Utah lawmakers hear differing climate change views

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah lawmakers heard competing views on climate change Wednesday: one emphasizing the vast scientific consensus about warming trends and humanity’s influence and another raising doubts about the root causes.

University of Utah scientist James Steenburgh told the state’s Public Utilities and Technology Interim Committee that temperatures are rising and people are very likely to blame.

But University of Alabama researcher Roy Spencer offered doubts about that conclusion and said natural climate cycles should be more thoroughly investigated.

Lawmakers held the 90 minute, standing-room-only hearing as they follow Congress’ consideration of carbon cap and trade legislation.

Spencer, a former senior scientist for climate studies at NASA, said the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change exists to build the scientific case for humans’ role in global warming. Research funding favors those with similar views and shuns those seeking alternate explanations, he said.

“There is no such thing as unbiased research in this field,” he said.

But Steenburgh, who led a state science panel on the expected effects of global warming in Utah, spent about 20 minutes reiterating “the preponderance of evidence” leading most scientists to conclude humanity’s role in the Earth’s warming.

Over the last 100 years, the planet’s average surface temperatures have increased by about 1.3 degrees, with some of the warmest years on record occurring in the last decade, he said.

Utah is warming more than the global average, meaning residents could see fewer frost days, longer growing seasons for some crops, earlier spring snow melt and more heat waves. It’s unclear what will happen with the state’s rain and snow, Steenburgh said.

The science over global warming is still unresolved, said state Rep. Mike Noel, who ran the hearing. The Republican said he’s reluctant to support any policies that might lead to job losses in Utah and higher costs for energy consumers.

Spencer said not enough has been done to thoroughly examine the possibility of natural causes for warming temperatures, including long-running fluctuations in climate and weather cycles, Spencer said.

There are significant uncertainties about the cascading effects that more greenhouses gases in the atmosphere might trigger, Spencer said.

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a Republican, convened a blue ribbon panel on climate change in 2006 and signed onto an initiative with other Western governors to cut the region’s carbon emissions to below 2005 levels by 2020, a roughly 15 percent reduction.

But Gov. Gary Herbert, who succeed Huntsman and is also a Republican, has taken a more skeptical view of humanity’s role in climate change.

Earlier Wednesday, 18 scientific organizations including the nation’s largest — the American Association for the Advancement of Science — sent a letter to all U.S. senators, saying that climate change is occurring and “rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver.”