have a dramatic effect on temperature regimes all across the state, according to University of Wyoming climate scientist Bryan Shuman. A place like Jackson, he said, will go from virtually never touching 90 degrees to getting that warm with regularity.
“On the track we’re on by 2050, [Jackson] will pretty easily start to have about two weeks of 90 degree weather,” said Shuman, one of the lead authors of the Greater Yellowstone Climate Assessment. “By 2100, depending on whether we mitigate carbon emissions or not, [Jackson] either ends up staying around that two-week level or it gets up to about two months of 90 degree weather.”
Deniers’ road trip
The CO2 Coalition’s participation at the legislative hearing was part of a three-stop engagement in Wyoming. The Wyoming Republican Party teamed up with conservative group Turning Point USA to host speakers from the coalition for a series of events this week in Gillette, Cheyenne and at the University of Wyoming in Laramie.
Laramie resident Laurie Richmond attended the UW event and said she’s very concerned about Gov. Mark Gordon’s policy goal to capture and store more carbon than is emitted.
The governor, Richmond told WyoFile, won’t even give the CO2 Coalition speakers “the time of day” — and she wasn’t happy about it.
Richmond worried about the economic burden of current state policies that attempt to force carbon capture retrofits at Wyoming coal-fired power plants. So far, Wyoming ratepayers are being forced to cover more than $3 million in costs for utilities to study the feasibility of adding carbon capture at five coal-burning units in the state — studies that were mandated by the Wyoming Legislature. If the utilities actually implement carbon capture at the coal plants, Black Hills Energy customers in Wyoming could be tapped for up to $1 billion, and Rocky Mountain Power’s Wyoming customers could pay more than $2 billion, according to preliminary filings with the state.
“This is all about government grifting,” Richmond said. “Can we really afford $1,000 electrical bills every month? So Gov. Gordon’s got a problem coming.”
In the Capitol, Steinmetz said at the onset that the Senate Agriculture hearing wasn’t intended to be a personal attack on the governor. That didn’t stop speakers from taking shots at his policies.
“CO2 capture is unnecessarily costly and dangerous and therefore, it is not worth pursuing for the state of Wyoming — or anyone, for that matter,” Frits Byron Soepyan, a chemical engineer, told lawmakers.
Gordon has defended his policies on national television, during his State of the State address and again Tuesday in Casper.
The governor responds
“There are people that are going to say, ‘Climate is not changing.’ Or they’ll say, ‘It’s better to have more CO2.’ We can talk about all of that, but that doesn’t really matter,” Gordon said while speaking to business leaders in Casper on Tuesday.
More than 20 years of climate policy dictated from outside the state has moved markets toward lower-carbon energy sources, Gordon said. If Wyoming’s coal, oil and natural gas are going to remain viable, those industries must have technical solutions to reduce their carbon emissions, the governor has maintained.
“The reason I say that it doesn’t really matter [where Wyomingites stand on climate change] is that what we are seeing is a regulatory environment that says, ‘We need to move away from fossil fuels because that’s the only way that we can save the planet, and we need to move to renewables because that’s the only way that we can save the climate,’” Gordon said.
“The most important thing is that Wyoming not stick its head in the sand,” he continued. “If [carbon capture] isn’t going to happen here, it’s going to happen — it is already happening in places like Texas and places like Louisiana. We really need to make sure that Wyoming is competitive, that it is a leader and that it is a place that people come to find the solutions.”
Gordon and his chief energy advisor, Randall Luthi, are working with Sen. Cale Case (R-Lander) and others on an idea that more equitably distributes both the cost of adding renewables and the cost of integrating fossil fuel carbon capture into the western electricity grid. All those capital costs — as well as long-term benefits — should be spread “system wide,” Luthi told WyoFile.
It will be a tough sell among Wyoming’s counterparts on the western grid, Gordon admitted. But it’s part of his signature “Decarbonizing the West” initiative as chairman of the Western Governors Association. Ultimately, Wyoming cannot impose such a system-wide “fee” on its own, Gordon told WyoFile. But the current electrical power regulatory regime doesn’t fairly distribute the cost of pursuing a net-zero electrical grid.
“We’re all in this together,” Gordon said. “Instead of being a victim, Wyoming can say, ‘If you’re really interested in doing something about CO2, we got the answer. We got the answer from the bottom to the top.'”
