Mar. 1, 2013 – Two respected members of the scientific community
armed with dueling PowerPoint presentations squared off over the
issue of climate change Thursday in a discussion at the
University of Houston Law Center. One argued that man-made
emissions clearly play a role in global warming while the other
warned against placing too much stock in computer models rather
than actual observation. The debate was co-sponsored by the
Federalist Society and the Environmental & Energy Law Society.
Dr. John Nielson-Gammon, the State Climatologist of Texas and
Regents Professor at Texas A&M University's Department of
Atmospheric Sciences, said carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
gases are contributors to climate change, but there are many
other variables, including the weather, that bears on the
Earth's delicate equilibrium. The expectation of two el Niños
and an underlying warming trend, he said, makes for a better
than 50 percent chance that 2013 will become the hottest year on
record. He said natural variations hav