Sen. Boxer to climate-change deniers: ‘You are endangering humankind’

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) blasted skeptics of climate science Wednesday, alleging they are “endangering humankind.”

“The message I have for climate deniers is this: you are endangering humankind,” Boxer said during a press conference in the Capitol. “It is time for climate deniers to face reality, because the body of evidence is overwhelming and the world’s leading scientists agree.”

{mosads}Boxer criticized skeptics of climate science, alleging they are standing in the way of significant progress toward lowering greenhouse gas emissions both domestically and internationally.

“Wishing that climate change will go away by clinging to a tiny minority view is not a policy — it is a fantasy,” Boxer said. “Problems do not go away by pretending they do not exist. And the longer that vocal minority insists on keeping their heads in the sand, the more it endangers billions of people around the globe and threatens to dramatically and negatively reshape the world as we know it.”

Efforts to pass broad climate change legislation in the United States stalled after the Senate was unable to get enough votes to pass cap-and-trade legislation last year.

Boxer also dismissed a series of hacked emails that Republicans and others say show climate scientists hiding data that raises questions about global warming. An initial batch of emails was released in 2009, and additional documents came to light last month.

Several investigations have concluded that the emails do not indicate that climate scientists were suppressing information.

“The emails stolen in 2009, which included personal communications and gossip, were thoroughly studied, reviewed, investigated, and were found not to undermine the consensus on climate change in any way,” Boxer said. “The most recent set of emails also appear to be more of the same.”

Boxer urged negotiators at international climate change talks in Durban, South Africa, Wednesday to make “significant progress” on an agreement to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

“The nations of the world must work together to solve this problem, and I call on those gathered in Durban to work toward an international effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with transparency and accountability,” Boxer said. “I also hope delegates will make significant progress on generating additional public and private sources of climate financing that will support efforts to reduce emissions.”

{mossecondads}While the Durban talks will not yield a binding agreement to lower greenhouse gas emissions, negotiators are working to find common ground on a series of issues that represent incremental steps toward a broader climate accord.

Negotiators at the current round of talks must attempt to sort out a range of long-standing disagreements between developing and developed countries over how to divide the responsibility for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

A slew of countries signed on to a climate treaty, known as the Kyoto Protocol, in 1997. The United States never ratified the protocol.

The vast majority of the world’s scientists say climate change is occurring in large part due to human activity.