A state of climate denial
Steinmetz and other far-right lawmakers in the Legislature have tried to capitalize politically on Gordon’s carbon-capture advocacy. It’s fair to say their criticisms land with some residents of Wyoming, a state long financially dependent on revenue from carbon-producing industries and where fewer than half of residents believe humankind is driving climate change.
Approximately 38% of Wyoming residents believe “climate change is an extremely or very serious problem,” and 46% “have noticed significant effects from climate change over the past 10 years,” according to Colorado College’s annual Conservation in the West Poll, released earlier this month. Fifty-four percent “think that the low level of water in rivers is a serious problem,” according to the poll.
Still, Steinmetz’s and others’ efforts to make a spectacle of Gordon’s carbon policies haven’t gone over seamlessly. There was a fight, for example, over whether the Senate Agriculture Committee’s climate denier-led hearing should have been considered an official legislative event.
In late January Steinmetz spread word of the hearing on official Wyoming Legislature letterhead. She challenged the governor’s authority to pursue a carbon-negative policy: “The Legislature must have a true cost-benefit analysis in order to make an informed policy decision regarding the governor’s decarbonization plans for the state of Wyoming,” the Goshen County senator said in a press release.
The Legislature’s leadership didn’t appreciate it. Two days later the speaker of the House, Rep. Albert Sommers (R-Pinedale) and the Senate president, Sen. Ogden Driskill (R-Devils Tower) sent out another press release purportedly uncoupling the event from the Ag Committee.
Notice of the hearing, however, remained on the Legislature’s website, and under the banner of the committee chaired by Steinmetz.
The Legislative Service Office explained the decision in an email: “Under the Senate Rules a chairman can convene a meeting of their committee at any point during a legislative session to discuss items they deem to be relevant.”
House Majority Floor Leader, Rep. Chip Neiman (R-Hulett), thought that leaving the hearing sanctioned was “appropriate,” given how “deeply involved agriculture is in the whole issue of climate change.”
Parroting disproven claims
Shuman, the UW climate scientist, missed Turning Point USA’s event with the CO2 Coalition speakers due to a conflict, but afterward he looked into their resumes and a short report they produced about Wyoming and climate change.
“They are not climate scientists,” Shuman said.
The University of Wyoming professor took issue with some of the graphics the CO2 Coalition speakers presented. He was “shocked,” he said, by one graph purporting that annual average max temperatures have declined over the last 90 years in Wyoming, a “truly misleading” assertion.
“Basically, every single weather station across the state refutes that this is the trend,” Shuman said.
Nevertheless, the CO2 Coalition speakers had a receptive audience with the Senate Ag Committee. The next day, Steinmetz and other hardline Republican members of the Legislature gathered for a follow-up press conference.
“Our voters — the citizens of Wyoming — are rightly skeptical of this so-called crisis and permanent carbon capture and sequestration,” Steinmetz said.
Ten members of the Legislature, plus Secretary of State Chuck Gray, spoke after Steinmetz. Some doubted climate change was happening, while others challenged the need to act and take steps like sequestering carbon. Yet other legislators repeated the CO2 Coalition’s primary disproven message: that the primary gas accelerating the climate crisis is actually beneficial.
“We all know CO2 is good,” said Sen. Dan Laursen (R-Powell), a hydrographer with the State Engineer’s Office. “Plants have to have it. The more there is there, the plants do better.”
Sen. Tim French (R-Powell) agreed.
“As a farmer, I need a lot of CO2 to grow my crops,” French said. “There’s a lot of hype out there from different individuals, but in my world, my business, I really need it.”
Climate scientists, however, came to consensus decades ago that the atmosphere needs less CO2 — at least if the goal is to inhabit a planet resembling the one we know today. In the middle of the 20th century the average annual temperature in Wyoming was about 40 degrees, Shuman said. Today, it’s approaching 43 degrees.
“While that doesn’t sound like a huge amount, it’s worth keeping in mind that the difference between the last ice age and today is only about 5 to 7 degrees,” Shuman said. “Even a few degrees makes a big difference.”
For more legislative coverage click here.
