It’s sad. I know it was a busy day on the Hill, but every day is a busy day on the Hill. So when I read that “only three U.S. Senators from the Senate Commerce subcommittee on global climate change attended hearings where the new head of the National Academies spoke about the scientific consensus on global warming”:http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/07/21/global.warming.ap/index.html?section=cnn_space,
I was saddened.
Who were the three attentive Senators? They were David Vitter, R-Louisiana, Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey, and Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. What at least impressed me about the mix is that is was statistically bi-partisan. If you read literally into small numbers, it was overwhelmingly Republican – also encouraging.
Who were the missing subcommittee members? They were Republicans John McCain (AZ) and Olympia Snowe (ME), and Democrat John Kerry (MA). What a sad list of those missing. Half the committee was not present, and 2/3 of those not attending were people I know well enough to admire! John McCain and John Kerry are two of my favorite Senators, some of the few I consider Statesmen and not just politicians.
I just hope they had a good excuse. This was a rare opportunity for such a group of Senators to sit, ask questions of the National Academies’ new President, and have a healthy public discourse on the science of and the overwhelming evidence for human-induced global climate change.
