Rep. Lamar Smith will probably need that umbrella a lot more in the future. Image: NASA
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Richard Tol, who used to be on the IPCC but resigned his position. Image: Screengrab
- Daniel Botkin, a University of California, Santa Barbara professor who said that the IPCC's "executive summary is a political statement, not a scientific statement" and, during the hearing, said that Florida's citrus crisis is a larger global problem than climate change.
- Roger Pielke Sr., a former Colorado State University professor who believes that CO2 does not contribute much to global warming and refused to answer a question from Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy about whether he'd "rather live in a world with double the carbon emissions or half the carbon emissions."
- Richard Tol, a former IPCC member who recently resigned his position. He believes climate change is a result of human activity but has suggested the "impact of climate change is relatively small" and has written a paper called "Why Worry About Climate Change?"
- Michael Oppenheimer, a globally-recognized climate change scientist who is almost universally respected in the field—perhaps not shockingly, he was the one witness selected by the Democrats, "because he's one of the foremost experts in the world and has been involved with the IPCC," a spokesperson for the Democratic contingent of the committee told me.
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- Pielke suggested that more climate deniers should be on the IPCC to get a "better consensus" on climate.
- California's Dana Rohrabacher pulled out the air quotes when he said "global warming," and took offense to Oppenheimer not being able to "capsulize" all the reasons why he believes that climate change is a big deal in 10 seconds.
- Smith suggested that the "only thing we know about [climate change models] is that they will be wrong" and suggested that "even if the US was completely eliminated, it's not going to have any discernible impact on global temperatures in the near or far future."
- Botkin suggested mitigating climate change is impossible, so why bother.
- Paul Broun of Georgia and Buchson noted their belief in the "scientific process" and suggested that they knew more about it because they are doctors (Broun is a dentist; Buchson is a surgeon).