One member of Congress seems to think so.
During this week’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearings on a bill to combat global warming, introduced by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA), some Republicans have voiced a refrain often heard from many of the global warming deniers—that the Earth is merely experiencing a period of warming from natural, rather than man-made, causes. Yesterday, the Committee heard testimony from Energy Secretary Steven Chu, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, among others.
During the questioning period, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), the top Republican and former chairman of the Committee, asked Secretary Chu to answer in the remaining 6 seconds that Barton had available for questioning where oil comes from and how the oil got to Alaska and under the Arctic Ocean. Secretary Chu responded that oil is a result of millions of years of geology and shifting plates. Rep. Barton suggested that it is obvious that at one time “it was a lot warmer in Alaska and on the North Pole” because obviously a large pipeline didn’t bring the oil from Texas to Alaska. After Secretary Chu explained that continental plates have been drifting around during the ages, Rep. Barton asked incredulously, “So it just drifted up there?”
[Note that Rep. Barton seems to be so proud of this question that he posted it to his YouTube page, as shown above. Rep. Barton clearly has the wrong impression of who is "puzzled" here.]
Rep. Barton was relying as a foundation for his question on the argument that our current warming period is merely a natural occurrence, so we don’t really need to be worried about global warming. After all, if it was once warm enough in Alaska and near the Arctic Ocean to produce oil, then the world has experienced dramatic fluctuations in temperature in the past, right? That’s not entirely shocking. What is absolutely shocking is that someone who seems to know the natural genesis of oil apparently has no knowledge at all of plate tectonics.
While the underlying premise is true—that the Earth experiences periods of natural climatic variation—that doesn’t mean that humans are not also contributing to the current warming of the Earth. So, even if Alaska had always been right where it is now, that by no means ensures that humans have not contributed to our current warming period.
Barton’s apparent ignorance of plate tectonics leaves me with one question. How does he explain earthquakes?