It must be very painful, emotionally speaking to witness Wyomingites refuting the far left dogma of human caused global warming! Your so called journalists are so biased it’s truly laughable! Wyoming citizens recognize this for what it is, attempts to scare and then control everyone! The clown governor and some other left-wingers are the only ones buying that. Ba bye Liberals! Don’t go away mad……
I am embarrassed that so many wyomingites have bought into the Climate change hoax. This belief has ushered in an era of higher priced electric rates with less reliability. As we shut down reliable low cost power plants we head toward unaffordable electric rates. This country will continue to lose manufacturing jobs cause of unreliable over price wind power. If a country can’t manufacture it dies! The climate change agenda is an economic disaster for America. We will be a third world country if we keep heading down the path of decapitolization. Wake up soccer moms and you life long educators. Your next move is to shutdown the natural gas industry! Good luck staying warm in Wyoming in the winter. Got to hope global warming raises the temps 40 degrees so we don’t freeze. Don’t worry climate hoaxers the editors will take my post off shortly!
It’s disheartening to see such confidence in ignorance. There are plenty of resources available to educate yourself. Get away from your Facebook education. It’s failing you.
https://www.dummies.com/book/academics-the-arts/science/environmental-science/global-warming-for-dummies-282240/
https://climatekids.nasa.gov/kids-guide-to-climate-change/
https://www.amnh.org/explore/ology/climate-change#:~:text=Climate%20change%20refers%20to%20the,know%20of%20in%20the%20past.
https://www.explainthatstuff.com/globalwarmingforkids.html
There is no free lunch. The idea that humans can burn 450 million years of stored energy in 200 years without consequences is not woke its called plain as the nose on one’s face.
More people means more carbon means more problems. That’s the fact and congratulations for being wrong about well everything.
I agree entirely with one thing: consumers shouldn’t be paying for this. Climate change is going to destroy our way of life and it’s the lies of Exxon et al, with these denier shills that are keeping us from fixing it. Make Exxon and their ilk clean up their mess and pay for it! Now.
The sound byte version :
Wyoming – defying the world by promoting Fossil Fuels with Fossil Thinking.
I installed wind and solar at our home here in Cheyenne, at considerable expense. They provide no energy during periods like our current cold snap, because the wind isn’t blowing and the solar panels are covered with snow. Reliance on wind and solar would be catastrophic in a cold climate like Wyoming.
Wherever you stand on the debate, understand that humanity is going to run this experiment of putting more carbon in the atmosphere, regardless of what the UN, International agreements, political parties or countries say or do. Net zero is currently beyond our technology, when truly accounting for everything. The politics/politicians will concede to unhappy voters quality of life being negatively impacted to salvage their careers. And in the end we will find out who was right.
Always check your sources. Roy Spencer is one of the top climate science deniers.
I am sad that this article, is so biased, and that those who have written it are themselves so bias. What ever happened to critical thinking, and being objective instead of subjective. Furthermore the labeling of those we disagree with must stop so that honest, though sometimes heated,discussions can be had.
Wyo File no doubt is very proud of how it censors constituents that “NEED” trained in how to conform to being “woke”.
Nobody should be surprised at any of this . But when have real science and factuality ever carried the day when our citizen legislature congregates in Cheyenne ? They seem to have invited more than the usual number of Junk Science vendors this year.
Honest apolitical authentic peer reviewed scientists have made the case that Earth transitioned from the Holocene Age to the Anthropocene beginning with our coal-burning Industrial Revolution c. 1800 . It only took 200 years to ramp up a full head of steam ( and CO2 and methane and an alchemist’s brew of chemical smogs ). Exponential increases in the burning of fossil fuels and expansion of industry by humans overlay the data . The geodynamics speak for themselves. It took thousands of years for the Ice Age megafauna mammals to go extinct. It only took us 50 years to wipe out billions of Passenger Pigeons once we set out minds to it. Proceed with caution , upright walking Primates with opposable thumbs … you are on a path to extinct yourselves in short order.
By the the end of the single greatest man-caused disruptions to planet Earth — World War II punctuated by a few hundred A-bomb and H-bomb tests — there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind the our Homeworld planet and especially its atmospheric climate are being adversely affected by mankind , more than all other forces parsed out . Planetary changes that used to take millennia or millions of years are now occuring right before our eyes in intervals measured in decades or corporate annual reports.
