A report published last Thursday by Marc Morano reveals that Congressional Democrats squashed an attempt to have prominent UK science adviser and global warming skeptic Lord Christopher Monckton appear alongside global warming advocate and former Vice President Al Gore at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing this past Friday. According to the article, Democrats moved to prevent Monckton’s testimony to avoid any public opposition to Gore’s global warming hype. That notwithstanding, Monckton has challenged Gore to an international TV debate on the issue.
One debate over anthropogenic climate change that Democrats won’t have a chance to scuttle will come this Saturday when global warming advocate, Ohio State professor, and Byrd Polar Research Center researcher Dr. Jason Box will spar with global warming critic and lecturer Dr. Bob Wagner in Columbus, Ohio. “I’ve been calling these climate change scientists out for more than four years now, especially the guys from the Byrd Center, and this is the first time one of them has agreed to an open and moderated debate,” Wagner said. “I had to agree to all of his debate terms, including providing him copies of my presentation beforehand while not allowing me to see his, but it was so surprising that anyone would agree to appear publicly that I jumped at the chance.”
Box said that the debate originated following Box’s appearance on the PBS Nova program Extreme Ice, concerning his research on Arctic ice fields in Greenland. Wagner then enlisted the help of local talk radio personality Dirk Thompson to see if Box would come on his program to debate the claims of climate change. While Fox declined to appear on Thompson’s show, the debate shifted to Box’s blog after Box attended one of Wagner’s presentations and began attacking Wagner.
In a recent blog post, Box explained his motivation for the debate:
While the vast majority of climate scientists and national policy makers have dismissed human-induced global warming deniers’ attempts at debunking (human-induced) global warming science, there remain many undecided folk. Thus, some debate is worthy of my time.
But he cautions that the public shouldn’t expect any Lincoln-Douglas style multi-part debates on climate change, as it is only worth “some fraction of my time” to engage “global warming deniers”:
Let me warn you that I cannot justify spending more than some fraction of my time engaging the deniers. If it weren’t for the chance of helping the non-scientific as-yet undecided folk, I’d also dismiss the deniers. They are so last-century.
Conversely, climate change critics are seeing firsthand the high-stakes politics of global warming and the inherent personal dangers with challenging climate change orthodoxy.
In February, prominent Columbus TV news meteorologist Jym Ganahl spoke at an event with Dr. Wagner, where he denounced the “global warming hoax.” That prompted a national campaign led by Daily Kos and the Democrat-aligned ProgressOhio political action committee to fire Ganahl from his 30-year career with NBC affiliate WCMH. This campaign to silence the award-winning meteorologist (he was the youngest individual to receive the American Meteorologist Society’s “Seal of Approval”) was launched even though Ganahl told a local paper that he had a policy of not using his position on TV to promote his views and concerns.
Wagner observed, however, that in the open Q&A after his joint presentation with Ganahl, not a single global warming advocate got up to defend their positions.
After years of challenging global warming supporters without any response, Wagner is beginning to see some chinks in the armor of the climate change “consensus.” He was recently asked by Penn State University’s biology and economics departments to make a presentation following an appearance at the university by a representative of Al Gore’s Climate Project. And he is fielding requests from student groups on college campuses all over the country to deliver his “Smoking Guns of Global Warming” presentation. But he doesn’t expect university professors advocating global warming in their classrooms to line up for a debate:
These guys are running scared. They have bet the farm on a natural cycle that’s now turning against them and they’re hoping that the Obama administration can impose these draconian regulations on commerce before people catch on to how bogus and politically-driven global warming data really is.
This is what makes the debate between Wagner and Fox on Saturday so extraordinary. As we saw last week when Democrats squashed the efforts to have Lord Monckton side-by-side with Al Gore before Congress and the American media, global warming advocates are reluctant to provide any venue for their “science” to be subject to scrutiny or debate. With such deliberate obstruction, it is hard to see how their “science” is little more than propaganda.
And with fierce competition for taxpayer-financed research grants and bold political power grabs, there is much at stake for the global warming industry’s monopoly. Giving their opponents any opportunity to challenge climate change orthodoxy is fraught with peril, and yet another reason why Dr. Fox may only be willing to begrudge a “small fraction” of his time to the matter.
If you want to see any actual debate on global warming, the Saturday’s event is a rare opportunity indeed.
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