Methinks the Anthropocene Age will be the shortest of all geologic ages going back 4.5 billion years , once the humans have unsustainably plundered the essential resources and taken themselves out of the biome matrix. The Human Experiment is concluding. It will only take us a couple three centuries at the current pace to be reckoned as a self-extirpated failure. Faster than the blink of a false god’s glass eye. We Homo non-sapiens have between 50 and 500 years left , by extrapolation , before Gaia resets the planet. That is not a conservative estimate. We’re past the time conservative thinking is of any real use, on any topic.
Maybe a million years from now the arbitrary rectangle once known as Wyoming will have inherited new layers of fossils. A team of extraterrestrial xenoarchaeologists will have a field day dissecting our petrified chronology. The previous time a planetwide event of this magnitude occurred it was from an asteroid impact , as shown by the morphologies immediately above and below the thin demarcation layer of Iridium . This time the pertinent strata will show the Hominids did this to themselves. Look at that layer of plastic and carbon soot. The lingering plutonium and absurd chemical compounds. They were so stupid…
—
Epilogue: I don’t need to wait a million years to see where this ends. All I have to do is observe my Wyoming Legislature emissaries. There they are, worshipping a golden sacred cow at their Cheyenne stone temple , powered by coal-fired boilers, lit by oil lamps and dramatic fiery flares of methane gas. The consecrated red robed cardinals whose archbishops preach there were dinosaurs below decks on Noah’s Ark …
Plant a tree
The chart shown might have been more informative if it had shown the beginning of human life on the planet.
People need to stop calling for a silencing of opposing views in the name of science. That is not how science works. Real science looks at opposing possibilities. It is open to new ideas and change. Many so called proven ideas have been later proven wrong. We can’t be so egotistical to think that we are somehow beyond that possibility ourselves. When the side in power demands that what they say is the only valid view point and demand that the opposition be silenced then we have a religion of power and authoritarianism not one of science.
Excellent reporting. Wyomingites concerned about “cults” should question who and why most of the state voted for Donald Trump. Of course he sides with the climate deniers
A cult that respects Mother Earth? Count me in.
Looking forward to Cheri Steinmetz inviting the Flat Earth Society for a day of fearless truth-telling.
The Vikings discovered Greenland around the 11th century and named it such for a reason. Then it got cold, covered in ice, now it’s warming up. Climate change had been occurring since the beginning of time. How arrogant can politicians be to believe we can control the climate?
When millionaires and billionaires quit buying beachfront property I might start taking climate activists seriously. Let Jackson and Laramie take the lead on all the ideas (and costs)that climate change folks have. They can be the Guinea pigs. The rest of us can be the control group…
The notion that CO2 causes climate or weather changes is,to use an appropriate Wyoming phrase, pure bulls…! I graduated first in my class from the University of Wyoming in 1965,went on to get MS and PhD degrees from Colorado State, and spent much of my career studying the effects of CO2 and O2 on plants, Many hundreds of other scientists and research groups have cited my research and still do so today. When I was conducting research at CSU in 1962, the concentration of CO2 in the air was 315 parts per million.Now it is 415 or so. That means we are adding one molecule of CO2 every 5 years to 100,000 molecules of air,citing Dr. Roy Spencer, one of the smartest and best known climatologists. Does that fact seem worthy of panic and spending trillions of dollars to you? Moreover, every crop plant responds positively to CO2 with greater yield. Satellite measurements of world temperatures by Spencer and others show little change over the past 40 years or so. Almost every claim of increasing drought,rising sea levels, etc have been debunked hy honest research.So you folks hang tough!
If you’re interested in educating yourself on what’s happened in science in general, and more specifically climate science since 1965, you should really read the IPCC 3 report. Thousands of scientists have something to say on the matter.
https://www.ipcc.ch/data/
Climate models are complex and as accurate as the 20 weather hurricane tracks. Picking just one parameter that controls every thing is poor science.
I am embarrassed and ashamed that this state has a legislative body of toddlers. We are in a global crisis and they think they know more than the actual scientists who actually have data and proof. Their little QAN group needs removed from office and we need to vote some actual educated and intelligent people into office. My God where did these idiots come from. They are like cockroaches
Well, a comforting thought for the “head in the sand” climate change deniers. If we continue on the road we’re on there will be a lot more sand!
No not true. The quick quibs don’t make facts. Natural climate change occurs every 50,000 years man’s effect on that is less than 0.01% over 1000 years do the math. The only people benefiting from climate change hysteria are the billionaires making profit from pointless products they can flog and the politicians they have bought.
The people making the billions are the people producing the fossil fuels. They are also the source of all the phony science touted by climate change skeptics. I wish that all the devastating effects of climate change could fall upon ONLY the skeptics. But tragically, it is those least responsible for climate change who are suffering the most.
Thinking that the climate is broken and you can fix it is silly. A 1.7 degree tipping point , if it happens .I. predict will be as accurate as all their other predictions.
If they climate alarmist were serious. They would be prepairing to adapt to the changes.
“ If they climate alarmist were serious. They would be preparing to adapt to the changes.”
They are – worldwide. They’re raising roads to accommodate higher tides, raising levees, arranging for better drainage. Producers of food such as chocolate, coffee, and various fruits and vegetables are trying to find where they can grow their crops as their crop zones heat up. This list barely touches on what measures are being taken by people who take the proven risks seriously.
That is really unfortunate. Transitioning off of fossil fuels and into renewable energy is the way of the world. Science has reached the gold standard of proof for human warming is true. To create your little fiefdom of doubt while completely disallowing the overwhelming science speaks volumes for what this group of lawmakers is about. Wyoming has a great oportunity to provide renewable energy to its neighbors and itself making a huge amount of money. Transitioning off of fossil fuels can be bumpy, and this is one of the obvious sore points we run into.
Didn’t we just have a company default on their $15 million dollar loan from the state for a carbon capture scam? The issue we have is a lot of you are referencing various scientists and their findings which are paid for by the group they’re working for! The only carbon recover I’ve seen work is in a gas processing stream. Anything else hasn’t been feasible. I go back to the basics knowing we need CO2 to survive on this earth! Do a little research yourself on our current issues before you become a “sheep” and go off into the abyss!
are paid for what the group wants!
Exactly
It’s ok to believe what you want to believe , crops dry up , cattle die, wind doesn’t blow across I–80, winters have less snow , it rains at Christmas , and coal is clean now. Just ask the miners no longer getting black lung ,
A much larger question is presented here than one’s position on climate change. Sen. Steinmetz and other legislators put this forward as an official function of the Ag committee. That being the case, then legislative leader should investigate why both House, Senate and Joint Committee rules and the rules outlined in “Mason’s Manual of Legislative Procedure” were willfully and knowingly violated. There should be a full investigation of what state funds were used for this rally and any expenditures should be reimbursed. There should also be an investigation into the necessity of disciplinary action against the legislators who organized and participated in the rally. A hallmark of the Wyoming Legislature has always been the ability to express opposing views on any topic. This sham “hearing” is an insult to the legislative process.
There is a lot to unpack in this story. However, there are a couple key issues.
One, the governor is advocating for carbon capture. Is this worth trying? I lean toward giving a try even though it is costly, its effectiveness is doubtful and is fifty years too late.
The other centers around climate change. This is a no brainer for anyone that is paying attention. Climate change is something all who are old enough, with eyes to see, have experienced both first hand and from global events. The question to what extent humans are responsible is more debatable. This cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. However, the vast preponderance of the data does show that human activity since the industrial revolution is the cause.
Personally, I would rather avoid that issue and focus on something else. We all breath air. Dirty air is not good for anyone. Let’s stop using the atmosphere as a toilet for disposal of combustion products. Let’s keep air clean as we can for the benefit of all that breath air.
Fascism marches on in the backwardest of backward states…
Shouting insults at people with a different viewpoint is not how we do things in Wyoming.
Not from what I’ve seen here over the years…
“parroting disproven claims.” It appears that folks have different opinions. That one side claims their opinion is proven or that the other’s is ‘disproven’ is disingenuous. Their proof is also an opinion.
Dr. William Happer, who gave his expert opinion on climate change at this legislative hearing, has some impressive credentials. He is a physicist specializing in atomic physics, optics and spectroscopy. He also happens to be a professor emeritus at Princeton University. Surely he knows what he is talking about, and all those climate scientists are full of baloney, right?
Well, not so fast.
According to the web site for the CO2 Coalition, of the dozen or so members on their board of directors, there is not a single trained climate scientist. They all have advanced degrees in such areas as physics, chemistry, engineering, medicine and geology, so they are definitely a talented group. However, their claim that they have the right answer and all the climate specialists are wrong seems to me to be disingenuous at best, and more likely a textbook example of academic-level Dunning Kruger effect.
The Legislature would be better served by bringing in some people who have actual expertise in this area.
Climate models are models of atmospheric physics. Dr. Happer is joined in his views by John Clauser, current Nobel Laureate in Physics and by Freeman Dyson (who died recently) and was considered the most brilliant mathematician and physicist of our time. Ignoring their opinions and imagining you know more than them would be ridiculous.
CO2 in Laramie/U of WY. Were they sponsored by any campus group or department? Where was their presentation? What was the turnout? Did they get any dissent to their views from the audience? Did the campus newspaper cover the event?
Mother Nature ALWAYS bats last. And she ALWAYS bats one thousand.
A few things a denier should know. There are three types of carbon, carbon 12. Plants like carbon 12. Carbon 13. Carbon 13 comes from burning carbon 13. Plants don’t like this one. Carbon 14 comes mostly from nuclear bomb testing. There’s more carbon 13 now from burning foil fuels . It’s not better for your Plants on the farm.
Next , if you park your car in the garage with the doors shut and the engine running , you will die in about ten minutes to an hour. If you park an electric car in a garage with the engine running ,nothing will happen.
From Cheyenne, if you drive your car at 60 miles an hour straight up into the sky , the car will stop running in one minute because there won’t be enough oxygen. If you then get in a electric car and drive straight up into the atmosphere fir one more minute you will die from lack of oxygen. That’s how thin the atmosphere is that our cars are affecting. If you have a 18 inch globe of the earth in your study then if you can picture the air above it its only about the thickness of one coat of varnish.
The earth is like a giant garage with a whole lot of cars,ships,airplanes,jetskis,lawnmowers,well you get the point I hope. It’s a very delicate situation.
If you have ever registered a boat , you may have seen the warning that the DMV sends out that you can die from carbon monoxide poisoning just sitting at the back of the boat if there’s no wind and the boat is just idling in one place. There’s some stuff to think about . See if you can connect the dot. Bruce out
OK, Bruce: I’m a “denier,” and here’s a few things you should know. A record of 400,000 years of Earth’s atmosphere is preserved in ice cores at the National Core Facility in Denver. These cores show that atmospheric carbon dioxide, before the Industrial Revolution, was steady at approximately 280 parts per million (That’s 280 thousandths of one percent!). Now, our atmosphere contains around 400 parts per million, or 400 thousandths of one percent. So, totally ignoring the natural warming of the planet that has occurred over the past 14,000 years, the maximum increase of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere that can possibly be attributed to human activity comes to 130 parts per million, or 130 thousandths of one percent!!!! I wish the media at large would report this fact instead of shilling for the “Climate Crisis” crowd. And analysis of ocean bed rock cores (mollusk shell analysis) indicate that atmospheric carbon levels were four-to-five times higher during the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods than they are today. From a planetary history perspective, Earth’s atmosphere is presently enjoying an almost all-time carbon low!
Peta says the production of meat produces more carbon than all transportation combined. What were the carbon footprints of all the wild fires last years. Climate is not just one thing.
I do not believe in climate science anymore, I do not see the statue of Liberty under water as predicted in the nineties by AL Gore.
I do see farmers protesting in all of Europe because of evil climate policies formed by the WEF.
I see Wyoming is wising up to climate errors.
You get the point, more and more people see climate policies are destroying nations like Sri Lanca were the climate policies were enforced.
Yeah, that’s not how science works
I guess 1 + 1 = 3
Fine example of the blind leading the blind.
It’s one thing to ruin my day seeing the stupid taking over our legislature. It’s quite another to ruin every day for the next generation. The disrespect for solid scholarship in academics and science is shocking and I hope UW presents a counter discussion to the rabid right’s, conservative funded Turning Point USA.
There is already data out there that directly contradicts everything that was presented by these self proclaimed “scientists”. It doesn’t matter though. The science challenged folks who believe they are leaders of the state refuse to listen to any of it.
People need to keep an open mind. When I hear terms–meant to belittle–such as “disproven claims” and “settled science” or “climate denier,” I can’t help but think of the same rhetorical terms being used against those who were suspicious of or refused the COVID-19 vaccine. Yet, who was right with that one?
The vaccines saved millions of lives. Antivaxxers on their death beds, many of whom had been hornswoggled into taking quack “remedies” like ivermectin, pleaded for the vaccine after it would no longer do any good. Climate science deniers are of the same breed, only worse; they are willing to wreck the planet for everyone, usually to make a quick buck. We in Wyoming need to plan for the day when the world fully wakes up and there is no market for coal. We can prosper then, but only if we face reality now.
You must be living in an information bubble if you think the anti-vax crowd was right about anything
The fact that you think anti-vax lies were right is telling. Millions of people died. How many of those that died would still be around if they didn’t believe conspiracy theories?
Forgive me if I don’t take your scientific analysis of climate change seriously..
William Happer is not a climate scientist. Climate science denial is total head-in-the-sand. But I agree with the climate science deniers on one thing. Carbon capture and sequestration is an enormous waste of money. It is unlikely to ever be practical or affordable. It just a scam to give more tax money to the fossil fuel interests. Both sides of this argument are leading us to disaster.
I note that no one from the fossil fuels industry responsible for marketing Wyoming energy products was on the Playbill. If these folks were serious about protecting Wyoming jobs and industry, perhaps asking those folks what they need instead of political grandstanding would be the prudent course of action.
Interesting. They take a stance of denier when it comes to coal, but when it’s water they all claim climate change. I’m tired of legislative bodies using whatever works in their favor. We need to get a more intelligent and creative group to work on behalf of its citizens.
I couldn’t help but notice that Mr. Whitestone’s graph depicted changes in C02 concentrations that occured over milenia. What we are seeing currently are changes in greenhouse gases that have occurred in just decades.
Mike and Dustin, I think you did an admirable job of turning a report on climate change deniers into an informational piece about how we are going to counter the climate change that is happening. I would have appreciated more discussion of nuclear power as an obvious source for clean energy.
Science, including climate science, is an evidence based methodology designed to explain causation. If practiced correctly, science doesn’t care what you believe, only what the method demonstrates. The evidence for human caused climate change is overwhelming, and if politicians cannot accept evidence to inform debate and make decisions, we are heading for a very dark place where superstition and hucksters dictate how we live.
This is just more idiot-ology from members of our money wasting legislature. Legislators have a host of real issues Including the budget to work on. Talking about climate change just adds to the hot air.
Ah, so fix the problem, problem’s. The culprit from either sides can be seen if the mirror.
Whatcha gonna do?
Climate change is real….it always has been. The real issue is how much mankind’s activities is affecting it . It appears the authors of the article are unwilling to “ report” as journalists and have injected their bias into the whole article, which makes the article rather useless as news. There are great arguments on both sides. We need to hear them. I get to hang out with a lot of geologists and archeologists. The affects of climate change over the eons is paramount in their research. The human experience on this planet is such a tiny fraction of earth’s dynamic history. For me, a better understanding of this deep history and all the processes that affect climate are essential to having an informed opinion about where we are today. What we really need is unbiased reporting of all these processes so we can make informed judgements.
Let’s just shut the world down. Everyone stay home. Do nothing. Free RAINBOW STEW AND FREE BUBBLE UP for all. 5 mile radius from your home allowed. No vacations. We will shut off all internet phones TV’s. Radio only. If we going to decarbonize. Let’s go whole hog. No medicines made from petroleum products no plastic. Water will flow thru pumps one day a week for 1 hour. No toilet paper will be made. No female sanitary products. No make up no nylons or panty hose. We will cut down all clothing. Every one will get one standard denim pants shirt combo once a year. One pair of shoes per year. We going to decarbonize and everybody will tough it out. You’re on your own for heat in winter. Group up to stay warm now. And smile. It all for good of climate change.
Or fix the problem like rational adults.
You left out “stop eating meat! Animals that provide meat also fart and contribute to the degradation of our atmosphere.
Eat plants instead!”
Our farmers, void of fossil fuels for their machinery will happily toil the ground by hand and deliver their goods with wagons drawn by horses. errr.. not horses. They are not allowed anymore either. ELECTRIC! Oops… no infrastructure to deliver all that electric generated by non-existent suppliers for the next half a century.
I guess everybody huddled up together in urban areas will trek out to collect grains and produce from the farmers and go back to their mass huddling ‘stations’.
Then comes another pandemic…. I’ll let reader finish the story.
But Rod, by eating more plants it will dwindle the plant supply leading to an increase in Co2 in the atmosphere so back to square 1. I guess we are just doomed!
I noticed that the slides used by the presenters featured graphs of data from Wyoming. Aside from anything else, it reinforces the idea that this “hearing” was for people who believe the world ends at the state line.
Climate models can’t be history matched and therefore are not valid. Opinions are not facts. If you don’t know what that means you shouldn’t be reporting on this issue.
I guess when the rest of the coal mines around Gillette shutdown and the coal fired power plants around the state shut down due to no market that will answer the questions. The US is the #1 world producer of crude oil since 2018. Ask why we are exporting 40% to Mexico. Part of the reason is cost but part is already reduced demand in the US. Oil companies have 60,000 drilling permits around the country ready to go but no one is drilling them. They see the future, some do not.
Ironically, the science deniers are right about one thing (though their reasoning about it is bogus): carbon capture from the burning of coal is pointless. Why? Because the laws of physics and thermodynamics dictate that it takes more energy to recapture the carbon than you get from burning the fuel! Carbon capture MIGHT work for a saturated hydrocarbon natural gas, which has plenty of hydrogen in it to burn. But coal? Nope. The only other thing in it to burn is sulfur, which also pollutes. So, let’s face facts. We can still be an “energy state,” but not with coal. We need to develop natural gas, solar, wind, rare earth minerals. Only if we do that will we prosper as the world turns away from the dirtiest fuels to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Earth’s energy balance is actively controlled by latent heat transfer processes and albedo. People treat albedo as a planetary constant, but it is the OUTPUT of the system. Cumulus cloud tops can reject over 1000W/m^2 on demand, while a run of the mill thunderstorm transports heat at 16,000W/m^2 for rejection to space via water droplet emission aloft, using a nearly perfect emitter. Headroom of latent heat transfer is 1.4 MILLION W/m^2. Needless to say, you could not dent those extremely fast processes if your life depended on it, it runs full-auto according to physical properties of water. But keep telling me how CO2’s direct effect of TWO W/m^2 is going to end the world as we know it. This nonsense is a direct result of using average albedo and ignoring H2O processes. Mindless gibberish.
Climate is inherently “big picture” stuff and can’t be described by individual processes. It’s only when you stand back and see how literally thousands of these processes interact, that you can see the climactic trends. The overwhelming amount of studies, from a multitude of different disciplines would suggest there is wide agreement on the science.
https://www.ipcc.ch/data/
Furthermore, this “Co2 group” looks great on the website until you still start clicking on the links under their name and see that they were giving interviews to “news” outlets like OAN about how climate change is a hoax. This is bollocks and our legislature should know better. What a pathetic waste of legislative time and energy.
If the people who believe in climate change, would quit using fossil fuels to power, their car, heat and run their homes, quit eating meat, and quit being hypocrites, quit flying, and quit waiting for everybody else to make the change while they wait for until it’s convenient for them to do so, they could save the planet themselves. Not one of their models has been right. We’re still waiting for Manhattan New York to be flooded from ice melting that Al Gore predicted would happen in the year 2000. In the meantime, he’s made over $100 million selling this bullshit. China produces more greenhouse, gases, and pollution for the ocean and the environment than anybody else. Yet these people refuse to quit buying anything made in China, so until they do that And put their actions where their mouth is, no one wants to hear a word from them. John Kerry said we could eliminate All the CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions from the United States, and wouldn’t do anything because China and the top five polluters of the world, which are all in Asia won’t quit, it would do anything to help climate change.
Your talking points are about fifteen years out of date.
Hugh Goggins – you may not want to hear it, but truth is still truth.
Thanks for the excellent example of the Dunning-Kruger effect in action.
Human driven Climate Change is real, carbon is a problem. We are geoengineering now, actually have been for hundreds of years, what to do is complicated but the situation should not be denied.
Aaron. You’re spot on. Not one of these folks have bragged about doing exactly what you say. But they sure want you/me/everyone else to do so and condemn us for being skeptical. However they are 11,000 years too late on their warning. That is when the world started to warm up and melt the miles thick ice that covered Wyoming. Not a one has given up electricity in homes or gas in their house. 98% of the hypocrites still drive their SUV/Toyota/Hondas. I say lead the way all. Show us the way. Fact remains if every citizen in USA switched to EV’s tommarow morning. Next year from now CO2 will still be rising. If all airplanes were grounded at same time. No changes in CO2 would be noticed. Yes the air may be more clear. But that’s it. But lead the way to decarbonize. Throw away your cell phone as well.